ABSTRACT

This chapter contributes to debates about desirable organizational forms for the future. It discusses the ways in which modern organizations arose out of a formulation of public life that predicated on the exclusion of women, but have none the less, come to rely significantly on women's labour. The gender patterning of modern organizational forms is a complex matter, therefore, than simply the proportions of each sex in particular positions. The chapter argues that feminist debates over how people should assess and respond to the dilemmas presented by modern organizations need to recognize the ambiguity or unevenness and contradictions in the historical processes through which they emerged. Feminist writers have developed substantial critiques of the position of women in modern organizations and of the very form of legal-rational bureaucracy itself. Feminists suggested that the change in organizational style from the earlier strict hierarchicalism and centralization of authority to new-style corporate management does not represent any genuine advance for women at all.