Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in a Worker-Recovered Cooperative

Abstract

Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the "theory of gendered organizations" to consider how gender operates in a worker-recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds that although gender remains a salient feature of the workplace, the cooperative has also adopted policies that take steps toward addressing gender inequality. It concludes by offering an updated theoretical framework for the future study of "gendered organizations."

“Plan your Burn, Burn your Plan”: How Decentralization, Storytelling, and Communification Can Support Participatory Practices

“…These changes may curb authentic engagement, such that participants cannot partake in activities in a meaningful way. A few studies, such as Sobering's () research of an Argentinian worker‐recovered cooperative, have examined how collectivities have tried to rectify a gendered division of labor and differences in participation. Without such mindful practices, members may inadvertently reproduce inequalities associated with hierarchy and oligarchy.…”

Happiness theory and worker cooperatives: A critique of the alignment thesis

“…As Rothschild and Whitt, as well as Mansbridge () point out, even highly participatory collectivist organizations are not free of factors that may distort participation, such as members' internalized tendencies toward dominance and submissiveness on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, language, and so forth. Sobering shows how gender can affect work organizations in terms of their structure, their culture, and in the ways that workers interact with one another, and that these dynamics interact with one another in mutually reinforcing ways (Sobering, ). Race may affect organizations in much the same way (Ray, ).…”

“…Race may affect organizations in much the same way (Ray, ). Given the persistence of inequality in organizations, Sobering suggests that addressing problems associated with structure, culture, and agency may require the recognition of difference, instead of assuming that an egalitarian structure is naturally race‐ or gender‐neutral (Sobering, ). Establishing more egalitarian distributions of income and wealth, intentionally challenging gendered divisions of labor, and establishing distributed decision‐making can make a difference (Meyers, ; Miller, ; Sobering, )…”

The Logic of A Co-Operative Economy and Democracy 2.0: Recovering the Possibilities for Autonomy, Creativity, Solidarity, and Common Purpose

“…Several Western countries including Canada, Belgium, France, and Italy have found a way for the state to support, at least to some extent, investment in what has come to be called the “social economy.” Furthermore, there is impressive state support within many Latin American countries for what has come to be called the “solidarity economy,” especially in Argentina as covered by Sobering (), Brazil (Baiocchi ; Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva ), Cuba (Harnecker ), and Venezuela (Malleson ; Upchurch, Daguerre, and Ozarow ). The “social economy” or “solidarity economy” not only includes many full blown workers’ co‐operatives but also other economic enterprises where property is not collectively owned, but where the enterprise does have important social purposes and generally endorses a high level of worker and/or consumer participation in the internal governance process of the firm (Quarter, Mook, and Armstrong ; Mook, Quarter, and Ryan ).…”

“…Finally, Table does not suggest that Democracy 2.0 forms could supplant Democracy 1.0 forms at the societal or state level. At the organizational level, collectivist democratic structures compete with and can replace bureaucratic structures (Rothschild‐Whitt ) as both Leach () and Sobering () describe in this special section. In other cases, some type of hybrid can be developed (Chen ; Meyers and Vallas ), incorporating some bureaucratic elements and some collectivist elements, but these hybrid organizations must go to great lengths to make sure that decentralized decision making remains the priority, or else they risk the development of oligarchic control.…”