Gender scholars have long argued that workplace culture is an important key to understanding how informal norms create, maintain,
and sometimes undermine gender and sexual inequality at work. Although most studies have defined workplace culture as occupational
culture, less emphasis has been placed on the importance of organizational culture. This article addresses the importance
of both aspects of workplace culture by examining the occupational and organizational dress and appearance norms of men and
women who work as editors and accountants at a heterosexual men's pornographic magazine and at a feminist magazine. This comparative
case study demonstrates that workers face different expectations about the appropriate split between “personal” and work identities,
depending on what they do and where they work. These informal, unwritten occupational and organizational norms play a large
part in workers' definitions of appropriate and inappropriate expressions of gender and sexuality at work and should be attended
to more carefully in attempts to achieve equality for men and women in all workplaces.
Kirsten Dellinger is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality in
the workplace. She has published on organizational culture and sexual harassment (Social Problems, 2002), organizational sexuality (American Review of Sociology, 1999), and make-up at work (Gender & Society, 1997).