Exploring women workers’ motives for employment in cooperative and collective organizations

Abstract

This article explores women workers’ motives for employment in cooperatives and collectives. On the basis of interviews with thirty women working in all‐women or women‐only and in mixed‐sex cooperatives and collectives, it is argued that there are gender‐specific issues which inform women's entry into less or non‐hierarchical organizations and which have hitherto gone unanalysed in the literature on cooperatives and collectives. These issues can be identified as experience of discrimination in hierarchical organizations based on gender, stage in the life‐cycle and lack of conformity to notions of femininity; sexual harassment and heterosexism in male‐dominated workplaces; and the desire for autonomy and control on the part of women workers. None of these issues operates in any simple or straightforward way, however, and as a consequence, not only the gender‐specificity but also the complexity and diversity of women workers’ motives needs to be recognized.