Introduction
The article under consideration is “Editorial: Gendering change: The next step” written by Benschop, Y., Mills, J. H., Mills, A., and Tienari, J. in 2012 and presented in the Gender, Work and Organization magazine. The world has already entered the era of gender equality and balance and continues to go ahead reaching the aim of living in the biased free society.
Still, the situations of the gender discrimination at the work place still occur. The world society should work on the problem on order to change the situation. Nevertheless, it is possible to predict that choosing the way of the organizational change the gender inequities should be considered with the purpose to refer to those inequities and balance the situation in the organization.
There are a lot of different social theories aimed at helping the society to apply the problems and make sure that the situation is corrected and the problems will not occur in the future. The main idea of this article is to consider the article under discussion and apply the following sociological perspectives to it, symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory.
Article Summary
The main idea of the article is to consider the gender equity as the part of the organizational change. However, the authors of the article state that many scholars remain skeptical about the possibility of this change. The organizations are the part of the society which still remains gendered.
To conduct effective strategies and intervention in the organization, it is important to remain focused and the gender change does not occur as the primary issue. Dwelling upon gender, change and discursivity Benschop, Mills, Mills, and Tienari state that to make sure that the organization has balanced attitude to gender roles, the “transformative approaches [should] go even further and aim at changing gender as a structure, changing everyday organizational routines and interactions so that they stop (re)producing gender inequalities” (p. 3).
The authors are sure that to attempt to create the gender equality at the organization, the strategy of paradox should be applied to. Thus, using the activities aimed at organizational change for gender unity particular social movements are to be divided. The gender issues in age and healthcare are also to be reconsidered which appears to be harder.
Applying Social Concepts and Theories
There are at least three main concepts which are to be considered within this article, symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory. Applying the symbolic interactionism concept to the article, it should be stated that it perfectly fits the discussion. As it has already been mentioned in the article, the organization is the part of the society and it follows the principles and considerations which occur in the society.
The concept of symbolic interactionism is exactly about the relation between all the objects in the society and creating the interaction between all the individuals. Thus, applying this theory to the organizational change in the direction of gender equity, it is important to provide the same change in other aspects of the society. Therefore, the application of the symbolic interactionism is essential as only having changes the social paradigm the organizations will be able to apply successfully the same concepts at the work place.
The concept of structural functionalism considers society as the set of the parts which are structurally interrelated with each other. The parts which have the greatest value are norms, customs and traditions. Looking at the history of the world society, it is possible to follow the idea of male domination over the women.
This consideration has firmly imprinted in the social vision, so it appears rather difficult to ruin this view. Only applying to the parts of the structure of the society one is able to change the vision on gender balance. Thus, conducting an organizational change it is important to impact the views of the people and only then try to apply to organizational change.
Conflict theory is based on the consideration that society exists in the political, social and material inequity. Thus, the idea of gender equity cannot fit these principles. The whole world cannot be equal, it can be balanced in some way and cannot be in another. The conflict theory cannot be changed, it is impossible to restructure the whole society in order to eliminate the inequity which must exist as only in this case the society is able to function purposeful.
Conclusion
Therefore, it may be concluded that the concepts of the symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory are essential in the relation to organizational change based on the gender idea. The society is developing in such a way that many people are believed to be different in their social status.
The gender biases are almost eliminated, however the operation of the consider theories does not allow this issue to be absolutely removed as in this case the whole structure may be ruined, the whole system which has been created for years. The problem of gender inequity may be solved only in case of the change of the structure of the society, its customs and traditions.
Reference List
Benschop, Y., Mills, J. H., Mills, A., & Tienari, J. (2012). Editorial: Gendering change: The next step. Gender, Work and Organization, 19(1), 1-9.