Organizations, Violations and their Silencing

Organizations have long been portrayed as rational, unemotional and neutral entities. However, recent research has shown the significance of violence, emotions and gender in and around organizations. For instance, Hearn and Parkin (1995) demonstrated the power and paradox of ‘organization sexuality’ — the interconnection between gender, power and sexuality and its pervasive influence in supposedly agendered, asexual rational worlds. Organizations, however, are not only sexualized and gendered. Emotions, though often not formally acknowledged, are ever-present in organizations (Flam 1990; 1993; 2000; Fineman 1993; 2000; 2007; Gabriel 1993; 1995). Academic, policy and workplace resistance literature has pointed to a frequent structural co-occurrence of violence, gender relations and emotions in and around organizations (Kondo 1990; Jermier et al. 1994; O’Toole/Schiffman 1997; Hearn 1998; 2003; Heise et al. 2002; WHO 2002; Ferguson et al. 2004).