Muted voices: a critical look at e‐male in organizations

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptually discuss whether and how feminine voice is muted within e‐mails in organizations; the implications of which are substantial and far‐reaching for human resource development (HRD) professionals as well as the HRD field as a whole.Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing the approach and arguments in muted group theory, the author conceptually applies these tenets to organizational e‐mail.Findings – Current gender‐preferential research concentrates on the textual polarity of male‐ and female‐preferential language. These language differences carry over to organizational e‐mail despite the lack of contextual cues within e‐mail as well as the masculine nature of organizations. A critical assessment of these findings, rooted in muted group theory, reveals that women's voice is not merely marginalized (i.e. is present, but relegated to the margin), but it is mute (i.e. is not even present because it has no authentic language with which to use).Research limitati...