ABSTRACT
Studies of gender and organizations increasingly attend to the multiplicity of masculinities within a particular site or occupational grouping. By engaging these gender discourses in such a comparative way a boundary marker is established between one's gendered self and the identities of those deemed 'other'. This chapter explores the relational and referential process as it is operationalized within the Farmers' Union. In the Farmers' Union elected male leaders position themselves as 'masculine' by situating women as 'other'. However, those women who are involved in on-farm physical work are also 'othered' as agricultural leadership is defined in masculine terms. The dominance of an organizational battlefield discourse predates the constitution of the case study organization. The process by which managerial men in the Farmers' Union came to secure their masculine identities did not only involve 'othering' women. It also involved 'othering' some men. The chapter also explores some ways in which this process of 'othering' occurred.
