Exploring Gendered Inclusion in Contemporary Organizations

The last three decades have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of women in work and the mainstreaming of the equal opportunities agenda. In this context, we are also witnessing a growth of postfeminist rhetoric, suggesting that gender workplace equality has been achieved and that women's progress now depends on individual capabilities, such as confidence levels, because structural barriers have been dismantled. In Sheryl Sandberg's words, women simply need to 'lean in' in order to succeed alongside their male colleagues. Despite this optimism, academic research continues to highlight disadvantage experienced by women in the workplace, such as the gendered pay gap, the glass ceiling, women's concentration in lower-paid industries and low representation at senior levels, comprising only 8.6 per cent of directors in large UK firms in 2015.

Understanding this paradox has direct implications for academic research, as well as for organizations, employees and policy makers. How can we talk about, theorize and formulate new policies to facilitate an inclusive and fair workplace when gender inequality is believed to have been 'solved'? This question is especially relevant given the recent government agenda to get more people into paid work. The current theoretical focus on gender exclusion lacks power to account fully for new and/or often less visible patterns of contemporary gender workplace inequality. Therefore, we suggest that, in order to advance these debates, a shift is required from analysis of exclusion to a critical analysis of gendered inclusion in the workplace and the different forms it takes.

This seminar series will make a timely contribution by providing the first forum for multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder discussion of gendered inclusion. We seek to challenge the simple dichotomy in which exclusion has a negative connotation whilst inclusion is seen as always positive. Instead, we aim to gain a more complex and critical view of the notion of gendered inclusion by exploring contemporary workplace gender roles and expectations. How can inclusion be defined? Under what conditions and to what extent are women and men included in organizations? How is inclusion maintained and negotiated? Has the increase in the number of women challenged dominant gender norms, expectations and workplace culture? How do men fare in contemporary organizations in which new forms of gendered inclusion have emerged? How might existing patterns of gendered inclusion generate new forms of workplace inequality?

To debate these issues we aim to bring together scholars from a variety of international contexts (UK, Europe and North America) and disciplines (organization studies, sociology, cultural studies, politics, media, etc.). Given the novelty of this discussion, one of our main objectives is to actively engage PhD and early career researchers in the development of the field. We also aim to stimulate a dialogue with businesses, civil society groups and policy makers to explore how organizational and state policies may be shaped to facilitate more effective gender workplace inclusion.
The series will comprise seven one-day seminars over 28 months. Seminars 1 and 2 will debate changing workplace expectations and roles in a contemporary postfeminist and neoliberal context, and explore the concept of, backdrop to and rationale for critical exploration of gendered inclusion. Seminar 3 will be an interactive workshop exploring various ways to study gendered inclusion. Seminars 4 to 6 will examine different work contexts through the gendered inclusion lens, debating the nature of women's and men's inclusion in large organizations, traditional and new industries, the field of entrepreneurship, and leadership and managerial positions. Seminar 7 will draw conclusions, set out future research agendas and debate the possibilities of using a critical inclusion lens to explore intersectional workplace inclusion.

Business community: employers, practitioners and business think-tanks
Most UK companies today implement a wide range of diversity and equal opportunity policies, but these initiatives cannot work properly without a change in culture. Very often, it is not the absence of desire to change but the lack of awareness of the complexity of gender workplace issues. The impact of this series will be achieved through equipping the business community with such vital knowledge, raising awareness and generating a better understanding of the notion of gendered inclusion and how it impacts on the way women and men are included in organizations. Participants, including senior HR specialists, equality and diversity consultants and entrepreneurs and business-oriented think-tank representatives will be involved in discussing and generating ideas about the ways to translate theory into practice and facilitate more effective inclusion through change in organizational practices. We will also aim to inform effective workplace inclusion development through disseminating seminar insights to a wider business community e.g. via our partner Inclusivity in Practice Forum who offer access to an extensive database of HR directors and Equality and Diversity practitioners in FTSE companies.

Civil society groups and professional associations
Civil society groups and networks are crucial in fostering change. The seminars aim to help these civil society groups to gain better understanding of the current issues around gendered workplace and empower participants to feed this insight into planning their initiatives. Being aware of the cutting edge debates around gendered inclusion in different work contexts will allow these groups to develop more effective delivery of training, development and support initiatives for their members. It will also enable them to develop more powerful arguments when lobbying on behalf of their membership and implement proactive and innovative proposals in addition to addressing the known issues. Participants will include representatives of CIPD, City Women's Network, Inclusive Leadership network, The Women's Organization.

Policy-makers and lobby groups
Policy-makers and lobby groups require up-to-date the most recent insights and evidence around gendered workplace inclusion, its patterns and the forms it takes in order to successfully advocate for change in the evidence-based policy context. An immediate impact of the seminars will therefore be providing the policy-making community with such evidence as well as engaging them in evaluating theoretical insight and debating its best use. The seminars will enable the policy-making community to develop a deeper understanding of the more subtle mechanisms and reasons preventing the full integration of women in the workforce. This knowledge will potentially inform policy adjustments and enable a more sophisticated range of argumentation when lobbying or legislating for gender-related workplace issues. Seminars will also enable the formation of multi-stakeholder networks and strategic partnerships. We have secured attendance from Government Equalities Office representatives and TUC women's policy officers.

Wider community
Encouraging people to think critically about contemporary gendered inclusion patterns and practices is crucial and has the potential to benefit social cohesion and the UK economy in the long run. To achieve such wider social impact the seminars series will generate accessible but comprehensive counter arguments to the postfeminist rhetoric of the end of inequality. We will offer evidence of how cultural discourse like postfeminism translates into specific challenges for women and men in organizations, and generate alternative and more reflexive ways of thinking about the state of gender equality in the workplace. We will do so through intensive effort to widely disseminate seminar findings to the general public and involving journalists in our seminars.