Bureaucratizing like a girl: Objectivity and the reinforcement of patriarchy at an Israeli government committee

Abstract

What does it mean for women bureaucrats to work “objectively?” How does the attempt to work objectively affect the hierarchal structure and the preservation of women in lower positions, two interrelated key elements of patriarchal ideology? The bureaucratic staff of the Israeli Sal Committee offers a unique case study to examine this question. Aware of the life-and-death implications of committee decisions, this all-women staff attempt to work “objectively,” which they interpret as compiling and presenting data that carries no marks of their positions. To fulfill this ideal, staffers inhibited themselves from speaking in committee discussions. Consequently, they were treated as “good bureaucrats” but also as “women bureaucrats” and their work remained mainly unacknowledged. Aspiring for non-positional objectivity thus contributed to preserving their lower positioning and reaffirming their bureaucracy's hierarchal structure. But this disposition also forged an a-hierarchal work style within the staff, presenting a feminist alternative to mainstream bureaucracy. This ethnography suggests that an ethics of objectivity may carry more diverse possibilities than is commonly hypothesized in feminist critiques of objectivity.