The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy"Like it or not, all of us who live in modern society are organization men and women. We tend to be caught in the traditional patterns of dominance and subordination. This book is both pessimistic and hopeful. With devastating thoroughness, the author shows how pervasive these patterns of relationship are in our work lives and personal lives, and how deep they run -- into the very language of the organization and of ordinary life. This is not a book about how women can succeed in business, but a criticism of books like those success manuals and notions like that idea of success. The author sees bureaucrats and clients as the 'second sex'. To fit in properly, they just learn the skills necessary to cope with subordinate status, skills that women have always learned as part of their 'femininity'. Liberal reforms -- placing more women in management positions, for example -- are not enough. What is required is the emergence of an alternative voice, one grounded in the experience and perceptions of women, that will challenge the patterns of control found in every aspect of modern life. Public discourse today is not the language of women even when women speak it. In this brilliant synthesis of the feminist literature and the literature on organizational theory and practice, the author suggests how a feminist discourse could interject into public debate a reformulation of the basic political questions of power, reason, and organization and thereby legitimate a concern of both autonomy and community. In the face of the massive incursions of bureaucracy into daily life, this is an important contribution to the project of human liberation."--Publisher description. |
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activities agencies analysis argument behavior bureau bureaucratic capitalism bureaucratic discourse caretakers Charles Perrow cial claims clients complex conflict context cracy critical culture defined disciplinary Discipline and Punish disciplines dominant economic example factory female femininity feminism feminist discourse forms Francis Fox function ganizational goals Gottlieb Duttweiler groups hierarchy human Ibid individuals institutions interaction internal Jo Freeman knowledge labor language liberal liberal feminism male managerial Marxism ment Michel Foucault modern Mother Murray Bookchin nizations nonbureaucratic opposition organizational Perrow Piven and Cloward poor problems production programs public administration radical feminism radical feminist realm reaucracy reaucratic relationships rendered resistance Richard Sennett roles and events rules Sara Ruddick schools sexuality simply skills social status strategies subordinates techniques tion tional tive traditional University Press vocational university voice welfare women women's experience workers York