Women at Work

The subject of women at work is particularly interesting to me. For most of my childhood, my father was the primary breadwinner, working long days and traveling often. My mom stayed home to raise my two brothers and me. Even though I did have friends whose mothers worked, I thought that the way my family did it was the norm. I imagined growing up, getting married, and having children just like my mother. I knew I was going to go to college, but I didn't see myself having a career.

Since then, I have had a complete change of heart. I know that I don't want to be a housewife. Although I love children, I've never been particularly good at cooking or cleaning. I feel that I would get more satisfaction out of a career in which I can use my talents. However, I still want children. From what I have observed, many women never feel that they are balancing careers and family. I fear that the same thing will happen to me.

I have read the book, I Don't Know How She Does It, which is mentioned by EG&T on page 200. The main character, Katie, is an extremely successful investment banker. Although she is good at her job, she always feels like a failure when it comes to spending time with her two young children. She can't help but feel she is neglecting her duty as a mother when she works. The book's title comes from the constant refrain of, "I don't know how she does it," when other people speak of the main character. This statement strikes her as ironic, because she feels that she isn't doing it. She compares herself to stay-home mothers who are completely involved in their children's lives.

Katie also thinks about the differences between women and men. Working fathers are not thought to be neglecting their children. In fact, they are seen as fulfilling the role of provider for the family. Now, more and more fathers are actually spending time with their children. Katie mentions that it is easy for fathers today to be better than their own fathers. They can do this just by knowing how to change diapers and take the kids on family outings on Saturdays. But mothers who work will inevitably see themselves as worse than their own mothers as they leave their children to be raised by nannies and serve them microwaved dinners instead of home cooked meals.

So I'm wondering how I will feel when I have children. Will the time I spend at work seem like time I should be spending with them? Hiring another woman to be a mother to my children when I'm away does not seem like the answer to the problem. With advances in technology, many people are working from home. But it seems in that situation, a woman wouldn't be able to give her full attention either to her work or her children. Personally, I don't multi-task well. Is there any good solution for women who want to have careers and children?

October 1 Readings

I truly enjoyed this week's reading assignment. Perhaps my favorite text was Angela Trethewey's "Disciplined Bodies: Women's Embodied Identities at Work." I found her description of about women in the workplace incredible, particularly how she describes how "Women go to great lengths to avoid appearing out of control or undisciplined" (13). Her use of the term 'discipline' in this context put a completely different spin on the professional female identity. Moreover, Trethewey describes how some women try to walk the fine line of dressing "appropriately" feminine while acting aggressive enough to be taken seriously in male-dominated industries. This section made me think of one of my former superiors. "Red", as I'll call her, was a well-groomed, attractive, aggressive, well-paid (bluntly) b***h. Many times when I saw her, I used to think, "Here comes hell in heels." I wasn't alone in my assessment of her: even our clients thought so.

Contrary to what many of the women in Trethewey's study said, "Red" was so aggressive, forthcoming, and brutal in her dealings with her male counterparts that I often was amazed that she actually "allowed" a man to marry her and was capable of giving birth! Moreover, I found myself either disliking her for looking the "feminine role" and being so brashly opinionated or admiring her for challenging the status quo and solidifying her place within the company. This observation refers back to Trethewey's point that women are usually each others' biggest critics (13).

EG&T chapter seven focused on identity and difference in organizational life. Again, I found this chapter very interesting to say the least. First, page 204 distinguishes between report talk (men) and rapport talk (women). As I reflect on my experience in the workplace, I found that although I tried to engage in report talk, I usually ended up using rapport talk. Now that I think about it, perhaps this is why the male executive suggested that I was "robbing Peter to pay Paul" because he saw my conversational maintenance as a form of trickery through relationship building. Then, I would have argued that it was just my personality to talk to people as people and not talking heads. Yet, as I examine the differences in gendered identities, perhaps I did participate subconsciously to a certain degree.

Although I would like to speak on emotion labor, I would like to share a comparison to the examples used in the Frame 4: Gendered Narratives in Popular Culture section. Specifically, page 215 discusses the various ways in which the airline industry used women to "sex up" its appeal. Immediately, I thought about the James Bond movie, "Goldfinger", in which female pilots, such as the leader, "Pussy Galore", are superb airplane navigators, but are assumedly unqualified to do anything else but serve under the supervision male business tycoon Goldfinger.

Foucault and EG&T Chapter 6

The reading selections from EG&T and Foucault were great complements to each other. The EG&T chapter introduces and discusses critical approaches to organizational communication. Essentially, this critical approach, or challenging the status quo, is similar to Foucault's "The Discourse on Language," which focuses on breaking cycles. For starters, I observed that neither disciplines nor ideologies are absolute or neutral as they assume to be: both are social constructs. As Foucault explains,

"A discipline is not the sum total of all the truths that may be uttered concerning something; it is not even the total of all that may be accepted, by virtue of some principle of coherence and systematisation, concerning some given fact or proposition. [They] ...consist of errors as well as truths [and] ...must fulfil certain conditions, in a stricter and more complex sense than that of pure and simple truth: at any rate, other conditions" (223).

By that same token, ideology "shapes and limits our social constructions of reality by providing a sense of what is good, right, and possible" (190). Power emerges from ideology and is imposed on employees by higher-ranking officials as well as the manufactured consent and concertive control of the employees themselves. This ideological control, or hegemony, is what many organizations want from their employees: for them to internalize the goals of the organization. The IBM narrative is a prime example of how hegemony functions and how employees are indoctrinated to uphold the values and rituals of an organization.

On another note, EG&T discuss how resistance challenges organizational power and control. According to Deetz's, critical theory entails both adopting a particular role and a way of life characterized by critical modes of being (being filled with care, being filled with thought, and being filled with good humor) (189). Recently, I received an email that is an example of good-humor resistance. As a disclaimer, I would like to confess that I, April Davis, am guilty of the following and seriously need to adhere to the advice mentioned below. The email reads as follows:

CDC Alert:

The Centers for Disease Control has issued a medical alert about a highly contagious, potentially dangerous virus that is transmitted orally, by hand, and even electronically. This virus is called Weary Overload Recreational Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from your boss, any of your colleagues, or anyone else via any means whatsoever - DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with WORK, you should immediately leave the premises. Take two good friends to the nearest grocery store and purchase one or both of the antidotes - Work Isolating Neutralizer Extract (WINE) and Bothersome Employer Elimination Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system. You should immediately forward this medical alert to five friends. If you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.

September 17 Response

If someone told me prior to starting this program that the engineering "field" was really about writing, I would not have believed that person. I had come to understand engineering as scientifically based and the information produced from it as factual. Yet, as Dorothy Winsor's "Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering" delineates, engineers actually "... inscribe a written representation of physical reality and then use more writing to build agreed-upon knowledge and their own characters..." (68).

Winsor suggests that this "knowledge" that engineers impart in their writing is neither created by a machine nor just exists on its own, but is formed through communication with other similar texts. Interestingly, these reports, which supposedly are factual by nature, are only accepted as "facts" if other engineers are convinced of the validity of the information contained in them (60). This ritual of approving or rejecting a document enforces the values within the engineering field/culture; the approved reports are both symbolic manifestations of these values and integral elements in the construction of knowledge.


Slowly backing off of my soap box, I would like to end this response on another note. According to the Microsoft Word 2007 application, a synonym for the word engineer is "persuade". How fitting that this definition coincides with one of Winsor's main points! The English major in me started to wonder about other words that could be associated with what an engineer might do: make, structure, build, craft, shape, and form - all words that involve manipulation of some sort.

EG&T Chapter 5

Two additional points I'd like to make regarding the reading was the concept of "cult-like" cultures (p. 138-139). I completely believe that my last job reflected each of the characteristics of this kind of culture. Specifically, during my first year with the company, I drove to the corporate headquarters to participate in six separate training (drone indoctrination) sessions. While there, we were told what to believe and how to convince our customers about becoming lifetime customers. This example was just the tip of the iceberg.

This point brings me to my second point: why I left the company. I left because I reached a turning point in my life. I no longer saw myself as needing to work for that company, as the "organization" had convinced us that we did. I realized that my life was much more than making some rich old guy in St. Louis rich while I worked 11-12 hour days for pennies. Hence, I broke the endless, four year cycle that I had become accustomed to and applied to graduate school.

One Clemson?

As I read about organizational culture and Dan's and April's blogs about the tension between the individual and the organization, Clemson University immediately came to mind as an example of an organization with a distinct culture.

Since President Barker announced that his goal is for Clemson to become one of the top twenty public research universities as listed in U.S. News and World Report, administrators have been targeting various categories the magazine looks for and trying to improve them. At this time, diversity is highly valued in the United States. Colleges and universities across the country are seeking to recruit "diverse" individuals, and Clemson is no exception. I feel that it's unfortunate that institutions of higher education seem to be seeking only racial diversity, but that's another topic. The point is that Clemson is recruiting "minorities" and international students in their quest for diversity.

As soon as students arrive at Clemson, they are encouraged to assimilate into the Clemson family while simultaneously valuing diversity. This year, all incoming freshmen participated in a program called "One Clemson," which was intended to teach them about other cultures they might might be encountering for the first time in college. Yet, while they are taught that all cultures have inherent value, they are also told they should become part of the "Clemson family." They should wear a lot of orange, especially on Fridays, and participate in Clemson traditions such as tailgating and going to football games.

My point is that I find it ironic that we recruit diverse students for their cultural differences and then try to assimilate them into our culture. To use metaphors we learned about immigration in American history, is Clemson a melting pot or a tossed salad? Is it possible for students to become members of the Clemson family while retaining their individuality? Of course, this is the classic tension between individuals and groups, and it can't be easily answered. Ideally, we should try to find a balance between our individual beliefs and our organizational ties. I saw an example of this one Friday. A woman, who I assume was Muslim, was wearing an orange Clemson T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt with a long scarf and a traditional head scarf. Although she retained the clothing customary of her culture and religion, she also participated in the Clemson tradition of wearing orange on Friday. Maybe that's the kind of Clemson family we're pursuing, a tossed salad with an orange dressing (if you can follow my metaphor.)

Organizational Culture in Action: Part 1

As I read this homework selection, I thought of two ideas. First, this book's definition of organization was particularly interesting to me. It states on page 4 that, "Organizations are places that carry us from cradle to grave by shaping our sense of identity, role, and meaning in life." Initially, I rejected this notion because I believe that I determine my own life's trajectory, not other people. Yet, the more I thought about it, I wondered, "Would I really know what it meant to be an individual if I were not once part of an organization?" The response to my question came in two different forms.

First, I thought of Kenneth Burke's concept of segregation and congregation. Surely, I could not have understood individuality and understand myself without playing a role in an organization. Secondly, I recalled a class exercise in which my group had to analyze the following paraphrased statement: "People spend their whole lives living in boxes just so they can end up in one." Although this example was speaking more of expressing individuality, it shows how organizational cultures define and shape how people understand their personal, social, and professional roles.

The other topic that piqued my interest was the difference between being organization insiders and outsiders. I used to wonder why companies hired outside consultants, who knew nothing about the problems within the company, to tell employees how to communicate effectively. As table 1.1 shows, an outsider is less familiar with an organization's dynamic and can thus "see more" (11). Even when I used to complain to my family about problematic situations at work, they would sometimes respond with, "Oh, that is just this" or "That means you just need to do that." In my opinion, the situations were always much more complicated, but as outsiders, they were able to see the grand scheme. Although their outsider perspectives seemed to trivialize my situation and offered another perspective, they were still partial. My take on situations was much different because I was an insider; yet, I was also biased because I was too familiar with the operations of the organization to make obvious or reasonable conclusions.

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This is our blog for responses to readings, thoughtful comments and re-responses, links to sites that illuminate workplace communication, and other insights.