Such perceptions often went unchallenged. Indeed when the general manager
was asked about equal opportunities, he outlined a view shared with numerous
others within the organization:
We don’t have an equal opportunities policy here as such because when you do things for the
minority it is often at the expense of the majority. It’s okay to have the one man on reception but
the only problem is that if there are too many men behind reception it may upset the maledominated
client base who like to see pretty young ladies on reception. It is good to have female
sales and marketing managers because they charm the clients and generally see to the clients’
needs.
Interestingly all the men interviewed stressed that they were not sexist
themselves, although this question was never asked of them. On general issues
men felt happier working with other men than with women; most of them accused
women of being bitchy at work and said that women could not take criticism.
The role of the researcher
In this kind of in-depth qualitative work, it is important to consider the impact the
researcher has on the research process. One of the authors conducted this research
and it is interesting to consider how the participants responded to her as a
relatively young woman. A general observation was that men treated her with
contempt or caution, and that the women treated her as a soul mate. Clearly it
would be interesting to speculate how the interviewees would have responded
differently to a male interviewer. Beyond this one must consider the impact the
researcher has on an organization during the research and after the event. By
asking questions and conducting interviews, a researcher brings issues to the fore
that may not otherwise have been the case. As previously acknowledged, the
whole issue of gender is generally neglected; yet, when openly researching it as a
topic over a period of three months in a relatively small organization, the issue
inevitably becomes heightened in people’s minds. It is impossible to quantify the
extent of the impact but the following scenario provides insight into the fact that
some impact occurred. While waiting to interview a member of the restaurant
staff the researcher was standing for a couple of minutes (unseen) just inside the
entrance to the restaurant. A male restaurant supervisor was talking to a female
junior restaurant supervisor; as she turned away from him he smacked her on the
bottom with a menu. As he did so he looked up, saw the researcher and hastily
said, “Oh dear, that was a bit sexist”.
Implications of the findings
Evidence from the case study suggests that the men and women interviewed were
in many ways reasonably content with the gendered notions surrounding their
positions within the organization. It emerges that both groups have very fixed
views as to what constitutes suitable employment for men and for women. One
explanation for this is the role of socialization in creating specific career
aspirations[60-63]. However a deeper level of analysis is required to understand
why women do not actively engage in debate about those stereotypes, as they
have done in other areas of organizational life.
Gendered divisi