Women and workplace training: power relations positioning “the other”

This article presents selected details from an empirical study that examined organisational practices in some Australian workplaces in relation to women and training. The background to the study was Australia's Training Reform Agenda of the 1990s, which offered workers the possibility of significant gains in skill and occupational advancement. The particular focus of my study was training opportunities for women working in “ordinary” jobs, lower down in organisational hierarchies. Feminist poststructuralist theory informed an examination of gender power relations within four workplaces, particularly in relation to training. This theoretical perspective offered insight into how a range of discursive practices in the organisations positioned some women as certain kinds of subjects with low work affiliation and no career path and highlighted the impact of this positioning on women's training opportunities.