ABSTRACT
For some, accounting and gender might not appear to he the most obvious axis on which to advance the wider understanding of the social functioning of accounting. Although there is a growing recognition of the shifting sexual composition of the practitioners of the accounting craft and the partialities of the past which thereby are illuminated (Wescott & Seiler, 1986), the issues which such developments raise still tend to be seen by many as being understandable in terms of prevailing conceptions of the institutional functioning of accounting and its perceived organizational and social roles. From such a stance, there is little or no reason to radically change our appreciations of what might be at stake in the advance of the particular forms of economic rationality and calculation with which accounting is associated or their organizational and social embodiment. Others, however, are aware not only of wider questions which such changes in the accounting labour market might expose but also of the possibilities for a more penetrating examination of what might be at stake in the accounting function when perceived from the perspective of gender and an explicitly feminist perspective on organizational and social functioning. Accounting, from such a view, is not a mere technical phenomenon, but one that has the potential for having a reciprocal relationship with the wider societies in which we live. It both can be infused by and can potentially, at least, partially shape organizational and social values, concerns and modes of operation, and their consequences. From such a perspective, it becomes more important to examine questions relating to the focus of accounting, the particular rationalities and decision calculi which it furthers, the conceptions of organizational and social functioning which can be implicit within it and the specific social and institutional contexts in which the practice of the craft is embodied. Gender, from such a stance, represents a new but a nevertheless significant axis on which to conduct an examination of accounting in action. While it can certainly help to illuminate changes in the sexual composition of accountants, as a basis for the wider interrogation of accounting, a concern with gender also reflects quite different changes in both the intellectual development of accounting itself and some of the bases on which wider analyses are conducted and understandings gained of influential bodies of knowledge and organizational and social practices. A concern with accounting and gender so conceived can reflect a genuine concern with expanding the account which we currently have of accounting.
