Gender at Work: An Experiment in “Doing Gender”

Abstract

Gender at Work is a virtual, transnational, feminist network with over twenty-six associates and a small complement of staff based in 12 countries that support organizational and institutional change to end discrimination against women and build cultures of equality in organizations. The linking of virtual and transnational aspects of Gender at Work enables us to be in many places at the same time, to explore approaches to organizational and institutional change that are acutely sensitive to context, and to exchange and co-create knowledge that subverts the traditional North/South divide. At the same time, the small management core with primary fundraising responsibility and part-time, intermittent nature of associate’s participation poses significant organizational challenges such as: How to support communication across the network and beyond? How to facilitate learning and knowledge building? How to develop approaches to accountability that resonate with our values? How to develop and resource institutionalized ways of supporting such functions and processes that don’t by default lead us into a hierarchal mode of operating or push up operating costs. This chapter will discuss the development of Gender at Work’s organizing strategy, how it functioned, how it was challenged by the growth of the organization, and how Gender at Work dealt with those challenges. It will also discuss how Gender at Work’s strategy may differ from other Social Sector Organizations (SSOs) and what difference that makes to “doing gender.”

This chapter was developed through a participatory process in which we first elicited images of our organization from all members of our network, and then the 6 authors formed a virtual working group to share ideas, pose questions, comment on drafts, and finalize the chapter. The authors would like to thank Srilatha Batliwala, Michel Friedman and Rex Fyles for their insights and contributions to our thinking.