help with discussion post

Respond to two of the following questions using full sentences and referencing the textbook. When you’re finished, respond to two of your peer’s posts.

Brady Wood

1) What is a script and what are some examples of scripts we use in our lives? What scripts guide you at work and how?

Structures or paths that direct action that one is assumed to follow based on societal norms is the definition of a gendered script. One example might be a couple on their first date and when the bill arrives, it is assumed that the male will pay. Another example might be the stereotypical script of a man at the BBQ and women doing the dishes inside. Problems can arise, however, when these scripts or guides go unchallenged or discussed which can cause unintentional meaning or interpretation (Tracy & Rivera, 2009). Connecting back to our reading and organizational communication, “Cultures create and maintain patterns of similarities and difference largely through language. This straightforward scheme is helpful in reminding us of all the things that words do” (Cheney et al., 2011, pg. 83). In my own personal experience at my work, despite having been hired as a sales associate doing customer support, myself and another male associate are always being asked to assist in the warehouse lifting and loading boxes. This might seem like a compliment in that they think we are capable of handling the heavy lifting, however, none of the women are asked to assist with this workload. This just happens to be the culture at my company so I go along with the gendered script in the hope that my employer associates this with hard work and I am offered other opportunities in the company in the future.

2) What is the gendered script that the male executives describe concerning full-time working women? Can you think of examples of the women the men describe in the media, or in your everyday life?

Tracy & Rivera, (2009) provided an inside look that even though full-time working women are good employees, the gendered script of the male executives interviewed, stress that mothers should stay home and raise their children. It appears that the success women have achieved at work is not encouraged and that this success can jeopardize their husbands chances of opportunity at his employment. Many older television shows such as I Love Lucy, or The Dick Van Dyke Show depict the ideal as the man leaving his wife at home all day to do the chores, prepare the meals and raise the children while the husband goes to work all day earning the money. These depictions in the media allow scripts to guide the behavior and “…sheds light on women’s stalled organizational success and enduring obstacles with creating family friendly workplaces” (Tracy & Rivera, 2009).

Miguel

What is a script and what are some examples of scripts we use in our lives? What scripts guide you at work and how?

Tracy and Rivera (2010) define script as a guide to everyday practices like guiding behavior, sense-making, and as something that is “rarely articulated, yet powerfully directs practice.” Some examples of script we use in everyday life are yelling at a child when they take something they are not supposed to or making a snarky remark to a co-worker when they arrive late. A script that guides salaried managers, including myself, is working 10-hour days. 10-hour days are never discussed, yet it is expected even though we only get paid for eight hours.

Why did the authors choose to interview male executives about women and work-life policies? Do you think this choice was beneficial?

Tracy and Rivera (2010) interviewed male executives about women and work-life policies because men dominate gatekeeping organizational positions and directly influence corporate work-life policy, culture, and developmental opportunities. This choice was beneficial because most male executives place their personal opinions and individual practices that influence workplace policy and culture that impact inequality in the workplace (Tracy & Rivera, 2010). Bond et al. (2002) found that two in five men still think women’s place is in the home and that communicating unrehearsed scripts with male executives can uncover aversive sexism. Weick (2001) found that the organizational sense making theory demonstrates “that we do not know what we think until we see what we say.” I believe asking age-old sexism questions can get people to think critically and incorporate the fluidity of gender roles rather than biological ones.

Article
Endorsing Equity and
Applauding Stay-atHome Moms: How
Male Voices on WorkLife Reveal Aversive
Sexism and Flickers of
Transformation
Management Communication Quarterly
24(1) 3­–43
© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0893318909352248
http://mcq.sagepub.com
Sarah J.Tracy1 and Kendra Dyanne Rivera1
Abstract
What can we learn about women’s organizational challenges by talking to
men about gender roles and work-life? We attend to this question through
an interview study with male executives, providing a close interpretive analysis
of their talk about employees, wives, children, the division of domestic labor,
and work-life policy. The study illustrates how executives’ tacit hesitancy
about women’s participation in organizational life is closely connected to
preferred gendered relationships in the private sphere. The case reveals
a story of meaning in movement—aversive sexism marked by flickers of
transformation—demonstrating how talk can both reveal and disrupt enduring
gender scripts, and why hearing male voices is integral to addressing women’s
work-life dilemmas.
Keywords
work-life, gender, discourse, aversive sexism, organization, scripts
1
Arizona State University, Tempe
Corresponding Author:
Sarah J. Tracy, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 871205, Tempe, AZ 85287-1205
Email: Sarah.Tracy@asu.edu
4
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
The feminist movement sold a lie—I mean an incredible mythology
that women could have it all. Well you can, but you can’t have it all at
the same time . . . You really do have to give up aspects of your worklife, or somebody has to give up aspects of the work-life in order to
tend to family. . . . So I, I, I, I um, I’m not at all surprised to see women
leaving the workforce to raise a family or reentering it later, uh, doing
something other than what they were doing before, and I think you
know that’s good. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
Hal—father, husband, executive
In the quotation above, Hal notes the mythology of women having “it all,”
explaining that “somebody” has to give up aspects of work-life to tend to
family. Who is this somebody? And how does talk like this shed light on
women’s work-life challenges?
In this study, we interviewed male executives about gender, work, and home.
Men dominate gatekeeping organizational positions, retaining power to directly
affect work-life policies, promotion opportunities, and organizational culture
(Corra & Willer, 2002; Galinsky et al., 2003). This analysis explores the way
respondents talk about employment, family, domestic labor, envisioned worklife arrangements for children, and preferred qualities in wives, employees,
children, and future in-laws. In doing so, the study juxtaposes frank talk about
the private and public sphere, heeding the call to better understand how family
life affects organizational sensemaking (Golden, Kirby, & Jorgenson, 2006).
More importantly, it reveals a largely untold story that helps elucidate women’s ongoing work-life challenges.
Certainly, a number of factors affect women as they navigate work and
home. These include women’s decisions about child rearing (Buzzanell, 2005),
work-life policy and practices (Kirby, 2006), family and domestic labor (Alberts
& Trethewey, 2007; Medved, 2007), and the complexity of managing multiple
identities (Tracy & Trethewey, 2005; Trethewey, Tracy, & Alberts, 2006). Men
do make an appearance in some work-life examinations (e.g., Ashcraft &
Mumby, 2004; Barnett, Marshall, & Pleck, 1992; Buzzanell & Turner, 2003;
Collinson, 1992; Hass & Hwang, 1995), and men’s work-life attitudes have
been quantitatively surveyed (Drew & Murtagh, 2005; Judge, Boudreau, &
Bretz, 1994). Even though these studies provide important background, men’s
articulations about the connections between gender, family, and work—and
how these may affect female employees—are missing from the conversation.
Because male executive gatekeepers play a pivotal role in shaping organizational policy, culture, and practice, it is important to hear what they have to say.
Tracy and Rivera
5
We begin this article by situating the study in a discursive theoretical
approach to organizing (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). Drawing from structuration theory (Giddens, 1984), the study illustrates how talk can both reveal
and disrupt enduring scripts about gender. We then review work-life literature, foreshadowing how gendered scripts have important implications for
work-life policy and women’s organizational participation. After reviewing
our interpretive methodology, we illustrate how executives’ preferred personal relations with wives and children in the private sphere are closely
connected to a generalized hesitancy about progressive work-life policy and
women’s participation in the public sphere. At the same time, we explore
how their talk is marked by uncertainty, questioning, and talk repairs. The
story that emerges is one of meaning in movement—aversive sexism marked
by moments of self-interrogation and flickers of transformation.
Discursively Approaching the Intersections
of Work-Life
Over the past 35 years, women have dramatically improved their status in the
American workplace. People increasingly believe men and women should
have equal pay for equal work (Bond, Thompson, Galinsky, & Prottas, 2002)
and work-life policies are more common (Kirby, 2006). Despite these advances,
women’s progress in garnering organizational leadership positions and equal
pay for equal work has stalled (Babcock & Lavaschever, 2003), with the ratio
of women’s to men’s median annual earnings improving by a mere 0.7% from
2001 to 2006 (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2006). Stress is the
number one challenge for working moms (Eckel, 2009)—so much so “the
choice for highly successful women [is] clear: you can choose either a baby or
a briefcase” (Halpern & Cheung, 2008, p. 5). In the face of these issues, what
can we learn from talking with male executive gatekeepers?
Here we share our theoretical grounding, unpacking the importance of
mundane talk for understanding larger ideologies and structural practices.
We also review past research on executives’ influence on work-life policy
and culture, the material facts about why women work, and men’s role in
private sphere activities such as domestic labor and carework.
Revealing and Constructing Gendered Scripts
A discursive approach to organizing assumes that meaning is not internal and
fixed but, rather, is always in process—generated, imposed, and transformed
through language (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). From this point of view,
6
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
meaning does not reside inside individuals’ minds but, rather, resides among
and between people, evidenced in their actions and communication (Tracy
& Trethewey, 2005). Therefore, a discursive approach suggests that a robust
way to understand the material policies and practices of work-life is to
closely listen to the way organizational power holders talk about family,
work, and gender.
Indeed, through analyzing mundane talk, we may access larger discourses
(such as sexism and patriarchy) that guide action. Structuration theory
(Giddens, 1984) demonstrates how structures and ideologies—that may seem
unchangeable and solid—are instead continually constituted, bolstered, and
challenged through the micropractices of talk. Past work-life research has successfully used structuration theory to explore the taken-for-granted ways that
communication in the workplace influences policies and practices (e.g., Doucet,
2004; Kirby & Krone, 2002; see Golden et al., 2006, for a review). Indeed, talk
reveals tacit scripts that guide everyday practice and sensemaking.
A script is a recipe for action (Golden et al., 2006) that is rarely articulated, yet powerfully directs practice. A simple example is this: “Only rude
people cut in line.” We may act according to this script by: (a) patiently waiting in line at the grocery store, (b) yelling self-righteously at a driver who
cuts into our lane, or (c) scolding children who do not wait their turn. Much
of the time, scripts like these are harmless and even useful. They serve to
simplify and guide behavior in an otherwise chaotic world.
However, scripts are problematic when they promote unjust behavior—
whether or not the script is mindfully reflected on or its resulting behavior is
intentional. The following script is an example: “African American men are
likely to be criminals.” Most people would be reticent to articulate this script
as their own. However, it still serves to guide and produce unjust practices—
as evidenced, for instance, in the much higher rate of false incarceration of
African American men then other demographic groups (Parker, Dewees, &
Radelet, 2002; Stevenson, 2006). Although many people believe racism is a
thing of the past, aversive racism (Dovido & Gaertner, 1986; Dovido, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002), which operates in an unintentional and
unconscious manner, still guides action and affects policy. In fact, scripts
become most powerful and problematic when they are left unsaid, as silence
provides little opportunity for interrogation or transformation.
Unfortunately, all too often people are limited in their opportunities to talk
about sensitive or politically charged topics. Men at the top of the corporate
ladder—like those represented in this study—may feel there is much to be
risked and little to be gained by talking about gender and work-life challenges. Talking opens up the opportunity of sounding sexist and may raise
Tracy and Rivera
7
questions about how much of their own success is due to their sex rather than
their ability. By leaving hot topics unarticulated, however, problematic scripts
linger—either because they are not discussed or because they are overshadowed by politically correct proclamations. People can practice unjust action
based on these scripts, even when these scripts do not serve themselves or
others. By posing questions about topics that male executive gatekeepers
have significant influence over yet do not regularly discuss, this analysis lays
bare gendered scripts that have significant implications for women and worklife policy.
At the same time, a discursive approach demonstrates that talk not only
reveals meaning but also provides opportunities for (re)construction and
change. People do not know what they think until they hear what they say
(Weick, 2001). In this study, we paid special attention to junctures in talk that
indicated cracks of resistance, such as marked increases in verbal disfluencies (e.g., “umms,” “ahhs”), pauses, questioning, and talk repairs. Although
Sigmund Freud might have us think that verbal disfluencies only spotlight
unconscious desires or secrets, they also cue emotional arousal, stress, anxiety, embarrassment, deception, or added cognitive load—such as talking about
something very complicated or never before considered (Erard, 2007). Therefore, noting these moments can provide clues about meaning in motion.
Executive Influence on Work-Life Culture:
Do as I Say, or Do as I Do?
Some people might wonder whether executive gatekeepers’ personal opinions, individual practices and relational choices hold significant influence
over generalized workplace policies and cultures. Certainly, the most tangible
symbols of progressive work-life organizations are benefits like flextime and
family leave, job sharing, compressed workweeks, and stress-reduction training. However, less recognized, but just as important, are leaders’ efforts to
model and encourage workplace relationships and cultures that are supportive
and respectful of employees as whole people (Andreassi &Thompson, 2004;
Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, 1999). As leaders, executives’ everyday talk
and action hold key influences over these relationships and cultures.
Indeed, the utilization of work-life benefits is dependent on (a) the endorsement of senior management and (b) employees’ perception that they will not
be punished or deemed uncommitted workers if they use them (Ashcraft,
1999; Buzzanell & Liu, 2005; Lewis, 1997; Peterson & Albrecht, 1999). Men
increasingly espouse work-life policy as valuable (Roberts, 2005), and 82% of
men place family time at the top of their work-life priorities (Lockwood,
8
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
2003). However, organizational policies still reward a linear career model,
face time, and long hours rather than celebrate flexible, family-friendly practices (Hewlett & Luce, 2005). In short, formal organizational policies that
claim to support work-life harmony often do not align with everyday practices or cultures that discourage use of such benefits (Kirby & Krone, 2002).
Is this misalignment a problem? Friedman and Lobel (2000) argued that
executives—especially happy workaholics—need not be role models of worklife practices to believe in them or promote their importance in the workplace.
However, the workplace culture literature convincingly argues that leaders’
personally held values infuse and affect myriad organizational practices and
policies (Deetz, Tracy, & Simpson, 2000). Female employees, in particular,
believe that manager embodiment of work-life harmony and adoption of worklife benefits is essential for their use (Drew & Murtagh, 2005).
Research about affirmative action policies empirically demonstrates how
leaders’ personally held values affect workplace practices (Federico & Sidanius,
2002; Thomas, 2003). Racism exists even though “whites’ views are predicated by attitudes and values containing no manifest racial content” (Wilson,
2006, p. 112). Although many people think racism is a thing of the past, aversive racism continues to operate within organizations without explicit or
deliberate references to overt racism (Gaertner & Dovido, 2005; Saucier,
Miller, & Doucet, 2005). This, in turn, affects the implementation and use of
affirmative action policies including decisions about hiring, firing, and promotion. Similarly, if executives espouse gender equity while simultaneously
expressing private preferences that discourage women’s equal participation in
organizational life, aversive sexism may function in the same way.
Finally, if the ideal organizational self is based on the male linear career
model (Buzzanell & Goldzwig, 1991) and if the ideal image of a woman is
that of a housewife (two in five men still think women’s place is in the home
[Bond et al., 2002]), executives may resist policies that challenge these
ingrained images. Correll, Benard, and Paik (2007) noted, “cultural understandings of the motherhood role exist in tension with the cultural
understandings of the ‘ideal worker’ role” (p. 1298). As such, women, and
especially mothers, are deemed less organizationally competent and committed (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). If the motherhood role stands in tension
with work-life, this leads to questions about how organizational leaders talk
about a variety of issues connected to intersections of home and work.
The Intersections of Home and Work
The division of labor at home has consequential, but rarely articulated, ramifications for both men’s and women’s success at work (Bond et al., 2002). However,
Tracy and Rivera
9
organizational leaders may not acknowledge or actively reflect on how the
division of household labor and the complexities of carework can disproportionately challenge female employees. Research with Berkeley college graduates
in the mid-1980s found that graduating men (who would be in their midforties in 2010) did not want or plan to share equally in housework and did
not want to marry women who would expect them to do half (Machung,
1989). If this preference to avoid housework is sustained among today’s male
executives, even as they formally espouse gender equality, it may help explain
a reluctance to cultivate work-life policies that encourage women to spend
more time at work and less time at home.
Research on the division of household labor and carework reveal that
today’s dads spend more time caring for children than their fathers’ generation
(Chethik, 2006), which is promising given that fathers’ “greater involvement
in childrearing . . . leads to more positive outcomes for fathers themselves,
their marriages, and their children” (Golden, 2007, p. 265). However, women
perform a disproportionate amount of child care and domestic work (Alberts
& Trethewey, 2007; Bond et al., 2002), regardless of their employment status,
income, or hours (Coltrane, 1996, 2004; Sullivan, 2000). Women more frequently make career sacrifices for their families than men, such as geographically
trailing their partner and paying for their partner’s college (Tracy, 2008). Furthermore, a majority of male executives benefit from being married to a wife
who manages child care (Drew & Murtagh, 2005), whereas most female
executives perform paid employment while simultaneously shouldering a
second shift of domestic and care work at home (Halpern & Cheung, 2008;
Hochschild, 1997).
In short, analyzing the way men talk about home life can reveal enduring
gendered scripts. Furthermore, this talk provides a glimpse into the ways
children are being socialized for future organizational roles—heeding the
call for research that analyzes the “content of [socialization] messages and its
relationship (implicit or explicit) to meaning construction about our family
lives and roles” (Medved, Brogan, McClanahan, Morris, & Shepherd, 2006,
p. 165). Such messages help to explain enduring assumptions about who
should work, who should stay home, who needs work-life policies, and why.
Is Women’s Work a Choice? Examining Why Women Work
We did not enter the study with specific interview queries about women’s
motivation to work or how their work affects their husbands. However, an
interesting area of data emerged when male executives discussed why women
should or should not seek out paid employment and how women’s work
affected family and marital relations. To understand the significance of this
10
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
data, we review some facts and assumptions about women’s participation in
the paid workforce.
Financial remuneration is a key factor influencing both men’s and women’s
decisions about whether to work and what types of work to pursue. Although
some people seek work to “keep up with the Joneses’” (Schor, 1998), working
just for high status is a privilege not shared by most people. To earn a living
wage (between US$25,000-US$50,000 a year), more than one third of all
married couples must have dual earners (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006). Minority
or non-White households have an even greater need for dual-earning households; for example, nearly two thirds of all Black families require two incomes
to reach a living wage (Oliver & Shapiro). For single parents, the majority of
whom are women, working is even more crucial to financial survival
(Ciabatarri, 2007; Nelson, 2005).
Given that many women seek paid employment for economic survival (Hattery, 2001), this study provided an opportunity to compare this evidence to the
ways male executives talk about women’s work—whether they frame it as a
financial necessity, a hobby, or a privileged choice sought for identity fulfillment. Understanding these framings is important because viewing paid work
as a choice for women erroneously suggests that all women will get and stay
happily married to men with high incomes (Belkin, 2006; Machung, 1989) and
that the only valid reason for women to work is financial necessity.
Economists indicate that stay-at-home parents who relinquish a career may
lose about US$1 million over their entire working lives (Crittenden, 2002).
Indeed, anyone, who acts in a nurturing role—by taking time off, working parttime, or utilizing work-life benefits—faces negative wage effects (Conaway,
2005). When women completely off-ramp from work to care for children, they
have trouble on-ramping or returning to the organization (Hewlett, 2007). This,
in turn, creates an organizational brain drain where organizations lose valuable
and qualified employees in whom they have invested time and energy training
and acculturating (Halpern & Cheung, 2008; Hewlett, 2007).
We explore women’s work as a choice as one of several gendered scripts
that reveal ideologies and guide action. Interviewees’ talk reveals a tacit
preference for traditional gender roles in the private sphere that is at odds
with practices of gender equality in the public sphere. These rarely articulated gendered scripts are dangerous precisely because they discretely
challenge women’s successful navigation of work and life—coalescing into
an indirect, perhaps unintentional, aversive sexism. Talk can also provide
opportunities for self-questioning and transformation—and in this study, we
also highlight these moments. Given this framing, the study was guided by
the following research questions:
Tracy and Rivera
11
Research Question 1: What do male gatekeepers have to say about worklife and gender in the public and private spheres?
Research Question 2: How does their talk reveal gendered scripts, as
well as cracks of resistance and change, that provide insight about
work-life policy and women’s work-life challenges?
Method and Analysis: How We Heard
and Made Sense of Male Voices
For this interview study, we recruited 13 male executive gatekeepers who
were married and had children. All interviewees were in charge of hiring,
firing, and promoting employees, and made decisions about work-life practices and benefits. Participants held either an upper managerial position, were
the CEO, or owned a company. They oversaw a small number of employees
(between 5 and 25) and thus had relatively close relationships and frequent
interaction with organizational members.
Participants ranged in age from 30 to 49, lived in the Southwest and
Midwest United States, and worked in a variety of industries, including law,
education, construction, and entertainment. Ten participants were White, two
Latino, and one African American. Seven had wives who stayed home and
did not work for pay. All were heterosexual.1 Interviewees’ children’s ages
ranged from infancy to young adulthood. For a more detailed demographic
picture of the sample, please see Table 1.
Interview Procedures
Past research documents the difficulty of recruiting men to participate in rese­
arch (Butera, 2006)—especially when they are advantaged (Adler & Adler,
1987) or elite (Undheim, 2003). When research is perceived to be feminist or
feminine in nature (Butera) or to impinge on the interviewee’s private life or
their vested interests (Renzetti & Lee, 1993), access is further exacerbated. The
interview process is also affected by the interviewer’s gender, especially when
topics are private or politically delicate (Pini, 2005). We recruited, trained, and
paid a male research assistant to carry out the interviews.
Given the goals of the project, questions about home and work were
interspersed throughout the interview. For example, at one point, we asked
respondents about hopes for their children’s work-life future, and in another,
we asked about how their most successful employees managed work-life. This
provided opportunity for respondents themselves to make comparisons bet­
ween home and work, and also for the research team to conduct independent
12
Table 1. Participant Profiles
Namea
Age
Range
Race/Ethnicity
Bal
Bill
Bob
40-49
40-49
30-39
White
White
White
Brian
Dis
30-39
40-49
Latino
White
Hal
Jeff
50-55
40-49
White
White
John
30-39
White
Lorenzo
Michael
Nathaniel
40-49
30-39
30-39
Latino
White
Black
Rick
Sparky
30-39
30-39
White
White
Occupation/
Industry
Job Description
Human resources Vice president
Utilities
Planning manager
Travel
President and
CEO
Engineering
Engineer
Entertainment
Suite services
manager
Education
Department chair
Construction
President/business
owner
Insurance
Administration
manager
Law/education
Lawyer/regent
Education
Assistant dean
Technology
Operations
manager
Construction
Branch manager
Fitness
Business owner
Wife’s
Current Paid
Employment
Wife’s Paid
Employment
When Children
Under 5
Children’s Ages
(in years)
No paid work
Full time
No paid work
No paid work
Part time
Part time
13-18
6-12
0-5
No paid work
Part time
No paid work
Unknown
0-5
0-5
No paid work
No paid work
No paid work
No paid work
13-18
0-5
Full time
No paid work
6-12
Full time
Full time
No paid work
Full time
Full time
No paid work
13-18
0-5
0-5
Part time
No paid work
Part time
No paid work
0-5
0-5
a. Respondents were asked to provide their own pseudonym, some that were adapted by the authors. We translated a White participant’s chosen
pseudonym of Juan to John to avoid confusion about the ethnicity and shortened “Dissertation of My Family” to Dis and “B. A. Legacy” to Bal.
Tracy and Rivera
13
analyses (e.g., we examined how expectations for sons and daughters aligned
with or contrasted from their discussion of male and female employees).
Data Transcription and Analysis
The interviews were transcribed by a paid research assistant and resulted in
211 pages of single spaced typewritten data. As a first phase of analysis and
a check for accuracy, members of the research team listened to the audible
interviews as they read over the transcripts, occasionally making corrections,
filling in missing words and adding linguistic markers for pauses, talk repairs,
and verbal blunders, such as “ahh” and “umms.” Blunders happen an average
of every 4.4 seconds, and most researchers agree that they only become
meaningful when individuals diverge from their regular speaking style
(Erard, 2007). We found that respondents evidenced fewer disfluencies when
discussing their work successes and increased blunders when discussing
gender roles and work-life issues.
As a second phase of analysis, the research team met together and discussed emergent issues in the interviews. We intermittently made note of the
commonality of certain themes; however, our goal was not to measure prevalence of respondent viewpoints (for broad survey studies that do quantify
male executive work-life attitudes, see Drew & Murtagh, 2005; Judge et al.,
1994). Themes emerged through a two-level iterative process in which we
repeatedly read and interpreted the interview data while simultaneously
going back and forth to the related literature (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
In a third phase of analysis, the authors read each transcript an additional
two times and engaged in detailed open coding (Charmaz, 2001). We then
analyzed four transcripts in terms of how interviewees’ viewpoints on worklife differed based on various demographic markers, such as wife’s working
situation/history, the age of their children, and the type of job. The goal of
this process was to investigate tentative connections among emergent codes
(e.g., “Do participants who are married to working wives or who envision
their daughters working frame domestic labor in different ways from those
who have stay-at-home wives and envision the same for their daughter or
future daughter-in-law?”).
In a fourth phase of analysis, the authors created a codebook that guided
the final round of focused coding via NVivo qualitative data analysis software. We created a matrix display with the full name of the code, its shorthand
abbreviation, its definition/explanation, and an example. The matrix display
included both descriptive first-level codes such as traits associated with
sons as well as second-level interpretive codes (Charmaz, 2001) such as
14
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
privatization of work-life policy. The two authors individually conducted this
focused coding on the same subset of data and then met to compare and contrast their analyses, a practice that serves to sharpen code definitions and
improve coding consistency (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Finally, in a fifth
phase of analysis, we juxtaposed emergent interview themes with assumptions in the literature and made analytical moves that demonstrate how the
gender scripts evident in the data have important implications for women and
work-life.
Findings: Male Executive Gatekeepers
Talk About Work-Life and Gender
The story of this data opens with our analysis of participants’ espousals of
gender equity and work-life balance. Next, we consider executives’ personal
values, work-life practices, and framings of women’s work as choice. We
then explore understandings of private sphere relations on work success and
how attitudes about preferred gender roles are attributed to biological and
economic rationales. Throughout the analysis, we highlight the ways that
respondents communicatively framed their perceptions, values, and practices
of work-life policies and cultures. In doing so, the data reveals an enduring
script of aversive sexism marked by flickers of self-questioning, talk repair,
and transformation.
Espousing Gender Equity and the Importance of Work-Life Balance
Claim When asked directly about the role of women in organizational settings, male
executives espoused gender equity, or the idea that men and women should
be treated equally, fairly and justly. All respondents said that women could
Evidence succeed in the workplace, and when asked to compare hopes and dreams for
sons versus daughters, many participants indicated similar goals for both.
When asked, “What type of future do you envision for your daughter?”, Bal,
an associate vice president of human resources with a stay-at-home wife,
replied, “Um, I, I think it’s the same future uh I envision for all of my kids.”
Sparky, an entrepreneur and father of two, discussed how his daughter opened
his eyes to the fact that women need to do more than “stay home and cook and
clean.” He said, “I want, want everything for her that, that my son gets. . . . I
just don’t want her to think there’s any restrictions on her.” In this comment,
Analysis
and prevalent throughout the data, is the negative framing of his daughters’
(Return to
claim) future—not wanting any restrictions on her. This framing suggests that res­
trictions are still salient—as much or more so as opportunities. Notably
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15
missing from the data were comments that similarly conceptualize boys in
terms of what respondents “do not want” for them.
Participants also talked about gender equity in terms of sharing work and
home duties. When they were asked whether issues from home life seemed
to have more effect on women or men at work, only three claimed that home
life spillover was more likely to be a women’s issue. Several said they wanted
their daughters to both work full time in the public sphere and be a mom. Two
said they would personally be happy to stay home as a house-dad. Sparky
noted that he was “blown away” by the number of fathers who chaperoned
his kindergartener’s field trips and mentioned that society is slowly changing
with more women coming to work and more men staying home.
In addition, although we did not explicitly ask participants to compare and
contrast the global importance of work versus home, throughout the interviews
a theme emerged that family and home were more valuable (e.g. “number
one”) compared to employment in the public sphere (e.g., “number two”). Jeff,
a president of multiple construction companies with a stay-at-home wife said,
“It is my belief that parents should value staying at home with their kids . . .
more than time in the workplace.” Bal said, “One of the adages that, that I
always live by is that no amount of success at work can make up for failure at
home.” In sum, many interview comments espouse gender equity. Respondents said that women can and should work and that men can and should take
care of children. Furthermore, most rated family as more important than work.
However, when we asked participants about their own practices as well as their
specific hopes for their children’s futures, a different story emerged.
How Personal Values Imbue Scripts About Work-Life
Although the espousal of gender equity is common among participants, less
data suggested that participants actually practice partnerships of equity or
desire such equity for their own children. Of the 13 interviewees, 7 had wives
who did not work outside the home. Only 3 envisioned their daughter working at the same time she had small children. Only 2 envisioned their son
married to a woman who was employed, and 5 explicitly indicated that they
did not want their sons married to a wife who worked outside the home.
We found that the executives often practice and envision for their children
quite traditional and conservative work-life arrangements. Does this make a
difference in terms of work-life policy or public practice? As noted in the
literature review, past research has found that managers’ embodiment of worklife models is an important component to the creation of family-friendly
organizational cultures and that leaders’ private racial viewpoints affect attitudes
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
about affirmative action policies. Similarly, we found that executives’ private
values creep into their talk about public work-life policies.
One of the most interesting emergent interview themes was what we call
the privatization of work-life policy. What we mean by this is that, when asked
about public work-life policy, respondents repeatedly answered by talking
about their personal beliefs and private family preferences. For instance, we
asked participants how they might develop organizational policies or procedures to make work-life harmony easier for those who want to be parents as
well as successful employees. In response, participants discussed their personal aversion to their wives working because it would be stressful if there
was not someone to “go grocery shopping,” “fix a meal,” and “have time to
shop for things like insurance.” Jeff (a father of two toddlers) responded this
way to our question about organizational policy:
I think it’s important that, uh, you have somebody in the family that sends,
sends cards to somebody, that sends birthday cards, anniversary cards.
Those are things that don’t happen when you have people working and
when you have people doing more than what they can accomplish and
keep their home running well.
In this comment, and many which were similar, when asked to reflect on
work-life policy, participants instead discussed how and why having a
“person” at home was important in their own personal situation. We also
found that if participants did not approve of their own wife working, they
also held negative viewpoints toward work-life policy overall. Bob said, “I
think it’s real important that the, the mom stays at home, during the first
couple of years of having a baby.” He went on to explain:
I mean, I wouldn’t want my wife to work, you know, and then take a
couple of months off and then go back to work and have the baby at
day care. I don’t really agree with that. So I think there, I think those
things need to be, her husband needs to be able, maybe to agree on, you
know, how they are going to approach those things, instead of just
having a baby and, you know, I don’t, you know, it’s just kind of tough.
In this utterance, we see a marked increase in Bob’s disfluencies and talk
repairs (eight in the final sentence alone). This may indicate emotional arousal,
embarrassment, or increased cognitive load. Despite the difficulty in articulating
his view, Bob echoed many other participants in talking about his private pre­
ferences when responding to questions about generalized work-life policy.
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Another interesting and related theme, and one that strengthens existing
research (Machung, 1989), is that participants framed women’s—but not
men’s—employment as a choice. We discussed with our participants the
dilemma of organizations facing an impending brain drain and that many
women feel the only way to manage their lives is to leave the public sphere
completely to take care of children. John, a 34-year-old insurance administrator with a stay-at-home wife, was asked his thoughts on the “dilemma of
women leaving work because of home-life demands.” He paused for 9 seconds and then said, “I mean if women are making that choice, I mean it’s
something I definitely support.” Nathanial, an information technology operations manager whose wife stays home, said, “I tell all my employees . . .
you wanna leave the company, you need to do what’s best for you and your
family. So that’s rule one.”
In these answers, the organizations’ role in the work-life decision process
is glossed, and responsibility for the dilemma is placed squarely on the shoulders of individual employees. Even interviewees with quite progressive
work-life attitudes suggested that women’s—not men’s—work was optional.
For instance, in response to being asked to envision his son’s future living
situation, Michael, an assistant dean with two children and a full-time working wife said, “Whether or not his wife works or not, that’s their choice, but,
but in a nutshell, um, they both have to be supportive of each other’s goals.”
He did not frame the work of his daughter’s future husband as a choice.
Many men (especially those in high-paying and executive jobs) enjoy private work-life patterns in which their wives have stayed at home to be a family
manager (Drew & Murtagh, 2005; Galinsky et al., 2003), or if she has a job,
its purpose is framed as fulfilling identity needs, rather than as crucial for
financial survival (Machung, 1989). Some participants indicated incredulity
as to why women would “want” to work. Bill chuckled as he said, “I’m not
quite sure what the huge drive to work ‘cause I’m not a big fan of work.”
Except for one statement by one interviewee, notably absent from the data
were acknowledgments that many women have to work to financially support
themselves and their families (Bond et al., 2002; Hattery, 2001). In fact, some
executives held a pejorative view toward women motivated by income. Bob,
whose wife had worked part-time but was now a stay-at-home mom said, “If
it’s just for income that’s, I don’t agree with, um I don’t agree with day caring
your kid for income. I think you day care your kid cause it [career] is like part
of who you are and this career is bigger than an income.” In short, participants
answered repeated questions about organizational policy by discussing and
contemplating their own personal viewpoints and framing women’s paid
employment as optional and, in some cases, as morally inappropriate.
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
This talk reveals a script of women’s work as choice—a script that has
several problematic consequences. First, it suggests that if women work, then
navigating the challenges of both work and life is their private responsibility.
Similarly, it reflects popular discourses that suggest women’s opting out of
careers to raise children equates with progress (Belkin, 2003). However, this
individual “solution” precludes public conversation and effectively eliminates the need for organizational or governmental policy to address work-life
concerns. Second, the script glosses the raced and classed privileges of those
who presumably have a “choice” to opt out of paid labor, dismissing the reality that many women need income to survive (Medved, 2007; Simpson &
Kirby, 2006). Third, the script helps explain why work-life policies may not
be enacted, for it assumes that if a woman wants to spend more time with her
children, she can simply choose to leave her job. Finally, the script implies
that, in contrast to women, men do not have a choice about whether to
work—a framing that constrains men who stay home and care for children.
Overlooking the Intersections Between Private
Relations and Public Success
The workload in the private sphere affects the ability to be productive in the
public sphere (Clarkberg, 2007; Hattery, 2001; Hewlett & Luce, 2005;
Tracy, 2008). However, the interview data evidenced an absence of comments that acknowledged how private relations affect organizational success.
When interviewees were asked how life at home could be changed so that
employees—in general—might better be able to manage work-life issues,
few suggestions emerged. When we consider that working women manage a
“second shift” at home filled with hours of housework and childcare
(Hochschild, 1997), an ameliorative to work-life challenges faced by women
would be for men to carry a more equal share of domestic duties. However,
only Bill, whose wife works full time and who envisions both his daughter
and future daughter-in-law working full time, acknowledged this issue. He
said that work-life challenges could be improved at home by “having both
parents take the responsibility, instead of just the one,” and having fathers
“take the sick time or responsibility or the school care.”
In stark contrast, Nathanial, an IT manager with a stay-at-home wife and
preschooler, responded to the question in a way that reveals his gendered
script that “employees are men.” He said, “Always expecting the working
person home by a . . . given time, I think that’s unreasonable and unrealistic,
uh because of the dynamics of the day-to-day working environment.” This
response suggest that any private sphere changes would need to be taken on
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by wives and children to ease men’s work-life navigation. Nathanial also said
he did not appreciate being greeted at the door by his wife saying, “Oh you
gotta fix the drain, the dentist bill is due and, oh yeah, and then your son
wants to go outside and play catch.” This response is another example of the
privatization of work-life policy. Nathanial talks about his own personal
familial preferences—that wives need to be more forgiving and flexible—
when asked about work-life practices for all employees in general.
In addition to asking the executive gatekeepers about what might be
changed at home to ease work-life challenges, we asked participants what
they might do within the organization to make it easier for parents who want
to work. Again, few suggestions emerged, with many answers mirroring
Sparky’s unabashed response of “I don’t have a clue.” When probed for a
response, 10 out of the 13 executives highlighted flexibility as the foremost
work-life solution. Research supports that flexibility is a significant part of worklife wellness (Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, & Weitzman, 2001; Tausig & Fenwick,
2001), and even during the 2008-2009 recession, companies are maintaining
flexibility as a work-life priority (Galinsky & Bond, 2009). However, a sole
focus on flexibility sustains the myth that if people can just have more choice
about when to work, they can easily navigate the amount of work. Furthermore, a sole focus on flexibility glosses the other important aspects of creating
a family-friendly organization (Andreassi & Thompson, 2004). Flexibility
policies often privilege the company, leaving participants in a less secure position for long-term advancement. Furthermore, flexibility is often reserved for
white-collar jobs that are inhabited by White college-educated employees
(McCall, 2001).
Moreover, many companies have no policy that supports flexibility. Instead,
our participants spoke of a “culture of flexibility.” John, whose wife stayed
home with their children before they began school, said, “I think flexible
scheduling’s a good thing. Um, and, you know, like I said, it’s kind of a practice for all but not a documented procedure.” Although formal policies (without
accompanying supportive cultures) are in no way a guarantee for work-life
harmony (Kirby, 2000; Kirby & Krone, 2002), a sole reliance on organizational culture can also be problematic. Our respondents talked about working
50 to 80 hours a week. Given that high-ranking managers are often workaholics (Friedman & Lobel, 2000), and that employees often emulate their
leaders’ behavior, workers face obstacles to utilizing flexibility without a
formal policy (Hochschild, 1997).
In addition, when flexibility is formally provided through work-life policies such as family sick leave, the policies can fall short of what is needed for
successful work-life navigation over the long term. Bill—a father of three
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
elementary-aged children whose wife works full time—suggested coming in
“real early” and using “sick time” as solutions to employees’ child care dilemmas. At the same time, he noted that if an employee ran out of sick leave,
“that’d be a different story. Now we’re getting into, you know, we gotta start
taking pay away.” Even as Bill points out the company’s flexibility, he also
recognizes that when the sick time is expended, the employee no longer has
the same work-life options.
Participants were also asked about the work associated with taking care of
children. Bal (whose wife was a full-time, at-home mother and similarly envisioned this role for both his daughter and future daughter-in-law) noted that
employees need flexibility in their work-lives to go to “their kids’ games and
take ‘em to the doctor.” John, whose wife stayed home when their children were
under 5, stated, “Your kid is sick or, you know, your kid’s home on break . . .
We’re very understanding if you’ve got an appointment.” Dis, a father of three
with a part-time working wife, said he has “numerous employees that have
adjusted their schedules” when their children are ill or “all of a sudden, have a
play.” These comments illustrate flexibility but only toward circumscribable
and planned child care tasks. Indeed, the executives were less forgiving about
spontaneous life intrusions. Rick said this about a single-mother employee:
If she was better prepared for, uh, her daughter being sick, or um you
know and [1 s], her dog was sick one time, you know. There are certain
situations that arise that, yeah, that, you know, they do kinda throw a
wrench in the stuff. Um, but I guess if you’re better prepared and
you’re, you’re looking ahead in your life, and how to combat those
things when they come up, a lot of that stuff isn’t even an issue.
If this single mother were just “more prepared” for child or canine illnesses,
Rick believes a “wrench” wouldn’t be thrown into work. These comments
again suggest that child care consists of periodic and circumscribed activities—
appointments, recitals, and games. Such a script precludes the reality that child
care is ongoing, consumes hours every week, and is filled with emergencies
and disruptions.
Curiously, even as the executives’ talk supported the script that child care
and domestic work is something that can be managed through planning and
flextime, they also discursively framed this work as “so difficult” that they
would not want it for themselves. For instance, Sparky said,
It’s very tedious . . . to watch a 5-month-old puppy and watch a two and
a half year old, and a five and a half year old, and let them have fun,
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and let them do what they want, and be the father all at the same time,
and manage. All that’s pretty tough. . . . It’s easier at work.
Jeff explained that he didn’t “have the same urges” as his wife in terms of child
rearing, saying, “I don’t know if I could handle staying home with my kids.”
Talk About Children, Spouses, and Employees
Provides Insight About Preferred Work-Life Roles
A powerful method for understanding participants’ scripts for gender and
work-life emerged through analyzing their talk about children’s future jobs
and family roles. When asked about their daughter’s future work and organizational success, Bob, like many other interviewees, seemed surprised by the
question. Rather than talk about their daughters’ future careers, most interviewees’ instead discussed their daughters’ future lives in general, such as “I
want the world for her,” travel, peace, happiness, and balance. Participants
said they hoped their daughters would gain people skills, get married and
have a good/successful husband, work until they had kids, and become
moms. In contrast, interviewees spoke in much more detail about their son’s
organizational futures and listed much more prestigious job positions. For
their sons, participants envisioned a good job with a flexible environment, a
wonderful wife, and specific careers, such as becoming a president or CEO,
a business owner, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a priest, getting an
MBA, becoming a pro golfer or a center in the NBA.
Furthermore, when speaking of their daughters, interviewees often focused
on their daughter’s family life. This is similar to research by Medved et al.
(2006) who found that girls are socialized to seek enjoyable and meaningful
work, yet are “also urged to choose a particular career for family reasons,
stop working once children are introduced into their lives, and plan ahead for
life choices by taking future familial responsibilities into account” (p. 175).
Rick summed up his daughter’s future saying, “I think my daughter will
become my wife.” His wife had recently quit her full-time job to take care of
their infant daughter and was working part-time from home. Given that parents are the largest source of advice and information about the workplace
(Levine & Hoffner, 2006), Rick’s vision may indeed come to pass.
Responses from Sparky, whose wife is a stay-at-home mom, also evidenced
gendered scripts about boys’ and girls’ future employment. Sparky referred
three different times (twice spontaneously and once in response to a question) to envisioning his son as a future pro-golfer. When asked about his
daughter’s future in an organization, Sparky said, “I don’t know, this, this is
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
stuff I haven’t thought about ‘cause she’s only five and a half.” Indeed, envisioning futures for a young child may be difficult. However, Sparky did not
experience the same struggle when talking about his son. So, how old was the
future pro-golfer? Two and a half! And, although Sparky said his kindergartener daughter takes soccer lessons, he never once suggested that she may
someday become a professional soccer player. Similarly to Rick, Sparky
said, “Yeah, all she ever talks about now is she wants to be a mom.”
Interviewees’ discussions about their preferred spouses for their daughters
and sons also provide clues about enduring gender scripts. First, we should
note that all participants envisioned their daughters to someday be heterosexually married with children. The same was true for sons except for two—one
who was envisioned as a perpetual bachelor and another as entering the priesthood. Notably absent were participants’ visions of their children as single,
homosexually married, or in unmarried relationships.
Given our interest in the division of domestic labor and its intersections
with work, we asked the interviewees, “describe a partner who would help
your child be successful in the workplace.” In response to this question about
his daughter, John paused for a full 14 seconds before finally responding with
laughter, “You know, it’s hard to think of what she [my daughter] would need
and what I, I hope she . . . um . . . ” Four seconds later, he went on to say that
his daughter, like in any marriage, would need a supportive spouse. Among
other responses to this question, interviewees said they wanted their daughters’ partner to be supportive (this was the most prevalent trait provided), a
good listener, successful, and a hard worker. They also described a good
future son-in-law as one who would “let” his daughter go to work, not limit
her, balance her out, have good Christian values and be polite.
Meanwhile, participants had very little trouble envisioning the wife their
son would need to be successful at work. They described their hoped-for
future daughter-in-law similar to the way they described their own current
wives (smart, flexible, and willing to put up with an overworked husband).
They wanted her to be supportive (again, the most prevalent trait provided),
loving, encouraging, giving, and understanding. In addition, they noted traits
like being fun, stable, soft, and organized (because she would manage the
house). Finally, comments included that she should not work outside the
home, not be an employee or professional, and be “into family and not into
career or else is into both.”
After examining these different traits, we conducted a search of the 211
pages of data for the word “success.” The word was mentioned twice as many
times in regard to sons’ futures than those of daughters’. “Success” was also
more commonly used in regard to preferred traits for envisioned sons-in-law
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than daughters-in-law. In fact, a couple times when executives used the term
success for women, it was used pejoratively. Brian said the following about
his son’s future wife, “As successful, um, as my son? I don’t know. That,
that I think that would be almost anti-, um, helpful to, to, to my son’s
career—if I think somebody has, you know, so dedicated and away from
him.” When executives are working within the script that women’s organizational success is antithetical (or as Brian said, “anti-helpful”) to men’s
careers, it is no wonder that male executives may not endorse programs supportive of women’s work.
The idea that successful females are not suitable wives was evident even
among our most progressive participants. Lorenzo, a lawyer whose wife has
been a full-time judge since having children, spoke strongly about women’s
equality throughout the interview. However, when asked whether his most
successful female employee, Charity, would be a good spouse for his son
Marc (who Lorenzo someday thought would be a politician), he said,
I think that Charity is probably too career oriented. In that, I think that,
that, uh, Charity has to, has to have some of her successes, have to be
solely owned by herself. Whereas Marc’s partner will probably need to
achieve a great deal of her success through their family and through
Marc.
Lorenzo went on to say that Marc “will need more of the 1950s traditional,
uh, wife that will be, have dinner on the table for him.” Lorenzo also talked
about his daughter and her future spouse. He envisioned her working full
time as a veterinarian and went on to say, “She’ll need a very nurturing
husband who realizes that she has her career, will cook half the meals, take
care of this and take care of that.” Here, Lorenzo says his daughter will need
a spouse who does housework (something that is quite rare in the data).
However, although Lorenzo envisions both his son and daughter working
full time, he says his son will need a 1950s wife who will presumably make
all the meals, whereas his daughter will need a husband who will make only
half the meals. This data suggests that even the most progressive male
executives are still working under the script that full-time working women
should shoulder more domestic labor than full-time working men. What is
lacking in this script is an understanding that women’s added domestic labor
negatively affects their opportunities for work in the public sphere.
Like Lorenzo’s response about his best employee Charity, Bal evidences
many verbal disfluencies when asked whether his best female employee
would be good marriage material for his son.
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
I, I, I think that, um, that it would be difficult for my son with kids to
have someone who is also a professional. In terms of, just, just it would
be difficult, you know, you know because . . . I think in a sense of, you
know it, it, it would need to be someone, I think, who would be willing,
at some point, I mean with the kids to, if she decided to say, “Okay I’m
going to put my career on hold,” for example, um, where the [female
employee] who I described here is very much into her career.
When stripped of disfluencies, Bal essentially says the following: “It would
be difficult for my son with kids to marry someone who is also a professional.
His wife would need to be willing to put her career on hold, and my best
female employee is very much into her career.”
Although Bal may be discomforted envisioning his young son married to
an adult female employee, our participants did not evidence difficulty envisioning their daughters married to someone like their best male employee.
Lorenzo described his best male employee as, the “perfect husband for someone like [my daughter] in that he would recognize that she has her own
professional needs, and he’d be there to support her in that.” He continued
saying, “Yet on the other hand, he would be . . . vibrant enough in his own
profession that, you know, he’d be able to succeed on his own.”
Intersections about gender and work-life are also evidenced in participants’ descriptions of wives and best female employees. Wives were mostly
appreciated for their support of husband, care of children, flexibility, compassion, and household management. A couple of participants also mentioned
their wife’s intelligence, playfulness, and leadership. Best female employees
were described as hard working, skilled, positive, determined, loyal, caring,
and excellent at work-life balance. Yet, even as they admired their best female
employees for successfully navigating work-life, most noted key differences
in their wife and best female employee. Rick stated, “There’s been a difference in my wife since the birth of our child. She’s not nearly as hungry when
it comes to work success.” Sparky said, “[My employee] was a working
mother that would go to work and leave her kids in day care, where my wife,
that’s her life.”
In short, executives discussed the qualities that make for “good wives and
mothers” as different and sometimes antithetical to the traits of “good female
employees.” Why is this relevant or important? It helps illustrate the barriers
to compassion faced by women in the workplace and the double bind faced
by women who are organizationally successful. Research shows that viewing
others as similar to you is crucial for compassion and empathy (Keltner,
2009). Our analysis reveals how successful women face obstacles in terms of
being viewed by male executives as similar. First, female employees are
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dissimilar from most organizational leaders because they are women and not
men. In addition, our data shows that the most successful and ambitious female
employees are quite dissimilar from models of traditional femininity that
emerge in male executives’ talk about their wives and children.
Male employees do not face this same bind. Indeed, as illustrated, the interviewees’ descriptions of themselves, their most successful male employees,
their sons, and their future sons-in-law are all similar. Successful working
males are favored in both public and private spheres. This is not the case for
women. This incongruity sheds light on the continuing stumbling blocks experienced by women in organizations. Female employees are more likely than
male employees to work with organizational leaders who have trouble making
sense of or empathizing with their choices, goals, needs, and priorities.
Biology and Enduring Scripts of Traditional Gendered Roles
Perhaps the most significant and parsimonious finding of this study is that,
despite women’s increased presence in the workplace and men’s increased
espousal of equity, male executives’ talk still evidences the script that mothers should stay home to take care of small children. This is the case even in
the face of research that demonstrates that gendered roles (such as who
should care for children) are as much a result of social construction and culture as they are a result of biological or instinctual imperatives (Hrdy, 1999;
Nicholson, 1994). Nonetheless, participants consistently referred to biology,
claiming that child care is a natural instinctual trait for women. Bob said,
“It’s the husband or the man that is responsible for the work. . . . I mean men
are, I think are, built that way, and women are more built to take care of the
children.” Dis, a suite services manager for a hotel, also framed care giving
as instinctual and natural, saying, “There are certain qualities a mother could
give a child that a father cannot.”
Similar to how women’s workplace success was often framed as a bad
thing, participants also framed women’s work as making life more difficult
for men. Jeff, an entrepreneur, said, “Now if you have both parents taking
care of the kids, that means that it’s difficult to do the extras—for one person
to move forward in management positions.” He went on to say, “I can’t imagine owning my own business and having my wife work because . . . I can’t
just say well, you know, I’m sorry I, I’ve gotta take care of my kids ‘cause my
wife decided that she, she wanted to go back to work.” Later in the interview,
Jeff noted that organizational work-life benefits may be appropriate for single
parents, but otherwise, a mom working is “overly stressful” and “hard on the
husband–wife relationship.” He finished by saying, “I know I’m old fashioned, kind of, but that’s OK.”
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
In addition, a number of interviewees provided economic rationales for
women staying home and taking care of children. Sparky said, “It’s literally
almost a wash so for that little amount of money that she would come out
ahead . . . There aren’t that many really high paying jobs out there . . . that can
support the cost of child care.” Similar to many comments that cited economics as a reason for women to stay home, Sparky’s justification is considered
in terms of the here and now. He does not discuss the significant financial
ramifications of a woman taking a long leave of absence over the course of
her life span (Crittenden, 2002). Furthermore, there is no mention of what
might happen if her husband were to die or lose his job, or if the couple were
to get divorced. Rather, he is acting within the mythology that all women can
rely on men to be breadwinners.
We also asked interviewees about their reactions to research predicting that
organizations will soon be seeing a scarcity of qualified employees due to
baby boomers retiring and to women feeling as though they must off-ramp
entirely to take care of children (Hewlett & Luce, 2005). Participants were
decidedly not disturbed about this situation. Dis was short and to the point,
saying, “There are certain nurturing things that only a mother can give a child.
I don’t think that, uh, it [women off-ramping] hurts the workplace at all.” Rick
thought the question implied impending structural work-life interventions, an
idea he abhorred. He said, “God forbid some kind of, like, mandatory legislation on how they’re going to effectively let people have more of a balanced
lifestyle.” Completely absent from the data were articulations that when talented employees (whether male or female) leave the workplace, it does affect
the organization. Furthermore, when women off-ramp from the organization,
it hurts women in terms of significant cuts in compensation, difficulty in onramping back into the organization several years later, and major financial
challenges if they no longer can rely on their husband’s income.
Does this mean that women (or men) should necessarily choose work over
home? Of course not. However, when high-ranking organizational men conflate their generalized opinions about women’s work and work-life policies
with their personalized gendered preferences, this sheds light on women’s
stalled organizational success and enduring obstacles with creating familyfriendly workplaces. Hal voices a key theme in the data when he says, “I’m
not at all surprised to see women leaving the workforce to raise a family . . .
and I think you know that’s good. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”
This gendered script provides very little incentive or encouragement to view
work-life policies as crucial or even important for employees. To recap this
analytical conclusion, as well as others made throughout the findings, Table 2
provides a visual synthesis of past literature, this study’s data, and ramifications of the study in terms of women’s work-life and organizational success.
27
Many participants have wives who do not work
or work for reasons other than making
money.
Women’s work is framed as a “choice.”
A key reason that many women work—
whether they are married, single, or
divorced—is to earn income and
economically survive.
Gatekeepers espouse work-life balance and
gender equity, but many do not practice the
same. Furthermore, they cite private sphere
preferences when asked about work-life in the
public sphere.
Increased hesitancies, disfluencies, and talk
repairs occur when interviewees talk about
work-life.
As the interview progresses, talk about worklife policy becomes more progressive.
Interviews With Male
Gatekeepers Illustrate . . .
High-ranking male employees are more likely
to have stay-at-home spouses than similar
female employees.
Hesitancies, disfluencies, and talk repairs
indicate uncertainty, anxiety, or increased
cognitive activity.
Women continue to face work-life challenges,
and these have been examined from a variety
of angles.The majority of organizational
gatekeepers are men, and they play a pivotal
but understudied role.
Leaders’ personal values and practices affect
the utilization of work-life policies and the
development of a culture supportive to women.
Public espousal of benefits is not enough.
Past Research Demonstrates . . .
Table 2. Summary of Analysis
(continued)
Work-life and gender are stressful, hot topics.
Participants are likely articulating unrehearsed
scripts that are in a state of flux and change.
Participants become more articulate about
work-life as they dialogue and hear what they
say, revealing flickers of transformation in
their scripts.
When male employees do not live in a family
where a woman works for income, they are
not familiar with the work-life challenges
common to employees without a stay-athome spouse.
When women’s work is framed as optional,
work-life practices are also optional.
Responsibility for work-life harmony is
relegated to individuals.
Gatekeepers’ talk reveals a tacit hesitancy
about women at work that is closely linked
to preferred traditional gender relationships
in the private sphere.
Analysis of male gatekeepers’ talk about gender,
work, and family has the potential to provide
insight into gendered scripts that affect
women’s work-life challenges.
Lessons Learned About Women,
Work-Life, and Aversive Sexism
28
Role models that embody work-life
wellness bolster supportive work-life
organizational cultures.
Women do disproportionally more
housework and care work than
men despite their income or paid
employment, and this affects women’s
ability to succeed in the workplace.
Organizational flexibility is just one
aspect of developing family-friendly
organizations. Supportive cultures and
work processes that eliminate overwork
are also important.
Viewpoints about wives, sons, daughters,
and preferred future partners for their
children provide insight into gendered
work and family roles and practices.
Past Research Demonstrates . . .
Table 2. (continued)
Best male employee is framed as a suitable type
of spouse for daughter. In contrast, best female
employee is rarely envisioned to be a suitable
type of spouse for son.
Male gatekeepers provide similar descriptions for
(a) best male employees and (b) sons and
envisioned sons-in-laws. In contrast, they provide
different and sometimes oppositional descriptions
for (a) best female employees and (b) daughters
and envisioned daughters-in-law.
(continued)
When managers shun work-life practices and
benefits, they imply that the most successful
employees also do not need them.
When male managers do not understand key
challenges associated with care and domestic
work, this lack of understanding complicates
their development of sophisticated work-life
practices.
Participants underestimate the extent to which
organizational practices affect employees’
work-life navigation. Work-life remains a
private issue that employees must deal with
individually.
Successful male employees are familiar, similar,
and preferable both at work and at home.
Successful female employees are unfamiliar
and dissimilar to most males at work as well
as different to traditional models of femininity preferred by executives in the private
sphere.
Successful female employees are more likely
than their male counterparts to encounter
bosses who have trouble understanding or
empathizing with their choices, goals, and
needs.
Many executives practice workaholic behaviors and
avoid using work-life benefits.
Unequal divisions of domestic labor and
the complexities of care work are often
misunderstood and disregarded in terms of their
significant impact on employees’ organizational
success.
Except for flexibility, largely absent in the data
are suggestions for the ways organizations can
promote work-life harmony.
Lessons Learned About Women,
Work-Life, and Aversive Sexism
Interviews With Male
Gatekeepers Illustrate . . .
29
If one’s own family is not envisioned to benefit
from work-life policies, then gatekeepers
are less personally motivated to develop or
practice them for all employees.
Daughters are often envisioned by participants
to become stay-at-home moms similar
to participants’ wives, and sons are
frequently envisioned to become successful
professionals like their best employees.
• Work-life roles are linked with fixed instincts.
• Fathering is framed as less integral than
mothering.
• Women off-ramping to take care of children
is not framed as problematic for the
organization.
• The decision for women to stay home with
small children is framed as economically
preferable.
Women who leave work entirely to take care
of children are applauded. Wives and mothers
working is thought to result in increased
domestic stress and difficulties for men.
Anticipatory socialization from parents
significantly affects future career and
gendered roles.Values spill and slip to and
from the private sphere and public sphere.
• Involved fathers lead to positive outcomes
for fathers, marriages, and children.
• Organizations are facing a brain drain and
need to actively retain talented employees.
• When women off-ramp from an organization,
this affects their income potential for years
to come.
Although men increasingly espouse gender
equity, the extent to which this translates
into support for women working is unclear.
• Gender roles (including parenting) are
as much socially constructed as they are
biologically fixed.
When women’s work is framed negatively, and
women’s staying home is framed positively, this
opposes a move toward developing policies
and practices that support women’s work.
Rehearsed and articulated scripts connected
to work-life and gender roles do not align
with demonstrated research. This sheds light
on the stalled nature of women’s progress
and women’s continuing work-life challenges
by calling into question how decisions
about work-life policies, promotion, and
organizational culture are made.
Lessons Learned About Women,
Work-Life, and Aversive Sexism
Past Research Demonstrates . . .
Interviews With Male
Gatekeepers Illustrate . . .
Table 2. (continued)
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
Moving From Aversive Sexism
to Flickers of Transformation
This study suggests multiple ways in which scripts about the workplace,
the family, and their intersections are produced in talk. In layering discussion
about gender, work, and preferred traits for employees, spouses, and children,
our interviewees articulated viewpoints that were unfamiliar and unrehearsed.
The interviews provided a window for glimpsing the discursive recipes participants are currently drawing on for making decisions about work-life
policy. A discursive approach suggests that talk reflects and reifies current
structures as well as opens up possibilities for change. As such, studying
interview dialogue in which male executives juxtapose new and disjointed
ideas (a) sheds light on some of women’s ongoing work-life concerns and
(b) provides space for transformation.
As revealed in the analysis, and detailed in Table 2, male executives’ talk
about gender, home, and work, when synthesized with past research, provides important and understudied insight about women’s enduring workplace
challenges. Although participants espoused gender equity and work-life opportunities, women’s work was largely framed as problematic while women’s
“choice” to stay at home was applauded. This may seem like old news to
feminist scholars or to men who find themselves adhering to these same gendered scripts. However, similarly to those who view racism as a thing of the
past, many people believe that women no longer face bias in the workplace
and that work-life concerns are not connected to gender. For instance, at a
recent work-life conference organized by the authors, a consultant said (with
a straight face), “Work-life is no longer a gendered issue.” Likewise, many
young women believe they will easily be able to combine work and family—
and firmly claim that inequality is a thing of the past (Rich, 2005; Sharpe,
2001). However, this study demonstrates, first, that work-life concerns are
still intricately intertwined with gender and, second, that sexism—sometimes
blatant, sometimes aversive—is still alive and well.
A key part of aversive sexism is the way preferences for the male career
model (Buzzanell & Goldzwig, 1991) intersect with enduring traditional scripts
regarding women’s role at home. Indeed, preferences about relations in the
private sphere regularly seep into discussions of women in the public sphere as
evidenced in the many critiques waged toward Hillary Clinton during her run
for the democratic presidential nomination. For instance, a young male heckler
interrupted one of Senator Clinton’s campaign speeches by yelling over and
over, “Iron my shirt!” (Wheaton, 2008), and, on the January 4, 2008 edition of
Fox News’ Your World, guest commentator Marc Rudov wagged his finger at
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31
the camera and said in a shrill falsetto voice, “When Hillary Clinton speaks,
men hear, ‘Take out the garbage’” (“Your World With Neil Cavuto,” 2008).
These comments illustrate the ways that women continue to be framed as nagging housewives associated with chores. As Howard Dean, chairman of the
National Democratic Party, asserted, Hillary Clinton was “treated the way a lot
of women got treated their whole lives” (Seelye & Bosman, 2008).
Despite the problematic effects of enduring gendered scripts, we think it
is also important to note cracks of resistance evident in this familiar narrative. As we know from poststructuralist theory, resistance and change come
in small steps and fractures in dominant discursive structures (Tracy &
Trethewey, 2005). In this conclusion, we point out such cracks—viewpoints
that provide rays of optimism for those who hope dominant structures may
transform to become more supportive and receptive to women’s work-life
success. Along the way, we also discuss theoretical connections, practical
implications, limitations, and avenues for future research.
Similar to Medved et al. (2006), most of all the interviewees said that
family is very important. They pass along this message to both their children
and employees, and discuss with fondness their role as fathers (Golden, 2007).
Furthermore, not all participants evidenced the dominant script that their
daughters should be stay-at-home mothers. For example, Michael, an assistant dean, discussed how he and his wife have both worked and shared child
care responsibilities. This private living situation percolated into Michael’s talk
about organizations needing to create more progressive work-life policies.
When male executives themselves have chosen equitable gender roles in the
private sphere, they may also be more likely to champion work-life concerns
in the workplace.
Indeed, this study suggests that female employees may profit in finding
bosses who (a) have a spouse who works or (b) envision their daughters or
future daughters-in-law working. Participants who hold these private subject
positions also appear to hold more progressive viewpoints about work-life
policies at work—likely because they are more knowledgeable (from their
own lives and wives) about navigating and sharing work and care taking
duties. This dovetails with research that has found that prejudice against
racial policy has less to do with education or sophistication than it does with
knowledge about the challenges faced by ethnic minorities (Federico &
Sidanius, 2002). Future research could fruitfully examine statistical correlations between executives’ reported private practices and public policies.
Second, we believe that the number of disfluencies and talk repairs in the
data are not just signs of embarrassment or political correctness but also signify that executives’ viewpoints on these issues are in a state of flux. The act
32
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
of simply talking through scripts about gender roles at home and work provides avenues for rerouting ideas and transforming sensemaking. For instance,
note Bob’s repair when he says, “I think the career should probably be for [1
sec]. I think for my daughter, it would be nice if she waited ‘til, I don’t know,
after she has children.” If left unrepaired, Bob may have said, “The career
should probably be for the man.” However, Bob stops and redirects. The
most common reason for talk repairs is that the “speaker anticipates that he
or she is about to make an error” (Erard, 2007, p. 106). Dis makes a similar
repair in his initial utterance when talking about caretaking, saying, “I would
hope that my wife would, uh, or myself, would always be able to be with our
kids.” Dis names his wife as caretaker, catches himself, and then includes
himself as a potential stay-at-home parent.
Similarly, Bill repairs his utterance about day care, saying, “So the kids
could be brought there after school and the moms could just walk out the
door and pick them up . . . . That was a tremendous asset for, for those moms,
uh, [1 sec] or dads.” Although moms are first to come to mind for work-life
programs, Bill’s repair in the second sentence shows that, after “seeing” what
he said, he realized that this viewpoint is problematic and, therefore, repaired
it. Some might say that Bill is trying to be politically correct. However, the
repair also indicates that he is revisiting and revising his script. This interview may be the first time many participants ever discussed the interrelationships
of gender, work, care, and domestic labor. Their talk repairs illustrate increased
cognitive activity, the articulation of unrehearsed scripts, and a discursive
space in flux.
Third and related, we were pleasantly surprised to see that just in the course
of talking during the interview, some participants began to articulate more progressive stances toward gender roles and work-life harmony. Bob, who
evidenced quite traditional thinking throughout most of the interview, eventually shared a story about some friends who switched gender roles and made it
work. Brian (the participant who described a successful wife as being “antihelpful” to his son) eventually reframed his thoughts saying, “If she’s as
successful as well . . . it takes stress off of his life or providing for a family then
I think that that would also be helpful. Maybe in a different sense.” After hearing what he first said, Brian reframed and made connections about how
negative viewpoints about women’s work led to negative societal views on
stay-at-home dads. He concluded by saying, “I would love to be able to [stay at
home] if, if that were the opportunity that I had been given.” This data provides
additional support for Golden’s (2007) contention that men’s roles—whether
they be work or home roles—are not a “fixed product of socialization” (p. 281)
but rather are in an ongoing process of social construction.
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Significantly, most of all the interviewees seemed interested in the topic,
and all interviewees were amenable to being contacted for future research.
We also asked if their spouses would be interested, and based on their affirmative responses, interviewing the wives of male executives seems as
though it would be a rich area for future research. Rick (who evidenced
fairly conservative work-life views throughout the interview) agreed that
organizations need to begin thinking of ways to keep women organizationally involved, saying,
What you’re researching here is part of looking at the future and what’s
going to happen um you know it’s definitely something that probably
needs to be seriously entertained. . . . I don’t have the answer I guess.
I, I see that there’s definitely a need, and um, you know, maybe not so
much until you brought it up, but I mean I definitely can relate to what
you’re, you’re pulling at.
He went on to begin brainstorming on how a more flexible environment
could actually improve his workplace and closed by saying, “If it’s the
middle of the day and you gotta go pick up your kid, [2 s] [clapping sound]
GO!” Over the course of talking about these issues, Rick began articulating
more flexible arrangements for his employees and taking note of the ways
that he affects such practices.
These comments suggest the transformative nature of talking about work-life
concerns. Much like the research done with racial attitudes and organizational
policy, there is reason to believe that gaining a working knowledge of work-life
issues will assist gatekeepers in adopting new attitudes, learning new scripts,
and enacting new work-life policies (Aberson, 2007; Federico & Sidanius,
2002). Research on female executives suggests they are more likely to
espouse and allow employees to openly balance work and family (Halpern &
Cheung, 2008)—and this may be directly tied to their familiarity with doing
both themselves. Many of the participants in this study had never really
thought about or discursively connected the intersections of their private
values and work lives (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004; Galinsky et al., 2003).
Talking about these issues will not magically resolve work-life dilemmas or
dissolve men’s enduring belief that women’s public work makes their home
and work-life more stressful. Nevertheless, a hopeful place lies in the power
of language and dialogue for evidencing and resisting gendered scripts that
lead to unjust behavior. Such conversations may be central for moving managers toward understanding their power to transform workplace practices so
that they can ease work-life challenges.
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
Fourth, we should also note that, despite the organizational culture research
that links executives’ personal values with larger corporate values (Deetz
et al., 2000), some research has found that it may be possible for executives
to be “happy workaholics” themselves but still contribute to a family-friendly
workplace that fosters women’s success (Friedman & Lobel, 2000). We
would temper this optimism, though, by warning that there is a fine line
between a “happy workaholic” who promotes a diversity of ways to do worklife wellness and an “imposing workaholic” who creates an organizational
culture in which successful employees will necessarily model their behavior
after the workaholic manager. Future researchers could fruitfully tease out
the importance of work-life embodiment among managers.
Finally, an important aspect of aversive sexism revealed in this study relates
to participants’ role in the occupational anticipatory socialization for their
children—teaching them about work and gender roles long before they enter
the work world (Jablin, 2000; Kaufman, 2005). Parental talk about children’s
work provides important clues about organizing, work, and family (Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider, 2000), including which choices are most appropriate for
girls versus boys (Golden et al., 2006; Myers, Jahn, Gailliard, & Stolzfus,
2009). Because children’s anticipatory socialization “strongly influences attitudes, beliefs, and cultural orientations in adulthood” (Levine & Hoffner, p. 651),
these scripts, in turn, influence future organizational sensemaking and
practice. Our findings would suggest that traditional gendered scripts,
although in transformation, may endure for years to come.
Encouraging Scripts for Change
To move toward implementing change in organizational practices and address
the complexity of women’s work-life challenges, we must link past research
with new voices. In this piece, we juxtaposed the existing literature with
interview talk from male executive gatekeepers and revealed scripts of aversive sexism that challenge progressive work-life policy and women’s full
participation in organizational life. Our research also indicates that successful female employees may be defeminized or underesteemed because they do
not reflect the same characteristics as valued women in the private sphere. In
addition, scripting women’s paid employment as a “choice”—coupled with
the enduring script that childcare is women’s work—serves to challenge the
perceived need for work-life policies and also constrains men who “choose”
to stay home with children. Because research has found that private values
affect organizational policy making (Dovido et al., 2002; Federico &
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35
Sidanius, 2002; Thomas, 2003; Wilson, 2006), paying attention to scripts
about gender in the private sphere helps shed light on treatment and expectations for men and women in the public sphere. Furthermore, when executives
do not view their own family as ever benefiting from or needing work-life
policies, it becomes understandable why they might be less inclined to support them for anyone.
Structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) suggests that everyday discursive acti­
vities can modify enduring structures. Meanwhile, organizational sensemaking
theory (Weick, 2001) demonstrates that we do not know what we think until we
see what we say. By communicating unrehearsed scripts, we can excavate
ave­rsive sexism as well highlight cracks of resistance. To transform and
improve work-life policy, we must provide organizational gatekeepers space in
which they can rehearse and discuss issues, misgivings, and uncertainties about
work-life that they usually do not articulate. It may not be until they hear themselves talk that they will identify outdated and problematic scripts, and
consequently challenge the recipes for action that they have been (perhaps
unintentionally) working under. Through hearing what they say, they may
pause, rearticulate, and in doing so, provide space to rethink and redo.
Given these conclusions, we suggest that work-life policies and practices
might be viewed as more integral if executives incorporated considerations
about the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
the problematic consequences of the privatization of work-life policy
or generalizing one’s own personal situation and preferences on all
employees;
the importance of private responsibilities on public work, the ways
that working women still shoulder the larger burden of domestic
duties, and how this might impact their performance in the workplace or their need for work-life policies;
the costly effects when talented employees completely exit the
organization—both in terms of a “brain drain” for the organization
and the long-term financial effects for the employee;
the reasons why women work—not simply as a privileged choice
but also for financial support of themselves and their families and
as personal fulfillment;
the fluidity of gender roles—rather than seeing gender as either
biologically determined or socially constructed, gender can be performed in a myriad of ways;
36
6.
Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
the diversity of employees’ work-life needs and the many opportunities for organizational leaders to creatively respond—through
supportive policy, culture, practices, and relationships.
We have reason to believe that organizational transformation, progressive
work-life policies, and supportive workplace cultures are possible—not only
because the participants in our study exhibited change in the course of our
interviews but also because an increasing number of heterosexual married
partners are espousing more equitable divisions of labor (Belkin, 2008). In
addition, new research on same-sex couples is now providing alternative,
and oftentimes liberating, examples of work-life solutions (Balsam,
Rothblum, Beauchaine, & Solomon, 2008). All of this research has in
common key intersections of private and work-life. This suggests that
organizational challenges cannot be merely examined in the context of
public viewpoints, practices, and policies. Women’s success in the public
sphere is dependent on modifications of gendered scripts and practices that
are very closely related to the private sphere.
Authors’ Note
Previous versions of the article were presented at the 2007 National Communication
Association Convention and the 2009 Western States Communication Association
Convention—with helpful feedback from Caryn Medved and Mark T. Morman.
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to the members of the Project for Wellness and Work-Life
for their support of the research—especially Jason Zingsheim, Yvonne Montoya,
Angela Trethewey Bud Goodall, Jess K. Alberts, Sarah Riforgiate, and Amy Pearson.
We also thank Editor James Barker and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. The authors thank paid research assistant Jason Zingsheim for
expertly conducting the interviews and corresponding with participants. Jason attended
research meetings, engaged in practice interviews with the first author, and provided
suggestions for the interview guide revisions. They also acknowledge paid research
assistant Yvonne Montoya who carefully and skillfully transcribed the interviews.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/
or authorship of this article: This project was supported, in part, through an internal
Tracy and Rivera
37
start-up grant to the Project for Wellness and Work-Life by the Hugh Downs School
of Human Communication at Arizona State University. These funds were used to pay
for research assistant data collection costs.
Note
1. We were unfortunately unable to locate or recruit partnered homosexual men with
children in gatekeeping executive positions. Gay men are increasingly participating in foster and surrogate parenting (Belkin, 2008). Our hope is that future
research may better examine the work-life concerns of same-sex partners with
children.
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Management Communication Quarterly 24(1)
Golden, A. G., Kirby, E. L., & Jorgenson, J. (2006). Work-life research from b…