Raewyn Connell
University of Sydney
Essays on
Equity, Gender,
and Diversity
Raewyn Connell is university professor
at the University of Sydney. Formerly, she
was professor of education at the University
of Sydney and professor of sociology at the
University of California, Santa Cruz and at
Macquarie University. A researcher on
gender, masculinities, education, social
class, intellectuals, and social theory, she is
the author of Gender (2002), The Men and
the Boys (2000), Masculinities (1995),
Schools and Social Justice (1993), Gender
and Power (1987), and other books.
E-mail: r.connell@edfac.usyd.edu.au.
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? Mapping
the Gender Regimes of Public Sector Worksites
The “glass ceiling” model of gender equity has its weak-
nesses. Therefore, a multiple-dimensions approach to
gender is proposed. This essay reports on a field study of
organizational gender arrangements in 10 public sector
worksites in New South Wales, Australia. Despite equal
opportunity measures, gender divisions of labor persist
in several forms. Processes that sustain and undermine
these divisions are identified. Authority patterns are being
reconfigured, with restructuring and rising numbers of
women in management resulting in local turbulence
in gender relations. Emotions of gender transition are
identified, with considerable diversity in reactions among
men. An emerging pattern, the “depolarized workplace,”
is described. A cultural trend toward workplace gender
neutrality is observable. Proposals are made for better
practice in gender equity work, including richer ways for
public organizations to study their own gender regimes.
G
ender equality is now a widely accepted goal
in public administration. In pursuing this
goal, an important requirement is to under-
stand the gender arrangements of public sector orga-
nizations. We need an approach that is informed by
modern research on gender and helpful for policy and
practice. In this article, I propose such an approach,
illustrated by a field study of public sector agencies.
The principle of equal rights for women and men is
now embedded in international law (e.g., in the
United Nations Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women) and in common
administrative practices, such as equal opportunity
procedures in promotion and appointment. This
principle was articulated and these practices adopted
to transform an old pattern of inequality. As Stivers
(2002) has shown in classic style, the U.S. administra-
tive state, though using women’s labor and shaped by
women’s reform politics, historically excluded women
from authority. The same has been true in other
countries and in global arenas.
Since the 1970s, the “glass ceiling” has been persis-
tently challenged by a range of equal opportunity and
antidiscrimination measures. One of the main goals of
Western feminism has been to open the top levels of
public administration and politics to women, and
progress on this count has become the most visible
symbol of gender reform across society. Change has
certainly occurred, but the results have been modest.
A decade ago, Hale (1996) lamented the slow progress
toward equality in the United States, and the problem
was common across the developed countries (Stetson
and Mazur 1995)—with the notable exception of
Scandinavia (Borchorst and Siim 2002)—across Latin
America (Valdés and Gomáriz 1995), and elsewhere.
Change in the last decade has been incremental and
uneven at best despite an international trend toward
the “mainstreaming” of gender equality, whereby the
issue is built into all policies and administrative proce-
dures rather than focused in a special-purpose pro-
gram (Mackay and Bilton 2000). Around the world
and in most spheres of public sector activity, women
remain seriously underrepresented in positions of
political and administrative authority (for a small
sample of the evidence, see Borrelli 2002 on the U.S.
cabinet; Gierycz 1999 on UN organizations; Inter-
Parliamentary Union 2006 on world legislatures;
Kerr, Miller, and Reid 2002 on U.S. state bureaucra-
cies; and Meier and Wilkins 2002 on a U.S. state
school system).
Duerst-Lahti and Kelly (1995) rightly observe that the
way we think about gender is a key to the way we act
on gender reform. The metaphors of “barrier,” “glass
ceiling,” and “glass wall” arise from a particular way of
thinking about gender inequality in the public realm.
Guy (1992), editing a survey of women and men in
U.S. state government administration, nicely summa-
rizes this focus: The question driving her book is
whether structural barriers in the organizations—as
opposed to societal or individual factors—have pre-
vented women advancing into high-level positions.
The key points in the glass ceiling approach are as
follows: (1) There has been discrimination against
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 837
 women, proved by the statistics of unequal access to states and the gender system. A large body of research
the top; this reflects traditional stereotypes and preju- shows how state agencies and policies regulate the
dices against women in authority. (2) This discrimina- lives of women, both in the family and in the public
tion is irrational—it leads to an underuse of women’s realm (Borchorst 1999; Mikanagi 2000), and this
talent and conflicts with rational administration. (3) It research has widened to include the gendered lives
can be overcome by organizational measures that of men (Scourfield and Drakeford 2002). Concern
remove the barriers to women’s advancement, such as with the state as a gendered actor has emerged across
eliminating prejudice and enforcing equal employ- diverse policy fields from international relations
ment opportunity rules in promotion. (Zalewski and Parpart 1998) to social welfare
(O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999). Links between
This critique fits well with other reform movements gender and public administration, far from revealing
that seek to increase the efficiency of the public sector. irrational bias, seem to be part of the established
Accordingly, equal employment opportunity has been logic of modern state activity (Connell 1990).
an accepted part of the New Public Administration
for some time. The great virtue of this approach is that These debates about the public sector draw on an
it gives public organizations a way of studying them- important development in organization studies
selves and monitoring progress. Collecting equal (Martin and Collinson 2002). In the approach
opportunity statistics, especially on the percentages of pioneered by Acker (1990) and Burton (1987),
women in senior positions, is now routine, and the organizations themselves—not just the people within
quality of these data has been rising. them—are seen as the bearers of gender. Specifically,
organizations create and reproduce gender divisions of
But is this really an adequate way of understanding labor, cultural definitions of masculinity and feminin-
the problem? On two important counts, it is not. ity, and ways of articulating men’s and women’s inter-
According to the glass ceiling approach, gender is ests (Grant and Tancred 1992). Organizational
understood as two fixed categories of persons—men arrangements often sustain gendered occupational
and women—defined by biology. The statistical mar- cultures, from the masculinity of the printing worker
gin of difference between these two categories is the and the manager (Cockburn 1983; Wajcman 1999)
measure of any gender problem. It is now recognized to the femininity of the secretary or “office lady”
in gender research that this categorical approach to (Ogasawara 1998; Pringle 1988). Organizational
gender is profoundly inadequate. Gender is a dynamic gender arrangements are active, not passive. As
system, not a fixed dichotomy; the categories them- Gherardi and Poggio (2001) document, women’s
selves are not simple or stable (contrary to common entry into masculine domains triggers complex adjust-
sense); and many gender issues concern patterns of ments in which symbolic gender dichotomy may be
interaction and relationship, preserved while other changes are
having little to do with differ- It is increasingly recognized that conceded.
ences in personal characteristics.
gender patterns affect relations
It is increasingly recognized that Though the pioneering studies of
gender patterns affect relations among men and among organizational gender mainly
among men and among women, women, as well as relations concerned the corporate world,
as well as relations between them between them. comparable findings have
(Alsop, Fitzsimons, and Lennon emerged from the public sector.
2002; Connell 2002; Lorber 1994). Newman (1995) shows with particular clarity how
groups of public sector agencies have different gender
The need to go beyond the categorical approach is divisions of labor and different promotion possibilities
illustrated by the case of sexual harassment, a chronic for women. Barrett (1996), in a close-focus study of
problem in public sector organizations, as well as in the U.S. Navy, shows how different versions of mascu-
the private sector. The gender issue here is not just linity are defined in three different sectors of that
that women experience a much higher level of harass- organization. Whitehead and Moodley (1999) docu-
ment than men, although this is true (Newman, ment diverse gender patterns in public sector manage-
Jackson, and Baker 2003). It is also about which ment in the United Kingdom, and Jensen (1998)
women are harassed and by whom; about the power traces the complex gender dynamics in public sector
relations that are brought into play in the act of organizations’ adjustments to change.
harassing; about the objectification of women’s bodies;
and about the impact on women’s identities and their As these examples from the growing literature show,
confidence in organizational settings. there is much diversity and sometimes internal contra-
diction in the gender patterns of public sector work-
By the glass ceiling approach, administration is places. Yet public policy is usually couched in
thought to be, in principle, independent of gender. standardized terms and expected to apply across a
But there are underlying connections between modern whole organization, even a whole sector. This is
838 Public Administration Review • November | December 2006
specifically the case for most gender equity policies
(i.e., state policies that are explicitly concerned with
justice in the gender arrangements of government and
society). How can we understand the gender
complexities of public sector organizations in a
way that is helpful for gender equity policy and
practice?
In this article, I report on a research project designed
around this question. It is an empirical inquiry built
on contemporary gender theory, with practical pur-
poses. One of its goals is to develop a method by
which public administrators can move beyond
the glass ceiling framework, study their own
organizations in new ways, and think more effectively
about the processes that produce gender equity
outcomes.
The basis of this study is the relational approach to
gender mentioned previously. Gender is, above all, a
pattern of social relations in which the positions of
women and men are defined, the cultural meanings of
being a man and a woman are negotiated, and their
trajectories through life are mapped out. Gender
relations are found in all spheres of life, including
organizations. There is no aspect of gender relations
that is the foundation of all the others; rather, gender
relations are always multidimensional (Connell 1987;
Walby 1990).
The overall pattern of gender relations within an
organization may be called its gender regime. This
continuing pattern provides the context for particular
events, relationships, and individual practices. A local
gender regime may reproduce, but in specific ways
may also depart from, the wider gender order (i.e., the
whole societal pattern of gender relations). A gender
regime involves all the dimensions of gender relations.
In the model used here (Connell 2002, 53–68), four
dimensions are distinguished:
● Gender division of labor—the way in which
production and consumption are arranged along
gender lines, including the gendering of
occupations and the division between paid work
and domestic labor
● Gender relations of power—the way in which
control, authority, and force are exercised along
gender lines, including organizational hierarchy,
legal power, and collective and individual violence
● Emotion and human relations—the way in
which attachment and antagonism among people
and groups are organized along gender lines,
including feelings of solidarity, prejudice and
disdain, and sexual attraction and repulsion
● Gender culture and symbolism—the way in
which gender identities are defined in culture, the
language and symbols of gender difference, and the
prevailing beliefs and attitudes about gender
This fourfold model provides a template for describing
any organization’s gender regime, as well as a frame-
work for data collection in interviews and observation.
The Study: Background and Method
The research reported here was conducted in
New South Wales, Australia. Australia is a federal
liberal-democratic state with a constitutional structure
partly based on that of the United States, though with
a parliamentary government based on the British
model. At the time of the study, the state government
of New South Wales was controlled by the Australian
Labor Party, a social-democratic party not unlike the
British Labour Party. The historical basis of public
administration in the state is the classic bureaucracy,
organized along departmental lines, emphasizing
seniority, and dominated by men. Several waves of
reform in recent decades have changed this structure,
including the partial corporatization of public ser-
vices, the introduction of equal employment opportu-
nity, and the creation of a Senior Executive Service.
Gender equity has been a prominent component
of Australian public sector reform, with women’s
agencies gaining unusual influence by international
standards (Eisenstein 1996). Nevertheless, women
continue to be underrepresented in Parliament,
public bodies, and the Senior Executive Service. This
is the issue that triggered our research.
The Gender Equity in Public Institutions research
program was a joint university–government initiative
managed by a steering committee with representatives
from all participating agencies, plus central agencies
concerned with gender equity issues. The program
involved several projects, including a study of sector-
wide gender statistics, a study of gender dynamics
in policy making, and a study of gender equity “suc-
cesses.” The project that is the basis for this article
explored the gender regimes of a set of worksites
using a combination of statistical, observational, and
interview data. The research strategy here was to
“go deep” in specific sites.
Ten sites were studied, two in each of the five agencies
participating in the study. The agencies included
central and line agencies, covered a variety of indus-
tries and governmental functions, included both
departmental and corporate constitutions, and varied
markedly in size. In each agency, two contrasting sites
were chosen: one concerned with central administra-
tive or policy-making processes, the other more
directly concerned with the operations and delivery of
the agency’s services on the ground. The sites differed
in internal organization and scale. Some were fairly
homogeneous (in terms of the work performed),
whereas others were internally diversified. Some had
strongly marked and long-established boundaries
between subunits; others had shifting boundaries and
flexible groupings of staff.
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 839
 The fieldwork was done over an 18-month period
from May 2001 to October 2002. Four interviewers
conducted the fieldwork—two women and two men.
A focused interview technique was used. Interviewers
followed a set of topics that had been agreed upon by
the project’s “Working Party” (a subset of the steering
committee that included a representative from
each agency studied). Most interviews lasted 40 to
80 minutes. With the agreement of the respondents,
interviews were tape-recorded for transcription. At
two sites, a researcher also spent approximately three
weeks as a participant-observer. This role involved
unstructured time at the worksite, plus attendance at a
variety of meetings involving the staff of the site. The
fieldworker had a broad mission to observe the labor
process, interactions, and transactions between the site
and other public sector units.
A total of 107 interviews were completed and tran-
scribed, yielding 1,720 single-spaced pages of tran-
script, which are the main data source for this article.
As the gender balance in small worksites varies widely,
no attempt was made to interview equal numbers of
women and men at each site, but some men and some
women were interviewed at each site. Overall, a total of
58 women and 49 men were interviewed, not far from
the gender ratio in the New South Wales public sector
as a whole. Respondents were sought from all levels
and all major occupational groups at each worksite.
The taped interviews were transcribed by a confiden-
tial typist experienced in this kind of research work.
Each interview was then summarized and indexed,
following an indexing plan based on the interview
schedule and the conceptual model of gender. The
same indexing plan was applied to the field notes from
the participant observation.
For each of the 10 sites, a full-scale case study of the
gender regime was written, summarizing and illustrat-
ing the evidence provided by our respondents. The
site reports followed a standard pattern, which was
linked to the indexing plan. The draft site reports were
discussed with representatives of the agencies con-
cerned to correct errors of fact and interpretation and
then circulated to all members of the Working Party
and examined in workshops.
During these meetings, comparisons across sites began
to emerge. The common framework for the site case
studies enabled a systematic comparison to be under-
taken. This was written up in a general report of the
project, which again was scrutinized in workshops by
the Working Party before being adopted by the steer-
ing committee. This general report forms the basis of
the present article.
Reporting a study of this kind presents a dilemma
over disclosure: The interviews began with a promise
840 Public Administration Review • November | December 2006
of confidentiality, which we must respect, yet an ad-
equate qualitative interpretation requires considerable
factual detail. For this reason, the individual site case
studies cannot be published. In this article, the identi-
fying details are omitted, and the sites are referred to
simply as Site 1, Site 7, and so on. We present the
material according to the four dimensions of gender
rather than case by case. Nevertheless, care has been
taken that the interpretations offered are based on the
conclusions of the detailed site reports.
Gender Division of Labor
The 10 sites provide abundant evidence of a shift in
the New South Wales public sector toward a reduction
in the gender division of labor. Several of the sites
were in industries in which there has historically been
a stark gender division of labor. In all these cases, both
men and women commented on the blurring of tradi-
tional divisions. Asked whether work in a particular
area was currently divided by gender, a respondent
from Site 1 remarked, “No I don’t think it is. I think
we might be beyond it.”
That the public sector is getting “beyond” old-style
gender divisions is a widespread belief, as well as a
clear-cut management intention. “The public service
almost bends over backwards in relation to gender
equity,” said a respondent from Site 7, and this effort
was visible in all the participating agencies. Gender
equity—conceived as degendering, the opening of all
forms of work to both women and men—undoubt-
edly holds sway as a principle. The old “breadwinner”
ideology, which for more than a century had justified
the preference for men over women in public sector
employment, was mostly absent from our interviews.
Nevertheless, a gender division of labor was visible in
all 10 research sites. It took several forms.
Forms of Gender Division of Labor
First, some sites had a marked occupational gender
division of labor. For some, the work done at the site
centrally involved a trade or a profession that histori-
cally had been “men’s work” or “women’s work” and
was still mostly performed by either men or women.
Three of the sites showed this pattern strongly, with
substantial parts of the local workforce in strongly
gendered occupations. All three were operating sites
rather than central sites. There is little reason to think
these gender divisions are being reduced, as recruit-
ment in these occupations continues to be over-
whelmingly one gender.
Second, there were sites with a residual gender division
of labor in which elements of occupational or other
divisions persisted on a small scale. For instance, some
sites had a librarian or two, who were women; a driver
or two, who were men; and some building caretakers,
who were almost all men. The most widespread such
pattern was the residue of a classic feminized job, the
secretary (Pringle 1988). This no longer exists as an
occupational category in the New South Wales
public sector. Nevertheless, at a number of our sites,
there were officers whose work mainly consisted of
secretarial functions, combining keyboard work,
reception, telephone answering, filing, and general
office services. In virtually every case, these employees
were women.
Third, there were persistent details in the daily life of
the worksites that amounted to a micro gender division
of labor. At Site 4, we interviewed an officer who had
responsibility related to the motor industry, and we
also interviewed a colleague, in the same unit and with
exactly the same kind of appointment, who had res-
ponsibility related to the beauty industry. The former
was a man, the latter a woman. At Site 9, there was a
broad gender balance, yet the professional officers
dealing with human resources and community affairs
were mainly women, whereas the professional officers
dealing with economic issues were mainly men. Such
microdivisions of labor may arise episodically. At Site
9, when a problem dealing with computer services
came up, it was a group of men who dealt with it.
When a social event came to be held—a fund-raiser
for charity—it was two women who organized it.
Fourth, there were emergent gender divisions of labor.
New technologies and labor processes can be the
occasion for the creation of new gender divisions of
labor. This is particularly important to recognize be-
cause of the widespread belief that gender inequality is
simply a hangover from tradition. However, gender
relations are dynamic (Brewis 1999; Gherardi and
Poggio 2001); new divisions, accommodations, and
interpretations are constantly being produced.
At several sites, it was clear that information technol-
ogy was predominantly a male-dominated field, at
least in computer hardware installation and repair and
specialized software work. Where routine data entry
was specialized, however, that was predominantly
women’s work. The growth of human resources as a
specialty in management, with an emphasis on psy-
chology and personnel selection, is another example.
This was predominantly a female-dominated field, as
seen at Site 6. However, “industrial relations,” which
is concerned with union and management negotiation
over wages and conditions, remains predominantly a
man’s field—though the two were located within the
same division of the same agency.
New technology, however, may be appropriated in
terms of an old division of labor. At Site 2, where a
reorganization of the labor process that had the poten-
tial to break down traditional divisions had occurred,
strength for lifting remained a point of gender distinc-
tion. A lifting machine was installed, making it pos-
sible for women to do everything that men had done,
but the lifting machine was chosen and mainly oper-
ated by a man.
Sustaining the Gender Division of Labor
The case studies identified a number of processes that
tend to sustain the gender division of labor. Some
involve the symbolism or ideology of gender. For
instance, masculinity is associated with jobs that are
defined as dirty, physically laborious, or involving
heavy machinery or high technology. Femininity is
associated with jobs that are defined as repetitive
and undemanding and with jobs involving children
or care work.
Other processes involve the nature of the labor process
itself, especially the way it is carved up into “jobs.”
Distinctions between jobs involving “inside” and
“outside” work (Site 2), between jobs dealing with
young children and jobs dealing with adolescents
and adults (Site 4), between jobs involving routine
data entry and jobs involving varied problem solving
(Site 6), are still to a large extent distinctions between
women’s work and men’s work.
The design of the labor process may also tend to
reproduce gender patterns. For instance, managerial
work in a central agency involves short deadlines,
long hours, and frequent travel (Site 10). This would
be difficult, not for women as such but for people
with major child care responsibilities—which, in
practice, mainly means married women in the early
stages of their careers. On the other hand, work with
strictly limited hours, located in a suburban site, and
requiring no preparation would exactly suit those
with major child care responsibilities. So it is not
surprising that at Site 6, these were understood as
jobs for mothers.
Reducing the Gender Division of Labor
The case studies also revealed processes that tend to
reduce the gender division of labor. The first is delib-
erate recruitment across an existing gender division.
For instance, at Site 8, an occupation that was tradi-
tionally a male-dominated field was being transformed
in a number of ways, one of which was the purposeful
recruitment of women. Because the recruits were
mostly young, this change also meant a generational
turnover. The gender change was made easier because
the environment in which Site 8 operated was also
changing. The industry with which Site 8 dealt had a
rising number of women in management positions
with whom Site 8 officers had to negotiate.
A second degendering force is restructuring that re-
organizes the labor process and its internal divisions.
The gradual elimination of secretarial jobs and the
absorption of a good deal of keyboard and communi-
cation work into professional and managerial jobs is
an important case. This altered labor process, with all
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 841
 administrative staff equipped with personal comput-
ers, was visible at most of our “central” sites.
Sometimes a merging of roles occurs through retrain-
ing. At Site 1, one small unit had the traditional pat-
tern of a woman secretarial worker “out front” and
professionally qualified men in offices behind her.
There was another small unit that followed the same
pattern until a male manager encouraged the secretary
to re-skill herself as a professional. She went on to
become part of the site’s professional team.
A third degendering force is organizational fluidity. In
some of the case studies, rather than having a fixed
division of functions, work was constantly being
reorganized on a project basis. This process was most
common in central sites and perhaps reflects a con-
temporary style of policy work. It was visible at
Site 9, Site 8, and Site 3, and reached an extreme at
Site 10, where it had gone far toward eliminating the
stable gender division of labor. At this site, men and
women were freely drawn on as project groups were
formed, reformed, and dissolved. This was made
possible by the nature of the site’s work (diverse,
policy related) and its workforce (highly selected and
mostly university trained); it is not a strategy that
could be followed in all organizational contexts.
The substitution of women for men and vice versa
can occur at the group level, as well as the individual
level. At Site 7, for instance, a small unit existed
that had once been “almost all men,” then became
“all-women,” then moved toward gender balance.
One respondent commented, “It just happened that
way, it is not any conscious decision by anybody.”
Each change was, of course, the result of decisions
made by managers; the point is that changes in gender
balance may occur without the intention to produce
gender effects.
Gender Relations of Power
Public sector agencies generally have well-defined
structures of authority. Forms of power include the
delegation of legal authority, control over budgets,
control over hiring of staff, the right to “sign off” on
documents, and the right to direct other people’s work.
In a classic bureaucracy, such powers are arranged
hierarchically, with a concentration at the top and
delegated downward only under close supervision.
Classic bureaucracies typically have many levels with
formally defined differences in authority, seniority,
and salary. Classic bureaucracies are also markedly
gendered, with top levels occupied by men, and
women present only (if at all) in relatively powerless
subordinate positions.
Formal structures of authority remain important. In
all the sites we studied, there was a reasonably clear
842 Public Administration Review • November | December 2006
distinction between managers and nonmanagerial
staff. Nevertheless, a broad reform agenda has modi-
fied the traditional picture of bureaucratic authority.
What is sometimes called “New Public Management”
(Riccucci 2001; Thomas and Davies 2002) deempha-
sizes formal hierarchy, replacing it with a focus on
objectives and performance, organizational fluidity,
and professionalization of management.
At the study sites, we were told that two main
changes had resulted. One was a trend toward “flat”
organizations, reducing (in some cases sharply, as at
Site 1) the number of levels of management. This
brought senior management socially—and
sometimes physically—closer to their staff. The other
change was a shift from authoritarian or autocratic
management styles toward more consultative and
inclusive styles of management. At many of the
worksites, consultation occurred regularly through
unit staff meetings. At Site 2, an interesting dual
structure of authority seemed to have developed. The
day-to-day running of the site was mostly handled
by lateral discussion among the operating staff, with
little reference to management. However, budgets,
staffing, and long-term planning remained in the
hands of managers. Some tendencies toward this
pattern existed at other sites, too.
With the exception of one agency, the majority of
managerial positions were held by men. At Site 9,
for instance, men outnumber women two to one in
senior positions, and that was an agency with a rela-
tively high representation of women near the top. At
another site, noted for its supportiveness of women
and currently headed by an experienced female man-
ager, it was still possible for a respondent to comment
on the concentration of men in promotion positions
in her unit and to remark that in her career, “I haven’t
been to a [unit] that wasn’t like that.”
It follows that men were making most of the organiza-
tional decisions, or at least collectively had much
greater weight in shaping the future of these organiza-
tions. In cases such as Site 6, where there was a clearly
marked hierarchy of authority, most of the managers
were men, and there was a concentration of women in
routine low-level jobs, something very much like the
traditional bureaucratic patriarchy survived.
In one of the agencies, however, women had arrived in
management at all levels in considerable numbers,
including the top. This was a topic of much discussion
at the two worksites in this agency. It was recognized as
a historic change: Here, the glass ceiling seems to have
been breached. Similar processes had occurred in the
other agencies. In fact, most sites in the study had seen
a rise in the numbers of women in management. At
Site 3, for instance, a respondent spoke of the strong
presence of women in agency management, enough to
reach a “critical mass”—though the majority at the
senior director level in this agency were still men.
These findings do not closely follow the pattern of
agency type identified in U.S. research (Kerr, Miller,
and Reid 2002; Newman 1994). Site 6 was in a
“redistributive” agency, whereas the agency with the
most women at the top was a “regulatory” agency.
The patterns are, however, explicable in terms of the
occupational cultures that were predominant in each
agency (an issue that underlies some interpretations of
the U.S. findings), plus the specific political history of
each agency (for instance, interventions by ministers
and top managers to change organizational structure
and culture).
The arrival of women in public sector management has
been turbulent. The collective memory of the study
sites, going back 30 years in some cases, includes
stories of bitter struggles by groups of women for
access and by groups of men resisting change. Just as
the wider Australian culture is still not comfortable
with women holding power over men, women’s au-
thority in the public sector is still contested or debated
in various ways. Some critics of recent changes at Site
8, for instance, thought that women had moved up
too fast, lacked background, and had produced con-
flict. At other sites, we encountered men who plainly
had difficulty taking instructions from women and
women who had, as managers, experienced particular
resistance from men. Yet this is far from uniform; other
men at the same sites were happy with the change.
Emotion and Human Relations
Emotions are often thought to belong in the private
realm and to be no business of rational, goal-oriented
organizations. There is abundant evidence in close-
focus organizational research, however, that emotions
and emotional relationships are a significant part of
organizational life (Hearn and Parkin 2001; Mills
and Tancred 1992). Emotional connections and
antagonisms are unquestionably a significant dimen-
sion of gender regimes. This is true regardless of
whether the workforce is involved in what Hochschild
(1983) famously defined as emotional labor, in which
the management of emotions enters into the labor
process itself.
Many of the study sites revealed a history in which
most occupations and career paths were gender segre-
gated. Patterns of emotional solidarity and distance
derived from this history persisted in some of the sites.
For instance, at Site 2, historically an all-male work-
place with a strong occupational culture, interviewees
recounted the discomfort men had when the first
women arrived as co-workers (i.e., not in traditional
women’s work as secretaries in the unit office). Antagon-
ism or suspicion about the women’s presence contin-
ued, though only among some of the men. Other
men at Site 2 had adjusted to the arrival of women in
their industry, believing that women had proved their
capacities and earned the right to be there.
A sense of changing gender relations could be found
in all the participating agencies. Most of the clear-cut
emotional patterns around gender in our data concern
this change. Therefore, we might call them the emo-
tions of gender transition. These emotions include
resentment about change. Where restructuring had
disrupted an older, male-dominated organizational
culture, the men who had loyally served the organiza-
tion for many years in the expectation of succession to
top positions—but who now felt sidelined or blocked
for promotion—may have felt bitter about this turn
of events. The implicit bargain on which such men
had built their careers was no longer recognized by
the organization. Indeed, they were likely to be
regarded as dinosaurs, anachronisms in the world of
the New Public Management. On their side, they
regarded the smarter, better-educated, young
managers as lacking loyalty to the organization. This
was true in the old sense of “loyalty” as lifetime career
commitment. New-model managerial careers involve
movement between organizations, not just up the
ladder within the same organization (Connell and
Wood 2005).
Where the new-style management includes many
women, or is led by women, or where equal employ-
ment opportunity is used as a tool of organizational
reconstruction, resentment and distrust on one side
and exasperation and anger on the other may develop
along gender lines. One of our respondents, reflecting
on such a process, spoke of the “poisonous atmo-
sphere” that had existed in the particular agency
during the process of transition.
Emotional conflict may also develop around the use
of antidiscrimination and sexual harassment rules and
procedures. At one of our sites, an antidiscrimination
case had been unsuccessfully brought against an indi-
vidual, and it was remembered that the complainant
had moved. At another site, charges of sexual harass-
ment had been laid. Our respondent, a woman, felt
they were unjustified and was very angry about what
she saw as an abuse of these procedures. At a third
site, another woman respondent described the diffi-
culty of making antidiscrimination rules work and
suggested that many women kept their mouths shut
because it was still too difficult to speak out. Never-
theless, this respondent also said that she had never
experienced inappropriate remarks herself: “You’re
mad to do that to me, because I am going to say
something back!” This points to another major
conclusion of our research. In important respects,
the emotions of gender transition have diminished
because the transition has worked, and another
pattern is emerging.
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 843
 The Depolarized Workplace
At about half our sites, we found units in which rela-
tions between men and women were not emotionally
polarized (i.e., attachments and antagonisms did not
follow gender lines). At Site 7, which typified this
situation, a respondent remarked that in this agency,
men and women got on well together “ninety-eight
percent of the time,” and that seemed to be the gen-
eral view. Relationships at this site were low key and
easygoing. “We treat everybody as, I suppose, col-
leagues, and we have a workplace to be in, and you
want to make it as nice as possible.”
The depolarized workplace, to give this development a
name, seems to have certain characteristics. It has a
limited or declining gender division of labor. If there
has been a gender transition, older employees, accus-
tomed to sharper gender divisions, have been carefully
incorporated into the new order of things. The depo-
larized workplace is likely to have a cool tone (for
instance, a formal, professional style of speech), a
focus on being businesslike, and an ethic of mutual
respect among staff. This is likely to mean there is less
strong bonding among the staff. (At one site, we were
told that drinking lunches had been replaced by
morning teas.) There is likely to be more individual-
ism, more focus on personal careers, and less on loy-
alty to an organization. If there is emotional solidarity
in the workplace, it cuts across gender lines.
We hypothesize that the depolarized workplace may
become predominant in the New South Wales public
sector, as this pattern is consistent with popular un-
derstandings of gender reform, current career trends,
and recent restructuring initiatives. Yet even if this is
true, two kinds of difficulty remain.
First, the depolarized workplace may reduce but does
not eliminate gendered emotions, including emotions of
transition. Even at Site 7, the respondent who said that
men and women got along well 98 percent of the time
was also saying that 2 percent of the time, they got on
badly. There was some residual antagonism among men
to the advent of women in management. One woman
commented, “I wouldn’t call it a backlash as such, I
would certainly call it a rumble.” On their side, the
women had memories of men who were “real bullies.”
Second, the depolarized workplace, though it exists as
a practical reality, has not become a positive ideal. In
the agencies we studied, it seemed that the negative
(i.e., what people were required not to do) was more
alive in people’s imagination that any positive ideal of
gender equity. Gender equity work seeks to eliminate,
in the words of the UN Convention, all forms of
discrimination against women. But what, positively, is
the form of life, the character of relations among women
and men, that gender equity is working toward? This
was by no means clear to many of our respondents.
844 Public Administration Review • November | December 2006
Gender Culture and Symbolism
There are also transitions in the cultural dimension
that concern the way in which gender is understood,
spoken of, and marked or symbolized. Some of the
sites provided evidence of the persistence of strongly
gendered local cultures within the agencies concerned.
One example is a group of manual workers whose
traditional workplace solidarity had formerly been
expressed in physical horseplay, the use of pornogra-
phy, uninhibited swearing, and sexist humor. The
arrival of women in the workplace was felt as an inhibi-
tion. They felt it improper to swear in a woman’s pres-
ence, so their language was curtailed. And they could
not display sexist images to a woman, so the “girlie
posters” were relocated to the men’s locker room.
At another site, a strongly defined masculine culture
used to exist among managers. There was a network of
senior men based on drinking parties and football
clubs, sometimes extending to sexual exploitation of
female staff. At yet another site, networks still existed
among male managers whose token of membership
was the exchange of sexist humor in e-mail messages.
Women could join if they were good sports and will-
ing to play along on the men’s terms.
The hegemony of these patterns is, however, under
challenge. At the same sites, we spoke to respondents
who were critical of the masculine organizational
culture and angry about the glass ceiling for women
and who emphasized gender integration and equality.
These views were most often expressed by women, but
there was also a significant number of men who
shared them.
These critical views are inflected in two ways. One
emphasizes the question of justice, criticizes old-style
public service male chauvinism as unfair, and tends to
see private sector employers as even more unfair. The
other emphasizes modernity, criticizes sexism as
old-fashioned and inefficient, and is likely to see the
private sector (because of its individualism) as a
model for public sector agencies.
Gender Neutrality
At some sites, the local culture of gender had moved
strongly away from the old dichotomies. Here, gender
practices deemphasized difference and tended toward
neutrality. This was very noticeable at Site 10. Here,
men and women were mixed in the geography of the
worksite (e.g., where their work stations were, where
they sat in meetings). The dress code was relatively
neutral (e.g., women tend to wear trouser suits, not
flowered dresses, and little or no makeup). Language
was a little more guarded and formal: One respondent
commented that Site 10’s agency was more “proper”
than the style encountered in a previous public sector
job. Gender was, in the words of another respondent
from Site 10, “not something we think about here.”
A practice of gender neutrality need not reflect a belief
in gender similarity. A belief in fundamental gender
differences was widespread among our respondents—
as it is in Australian society more widely. In interviews
from diverse sites, women and men were said to have
different physical capacities (men stronger), character
traits (women more patient, men more ambitious),
interests (men technical, women human relations),
and skills (men understand machinery).
More diversity appeared in views about gender equal-
ity. The default position, frequently expressed in inter-
views and more or less official in the agencies, was that
men and women should be equally respected, should
have equal opportunities for promotion, and should
never be discriminated against because of their gender.
Furthermore, this equality should be achieved by
scrupulously equal treatment. This is especially true of
appointment and promotion. If personnel decisions
are made purely on merit, gender equity is thought to
be achieved.
as the consequences of individual “choices” (e.g.,
women’s “choice” to interrupt a career and have a
baby). They include a desire to be seen as balanced,
judicious, and not extremist. “I am just sort of middle
of the road, I am not rabid in any way,” as a respon-
dent from Site 3 put it, after foreseeing an end to men
ruling the world. They may also include a view of the
public sector as serving all interests, so that appearing
to favor one—even if it is the disadvantaged—would
be improper.
Conclusions from the Study
As I noted at the beginning of this article, gender
equity policy debates often take a simplified, categori-
cal view of gender. This is often a politically effective
way of representing issues—for example, the under-
representation of women in management. It fits the
syntax of policy statements, which commonly state
general rules or intentions, and it fits with the New
Public Management approach, which requires explicit
and measurable policy outcomes.

Many respondents evidently thought this was the Yet this is a very limited way of “seeing” gender, in
current situation. This belief often goes with a degen- that it ignores the known complexities of gender
dered approach to practice: If gender is systematically categories, identities, and practices. This study has
deemphasized, gender equity would seem to be focused on organizational gender practices and has
achieved. Gender is “not something we think about shown something of their significance. We did not
here”—and more, it seemed to be something they encounter a single worksite in which there was not a
didn’t want to think about. well-defined gender regime. Yet each gender regime
was different: produced by a different organizational
Not everyone agreed. Some people, most of them history and associated with a different configuration
women, thought that gender neutrality was more of personal experience and consciousness.
apparent than real. To these respondents, “boys’ clubs”
still existed, exclusion and harassment did occur, and This diversity was nevertheless intelligible, within the
women faced a tougher climb. Some other respon- approach advocated here—seeing gender as a multi-
dents, most of them men, thought that there was now dimensional structure, in which four different kinds
a bias against men. This was popularly expressed of relationships and processes coexist. The case studies
through the metaphor of a gender discrimination in this project demonstrate that is possible to analyze
pendulum: The pendulum used to be against women, organizational realities systematically in this way. I will
has now swung back, but it has swung “too far,” so try to summarize the conclusions and issues that
men and boys are now suffering. There needs to be a emerged.
correction so the pendulum is exactly in the middle,
where gender equity will have been achieved. Gender Division of Labor
The gender division of labor remains a powerful pres-
These diverse views converged on one political ence in organizational life, even in a sector that has
conclusion. Opinions among our respondents were long been committed to “equal opportunity” and has
almost unanimously against a recent history of restructuring.
“affirmative action.” Equal The gender division of labor In this respect, our results are in
opportunity, yes; exactly the accordance with the U.S.
same procedures, yes; antidis-
remains a powerful presence research mentioned previously
crimination, yes; appointment in organizational life, even (e.g., Kerr, Miller, and Reid 2002;
by merit alone, yes; positive in a sector that has long been Newman 1994), which docu-
redistribution to correct existing committed to “equal opportu- ments gender differences among
inequalities, no. nity” and has a recent history groups of public sector agencies,
of restructuring. linked to their organizational
The reasons for the predomi- function and occupational cul-
nance of this view are complex. tures. We can go further and
They include the growing individualism of public identify specific forms of gender division of labor
sector culture. Career outcomes are increasingly seen (called occupational, residual, micro, and emergent).
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 845
 There is often a patchwork quality about the local suggests that strong emotions are stirred up by gender
combinations of these patterns in actual worksites. transitions. They include feelings of injustice, resent-
ment about change, and feelings of betrayal when
The case study method revealed in detail the dynamic implicit gender bargains are discarded by modernizing
character of the gender division of labor. The position organizations. Conventional policy discourse does
at any given time is the result of multiple processes not easily incorporate this dimension, but it must not
that sustain gender divisions (including the cultural be ignored.
coding of different jobs, the design of the labor
process, and organizational hierarchy itself ), and Out of the current transitions, an emotional pattern
processes that undermine a given division of labor has emerged that I call the depolarized workplace.
(including cross-gender recruitment, labor process A decline in the salience of gender divisions and gen-
reengineering, and organizational fluidity). To under- der solidarities is associated with a cooler emotional
stand the current situation in any organization, we tone in the workplace, an individualization of
must appraise the balance between these forces. identities, and a decline in old patterns of organiza-
tional loyalty.
Gender Relations of Power
The structure of authority is a crucial feature of gender Gender Culture and Symbolism
inequality and remains an important issue within Obviously associated with these emotional changes is
public sector organizations. The arrival of women in a tendency to deemphasize gender difference in work-
top management is the sector’s emblem of gender place culture. Though the belief in natural gender
reform. It is this, more than anything else, that seems difference has not vanished, many of the worksites
to convince people that things have really changed. practice a kind of cultural neutrality, refusing to mark
Not a few are so impressed that they exaggerate how gender difference or marking it only in limited ways.
many women have actually been promoted.
This, in turn, would seem to be connected with an
There are still problems in establishing the authority approach to gender equity that seeks to achieve justice
of women managers. It is clear that there are some by scrupulously equal treatment—a degendering
men who do not easily take direction from women, as strategy. The predominant view in the sites that we
well as some who suspect women have got to the top studied was to endorse “equal opportunity” but not
only because the rules were bent and that their too- “affirmative action.”
rapid promotion is damaging to the public service.
Some women managers have established excellent The rejection of anything resembling affirmative
relations with the workers in their units, and some are action is an important limit to support for gender
as effective in organizational equity activism within the state.
politics as any of their male Feminism has long faced a di-
colleagues, in terms of masculine Feminism has long faced a lemma between emphasizing
norms of managerial behavior dilemma between emphasizing difference and emphasizing
(Whitehead and Moodley 1999). difference and emphasizing equality, a dilemma that recurs in
Nevertheless, an undercurrent of equality, a dilemma that recurs equal opportunity politics in the
resentment and doubt remains.
in equal opportunity politics in public sector (Eisenstein and
Jardine 1980; Stivers 2002). The
An underlying reason concerns
the public sector. data from this study point clearly
the gender meanings of organiza- to organizational degendering as
tional power. A generation ago, the masculinity of the path of least resistance. But that path risks the
bureaucratic authority was undoubted. Old-style disappearance of the issue from the agenda of public
bureaucratic hierarchies have been under attack for 30 debate and forecloses other strategies that pursue
years, and they have been demolished at some of the justice through the recognition of difference.
sites in this study, yet a cultural connection between
power and masculinity remains. It is striking, for Even such a brief summary as this makes one
example, how many stories circulate about women conclusion very clear: The pattern and extent of gen-
managers that emphasize how rough and tough they der division—and the pattern and pace of change—is
are (“hardball,” “feral”). far from identical in the different substructures of
gender. Having an explicitly multidimensional model
Emotion and Human Relations of gender allows us to see that incoherencies and lags
The emotional dimension is not usually seen as an are common. For example, changes occur in the labor
issue in policy discourse, but it is important to the process without corresponding changes in conscious-
way people experience gender relations. Solidarities ness, and patterns of emotion persist that grate against
and antagonisms associated with old patterns of gen- changes in authority. The emergence of the emotion-
der division do not quickly fade away. Our evidence ally depolarized workplace appears consistent with the
846 Public Administration Review • November | December 2006
trend toward degendering in the labor process, but it
is inconsistent with the forces reproducing gender
divisions of labor and wider cultural emphases on
gender difference.
Limited and uneven outcomes of gender equity policy
are entirely predictable. The difficulty of achieving
workplace gender equality is well recognized by prac-
titioners, and at least some of this difficulty arises
from the incoherence and complexity of gender
relations in the worksite.
Proposals for Gender Equity Strategy
What advice can be given for gender equity efforts?
Here, I necessarily move beyond the agreed-upon
conclusions of the research itself into the realm of
judgment. Nevertheless, it seems important to offer
proposals for strategy, and here I offer five.
Gender Equity Both Routine and Visible
Gender inequalities are embedded in multiple ways in
the labor process, culture, and routine practices of
organizations. Gender equity is likely to be successful
to the extent that it ceases to be a specific policy,
pulled off the shelf from time to time, and becomes
embedded in organizational culture. When this is
achieved, gender equity becomes one of the routine
grounds for action. Public sector workers acting in
accordance with gender equity will feel consistently
supported rather than pressed to provide specific
justifications for their actions.
But if gender equity goes too far into the wallpaper, it
ceases to exist. That is the risk in some current degen-
dering trends. An important part of equity work is
naming inequality, making issues visible, and catching
people’s attention. The task for organizations wishing
to promote gender equity, therefore, is to achieve a
balance in which equity issues are both made visible
and become routine grounds for action.
The capacity of public sector agencies to study their
own gender regimes is clearly important in achieving
this balance. This article has offered a model for
such study that goes beyond the collection of equal
opportunity statistics. Other models are certainly
possible. Whatever the method chosen, creating
a routine of study and reflection is important for
the future of gender equity in public sector
organizations.
Support from the Top
Respondents in many of our sites spoke of the impor-
tance of gender equity being promoted by managers,
including the most senior executives. They had in
mind something more than a rhetorical endorsement
of principles. They were aware that some managers
really regard gender equity as “a bit of a luxury,” not
core business.
What makes the difference is sustained endorsement,
commitment of resources, and specific actions—such
as the creation of child care centers or the actual pro-
motion of women to responsible positions. Specific
managers who have done these things were prominent
in our respondents’ accounts of organizational change.
The point does not only concern senior management.
Immediate supervisors and (especially in large agen-
cies) regional managers seem to be equally important.
Yet management support cannot substitute for rank-
and-file “ownership” of the issue. Organizations need
to work out combinations of local initiative and
top-down policy.
Mesh with Experience
Gender equity measures are likely to be most accept-
able—and make most sense to public sector work-
ers—when they mesh with other experience. Many of
our respondents were conscious of ongoing changes in
gender arrangements in the broader society. When
workers can see that workplace reforms connect with
these changes or help them handle change, they are
likely to support the measures.
This reinforces the importance of meshing gender
equity measures with local gender regimes. Because
public sector workplaces are diverse in their gender
division of labor, structures of authority, and emo-
tional patterns, a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely
to command respect. The point is reinforced when we
take regional differences, local communities, ethnic
backgrounds, and economic situations into consider-
ation. The difficulty is that local adaptation can mean
a watering down of central policy. The more “permis-
sive” a policy is in its framing, the more its effective-
ness depends on an active local constituency.
Constituency for Gender Equity
In several of the sites we studied, there was significant
support for gender equity measures, reflecting organi-
zational memory of past campaigns by women, per-
sonal experiences of programs or events, leadership by
particular people, and links with gender equity strug-
gles in other arenas. Where such an informal constitu-
ency is lacking, it seems that central gender equity
policies will be implemented more selectively or
reluctantly.
Though the constituency for gender equity in our
worksites was mainly women, it also included some
men. Finding ways to engage men in measures such as
flexible work arrangements, antiharassment, and labor
process restructuring is an important direction for the
future. Very recent policy discussions are highlighting
exactly this issue (UNCSW 2004).
Public Sector Ethos
In workplaces in which gender equity is relatively
successful, there is likely to be pride in the fact. It can
Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? 847
 be part of an organization’s self-image that this is a
good place for both women and men to work—that
fairness reigns. This is likely to benefit from awareness
of other issues about equality and social exclusion
(e.g., ethnicity and disability).
Gender equity is also likely to benefit from an ethos of
public service. Though against the trend of contempo-
rary market ideology, in many of the worksites we
studied, there was a significant commitment to the
idea of the public interest, a sense of the shared ben-
efits for society achieved through public sector action.
Where this consciousness existed, it seemed to be
interwoven with a commitment to gender equity in a
broad sense. Gender equality is part of the model of a
good society that public sector actions should seek to
build. A renovated ethos of public service may, there-
fore, be an important long-term condition for gender
equity measures in the public sector.
Acknowledgments
This article is based on research done as part of the
Gender Equity in Public Institutions project. I am
grateful to the respondents from five public sector
agencies for their gift of time, information, and trust,
as well as to the many colleagues who worked on this
project over its lifetime. Those most involved in this
part of the project include coinvestigators Toni
Schofield and Sue Goodwin; project staffers Kathy
Edwards, Celia Roberts, Virginia Watson, and Julian
Wood; industry partners Philippa Hall and Jennifer
Perry; and agency representatives who regrettably
cannot be named because of confidentiality undertak-
ings. The Gender Equity in Public Institutions project
was funded principally by the Australian Research
Council, with industry partner funding from two
New South Wales government agencies and in-kind
contributions by seven New South Wales government
agencies and the University of Sydney. The opinions
expressed in this article are those of the author alone
and do not necessarily reflect the view of any partici-
pating agency.
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