Casting the Other

Emphasizing 'difference' as something to be managed can cause organizations to institute the 'problem of difference' so that attempts to remove inequality may actually promote it by making differences visible and stable. <p><em>Casting the Other: Maintaining Gender Inequalities in the Workplace</em> focuses on the production and maintenance of gender inequalities in organizations. By emphasizing 'difference' as something to be managed many organizations institute the 'problem of difference', and while orgainzations pay lip-service to ideas of equality, their day-to-day practices may be unchanged and unchallenged. Discrimination of various groups such as women, immigrants and older people continues and its dynamics remain unclear, largely because of the difficulties of studying it in the field. Additionally, various programs aimed at removing inequality, such as gender equality of managing diversity programs, may actually promote it by making differences visible and stabilizing them. Management, under these circumstances, comes to refer to the management of appearances which take the place of more radical acts to change the 'status quo'.</p>