(Hegemonically) masculinized organizations: Better bridging theory in the sociology of gender and work


Michelle Nadon Bélanger, University of Toronto; Emma Jennings-Fitz-Gerald, University of Toronto

Gendered organizations theory has contributed valuable insights to our understanding of how certain workers’ experiences are privileged in the workplace, including the concepts of masculinized occupational logic (Britton 1997) and the masculine worker ideal (Acker 1990). While current literature in the sociology of gender and work bears the implicit understanding that worker ideal centered in masculinized workplaces is hegemonicall y masculine, gendered organization theory’s assumption of a masculine hegemon has not been made explicit nor been granted a systematic definition. Pairing a literature review with original data on how workers identify and strategically adapt to masculinized occupational contexts through gender performance, this paper aims to clearly articulate how we may better understand the ways in which the masculinity that is centered in such contexts is hegemonic. Specifically, this paper posits that masculinized workplaces clearly subordinate identities that do not align with a dominant masculine ideal, even rewarding gendered ‘others’ who perform their gender in a manner that adheres to their position as a dominated group. While my original data stems from research with musicians working in the heavily masculinized field of jazz music, accounts of masculinized workplaces across a wide variety of occupations also show that workers who stand as gendered ‘others’ (e.g., women, gender-diverse individuals, and/or men who identify as gay and/or trans) engage either in a) relational femininity or b) ‘compensatory’ masculinity, which work to mitigate or otherwise circumvent gender disadvantage without confronting dynamics of gender inequality. This outcome is generated on the basis that such gender reify women, gender-diverse, and gay and/or trans workers’ position as gender subordinates, which mirrors existing gender dynamics of masculinized workplaces by continuing to centering hegemonic masculinity. I explore my own data on the jazz industry as a case study to corroborate this argument, presenting the specific dimensions along which women musicians perform relational femininity and gender-diverse musicians engage in compensatory masculine behaviors to ‘be one of the boys’. This includes considering the specific ways in which core features of the jazz industry—an entrepreneurial structure, ambiguous workplace valuation, and occupational gender segregation—demonstrate traces of gender hegemony. In doing so, I provide an example of how we might better integrate theoretical discourses on gendered organizations and hegemonic masculinity.

This paper will be presented at the following session: