Catty or Canny?
Anthony Yue // September 29, 2011
I study gossip at work. Or is it gossiping at work? The distinction might be more important than it initially seems. Gossip as a noun is a thing, static in nature. But gossiping is a verb filled with action, potential, and process. This static versus dynamic juxtaposition I allude to regarding gossip and gossiping is partially inspired by the contemporary interest in the processes of organizing as compared to descriptions of organizations. This interplay between thinking about organizations and organizing becomes a space for alternative narratives. I believe that such alternative narratives have enormous implications for understanding women within organization theory. Workplace gossip is one transitional and boundary spanning (or liminal) space which forms the center of a particular alternative narrative I will briefly survey in this essay.
When reviewing much of the organizational theory literature, I am struck by how often the organization is viewed almost as a floating soap bubble: affected by the environment but still with reasonable distinctness and delineation. This understanding lends itself to the description of an organization, its members, or the context, but satisfies little of any interest in causes and reasons behind the process of organizing. Thus, an interest in, for example, the role of men and women in organizations becomes a description of wage inequity, or a count of which sex occupies what positions in the organization. This is an important perspective which essentially describes what is typically referred to as a liberal feminist approach to organizational analysis. However, for those of us who seek to understand from a more critical viewpoint how power relations and political positions affect organizational members, this feels wanting.
When I speak about my research concerning gossip at work, I invariably come to a point where both men and women suggest to me that it is qualitatively different when women gossip than when men do. When faced with a similar description of the act in the workplace, women are described as being gossips or acting catty; conversely, men who engage in the same actions are seen as being strategic or informed, this despite both men and women reporting engaging in the same practices (Yue, 2011). While my research does not answer why there is a gendered attribution concerning workplace gossiping behaviour, it nevertheless seems important to consider these attributions. My own bias towards considering formal organization as largely based upon socio/cultural and historical patriarchy leads me to consider that there are implications to thinking differently about the workplace gossip of men and women. For example: if we consider gossip trivial, then why is it that when men practice workplace gossip it is reported as being strategic? Moreover, why would there be a negative association for women who share gossip if it is important and strategic to the comparatively high-ranking male organizational members? We could be forgiven for simply seeing this as a double standard, with differential application to men and women, but the fact that the content is not so much the issue as is the labelling of the act seems a problem. Regardless, such a straightforward and simple approach as “the double standard” portrays women as organizational dupes, with no choice but to accept the labels they are given and to gamely press on in their situation. I prefer a narrative that is somewhat more empowering.
Louise Collins, in her book chapter entitled Gossip: A Feminist Defence (Collins, 1994), offers a number of arguments that consider how gossip is a process of learning to understand others from a more relativist perspective. This sharing of stories of others lives allows us to appreciate their trials (and victories).Collins highlights the changing of moral views, the development of empathy and ongoing self-understanding as being some outcomes of gossiping (provided such gossiping falls short of devolving into vice). These are outcomes which are not especially welcome as contributions in the patriarchal status quo in an organization. This type of social knowledge contributes to change, and as a process is largely uncontrollable by management. To embrace gossip at work as being of utility and importance (as I do) is to position gossip at work as a type of anti-organization social practice. And if the workplace is patriarchal in nature, then this sort of anti-organization practice might be reconstituted as being a process of organizing, with all the implied dynamicism and change that the verb form implies.
This brings me to my central point: If informal exchanges at work, such as gossip, are essentially unmanageable, process based, self-revelatory and change-inducing, then we have some fundamental conditions for change available to us. Women subjected to pejoratives because they are engaging in gossip may well be organizational emancipators. No longer seen as trivial organizational dupes, they are the very organizational members who are dangerous to the status quo and not all organizations are welcoming of such changes. Moreover, in a time when change is seen as rapid and inevitable, such gossips might actually be an organizational competitive advantage. Much organizational learning and therefore unique organizational differentiation resides in the informal. Many of my students will undoubtedly recognize elements of my understanding of organizational culture and strategy in such statements.
Naturally these comments do not apply exclusively to women who gossip at work, but they do privilege the role of women gossipers in patriarchal organizations. Catty or Canny? This depends on how one understands organizations or the dynamic act of organizing, and the choice of such a perspective has implications for men, women, and organization theory. The view depends upon where and how you cast your gaze.
References
Yue, A.R. (2011). Talking about gossip at work, (undefended and unpublished doctoral dissertation)
Collins, L. (1994). Gossip: A feminist defence. In R. F. Goodmen & A. Ben-Ze’ev (Eds.), Good Gossip (pp. 106-114). Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.
