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Living and Working in Grey Areas: Gender (In)visibility and Organizational Space

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Revealing and Concealing Gender

Abstract

Our focus in this chapter is on the relationship between gender (in)visibility and organizational space. Initially, our interest in this area was sparked by two seemingly unrelated experiences. The first occurred when an academic colleague who was visiting our department commented on the unprofessional appearance of our respective offices, a state she attributed primarily to the fact that we had chosen to display photographs of our families and friends, and particularly children’s drawings, on our walls and notice boards. In her view, this reduced us both to the status of ‘mother’ and undermined our efforts to be perceived as competent academics; the two, from her point of view, being mutually exclusive. This set us thinking about how we display ourselves in our offices; that is, about how we perform our gender identities in and through our workspace.

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© 2010 Melissa Tyler and Laurie Cohen

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Tyler, M., Cohen, L. (2010). Living and Working in Grey Areas: Gender (In)visibility and Organizational Space. In: Lewis, P., Simpson, R. (eds) Revealing and Concealing Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230285576_2

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