Men, masculinities, and gender relations

Even though gender and gender analysis are still often equated with women, men and masculinities are equally gendered. This applies throughout society, including within organizations. Following pioneering feminist scholarship on work and organizations, explicitly gendered studies on men and masculinities have increased since the 1980s. The need to include the gendered analysis of men and masculinities as part of gender studies of organizations, leadership, and management, is now widely recognized, at least within gender research. Yet this insight continues to be ignored or downplayed in mainstream work and even in some studies seen as “critical.” Indeed, the vast majority of mainstream work on organizations still has no gender analysis whatsoever or relies on a very simplistic and crude gender analysis.