Performing Gender at Work - Building Gender Balanced Business

Performing Gender at Work (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) written by Elisabeth Kelan develops a new understanding of gender: that it is not something one is but rather something one does. This means that we perform gender and are performed by gender. Drawing on detailed academic research in the IT industry, the book outlines three implications of performing gender for the workplace.

• First, many skills that are needed at work today have a gender dimension. Skills like listening and nurturing are said to be perfect for building teams, creating networks and fostering innovation and they are also seen as feminine. However as this book shows it is not women who profit from showing feminine skills: it is men who are valued for performing what is seen as atypical gender behaviour.

• Second, telling your own career story is something that is increasingly important in the workplace. The book argues that there is a gender difference in how men and women perform their career stories. Women tend to tell their careers as if they were due to coincidence and luck, whereas men appear to be on a mission to success. Organisations tend to expect the latter in their hiring and promotion decisions.

• Third, the book explores the sentiment that gender problems are solved today. We live in a time of ‘gender fatigue’ where we know of the importance of gender equality, but people lack the energy to talk about and address gender inequality. Because of this gender fatigue, we do not have the right language to address gender inequality leading a situation where gender inequality exists but cannot be talked about.

The book urges us to think about stereotypes and biases when we evaluate skills, to give validity to different career stories and to develop a language, which allows us to address gender inequality. The book illustrates vividly how gender is something that is performed in the workplace and which implications this has.

Dr Elisabeth Kelan is a lecturer in the Department of Management at King’s College London. Prior to that, she worked at the London Business School and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has presented her research internationally, published widely and has received various awards for her research.