Griffin, M. and Harding, N. and Learmonth, M. (2017) 'Whistle while you work? Disney animation, organizational readiness and gendered subjugation.', Organization studies., 38 (7). pp. 869-894.
Abstract
This paper introduces the concept of ‘organizational readiness’: socio-cultural expectations about working selves that prepare young people (albeit indirectly and in complex and multi-faceted ways) for their future life in organizations. This concept emerges from an analysis of Disney animations and how they constitute expectations about working life that may influence children through their representations of work and gendered workplace roles. The paper’s exploration of Disney’s earlier animations suggests they circulated norms of gender that girls should be weak and avoid work. In contrast, its contemporary productions circulate gender norms that suggest girls should be strong and engage in paid work. In this reading, the continued circulation of earlier alongside contemporary animations may convey to young viewers a paradox: girls must and must not work; they must be both weak and strong. We thus offer new insights into the puzzle of the continued relegation of women to the sidelines in organizations; more optimistically, we also point to ways in which future generations of employees may forge ways of constituting forms of gendered selves as yet hardly imaginable.
Item Type: | Article |
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Full text: | (AM) Accepted Manuscript Download PDF (467Kb) |
Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download PDF (Advance online version) (817Kb) |
Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download PDF (Final published version) (431Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616663245 |
Publisher statement: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Date accepted: | 04 June 2016 |
Date deposited: | 13 June 2016 |
Date of first online publication: | 26 September 2016 |
Date first made open access: | 26 October 2016 |
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