Gender

The Gender theme fosters and furthers multi-disciplinary critical feminist engagement with the business and human rights agenda. We build on an understanding of organizations as ‘inequality regimes’ that frequently institutionalise and perpetuate gender and other forms of inequality across the globe.

Collaborating with researchers, as well as practitioners - in business, government and civil society - we aim to assess, and advance, the potential of the new business and human rights agenda to address gender equality, and intersectional oppression.

We work to develop the gender, business and human rights research field, and to critique and apply the United Nations (2019) recommendations on the ‘Gender dimensions of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’.

The Gender theme intersects with, and aims to contribute to, other themes of BHRIGHT through, for example, raising questions and highlighting research regarding the gendered nature of global business supply chains, climate change, health, technologies, and business operations in conflict-affected areas.

Researchers

Gender Theme Leader

Dr Kate Grosser

Gender Researchers

Sara Todt; Lisa Heap; Yingyi Luo; Emma Rae; Laura McVey; Saima Ahmad; Dr Elizabeth Shi; Dr Meagan Tyler; Associate Professor Shelley Marshall.

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Gender, Business and Human Rights with Dr Kate Grosser

Dr Kate Grosser explains why gendered injustice worsening rather than improving

Gender, Business and Human Rights with Dr Kate Grosser

Dr Kate Grosser explains why gendered injustice worsening rather than improving

Transcript

My name is Kate Grosser.

My overarching research question is

really

how do we apply

gender equality and other human rights

in the context of the growing power of

business in society. We have

a whole lot of laws that are applied by

government or regulations in

various different countries but it

doesn't look as if that regulation is

going to be improved

much upon. I was working in the UK

context when I became interested in the

fact that there are all these new kinds

of soft law developing:

new kinds of regulation that involve

business government and civil society

but and I wanted to look at the way

gender equality, in particular, but other

human rights as well,

were included or not in that agenda and

whether that agenda could be useful

for those people working in the

space around gender and human rights.

Before that I had been working

very much around government

accountability so when I started out

in this area of work I began by looking

at the whole process of how do you

mainstream

gender into any area of work.

Mainstreaming gender equality is

both a technical and a political

process so I became interested in how

is gender visible in

data that companies report around

corporate sustainability or corporate

social responsibility.

Also political processes of

participation: who gets to play a role

in deciding what matters and in holding

organizations to account.

What drives me is I've always been

interested in gender equality

and it seems to me that while in some

ways we're going forward, in other ways

we're actually going backwards.

So what drives me is a passion for

thinking about

gender equality

and how to drive change.

And really i'm interested in how do we

drive change in the context of a

changing governance environment which

increasingly involves the private sector

as well as government and the challenges

to keep moving forward rather than

backwards in that context.

Back to Video

Why it helps companies to think of sexual harassment as a human rights issue

GBI Chair Andrea Shemberg discusses the advantages to companies of using a human rights lens to examine risks associated with sexual harassment.

Watch video

Theme resources

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Publications

Grosser (2021), Gender, business and human rights: Academic activism as critical engagement in neoliberal times. Gender, Work and Organization. 28, 4:1624–1637.
Grosser, K., and Tyler, M. (2021). Sexual harassment, sexual violence and CSR: Radical feminist theory and a human rights perspective. Journal of Business Ethics.
McVey, L., Gurrieri, L. and Tyler, M. 2021. The structural oppression of women by markets: the continuum of sexual violence and the online pornography market. Journal of Marketing Management, 37(1-2), 40-67.
GENMAC., 2021. Connecting DEI to explicit and implicit gendered workplace discrimination, harassment, and assault: a commentary on 2019 Marketing Climate Survey. Marketing Letters, 32, pp.341-347
McVey, L., Tyler, M. & Gurrieri, L. (forthcoming). ‘Putting pornography on the marketing agenda: A radical feminist centring of harm for women’s marketplace inequality’ In P. MacLaran, L. Stevens, & O. Kravets (Eds). The Routledge Companion to Marketing & Feminism. Routledge

Other resources

Struggle and Resilience of Fashion Workers, Podcast from ANU Myanmar Update Conference, Sara Tödt
Women workers in fashion supply chains are bearing the brunt of the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. What can you do?, Sara Tödt and Annie Delaney (Acumen: CoBL Expert Opinion and Analysis Blog)

Projects

Gender patterns – Changes and choice in work opportunities in the global garment industry: A case study of women workers in Myanmar

Reporting on gender equality by the Big 4 Accounting firms: PhD project

Preventing gendered-based violence at work: the potential of new regulatory approaches

‘Do no harm’ and cross-border surrogacy facilitation

Affiliate research partners

Gender theme images

Textile cloth factory working process tailoring workers equipment

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Luwaytini' by Mark Cleaver, Palawa.

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Acknowledgement of Country

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