Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work

Book Description

With its move from hierarchical to team-based structures and its dismantling of functional barriers, the organization of the future is touted as a radical departure from traditional models. The worker of the future, we are told, must be a collaborative team player, able to give and receive help, empower others, and operate in a world of interdependence. This new worker needs relational skills and emotional intelligence--the ability to work effectively with others and understand the emotional context in which work takes place. Paradoxically, the very skills that give organizations a competitive advantage may be precisely those that prevent individual employees--especially women--from advancing.

In this book Joyce K. Fletcher presents a study of female design engineers that has profound implications for attempts to change organizational culture. Her research shows that emotional intelligence and relational behavior often "get disappeared" in practice, not because they are ineffective but because they are associated with the feminine or softer side of work. Even when they are in line with stated goals, these behaviors are viewed as inappropriate to the workplace because they collide with powerful, gender-linked images of good workers and successful organizations. Fletcher describes how this collision of gender and power "disappears" the very behavior that organizations say they need and undermines the possibility of radical change. She shows why the "female advantage" does not seem to be advantaging females or organizations. Finally, she suggests ways that individuals and organizations can make visible the invisible work--and people--critical to organizational competence and transformation.

Customer Reviews:

Recommended.......2005-04-26

I recommend this often. Fletcher opens our eyes (those of us that had them closed anyway) to deeply ingrained biases that unfortunately go untested in the corporate world vis-a-vis gender equality. I was only dissappointed that she implicitly seems to argue that the old male-oriented structures in the workplace be revamped to allow room for women at work, rather than offering a completely "new" model of workplace democracy more in tune with our times.

Understanding knowledge-intensive work.......1999-11-24

This book contributes to our understanding of gender and work, and this is important. But I want to draw attention to this book's more general value for anyonet concerned to understand the changing nature of work in our times.

Today, as more and more work situations involve knowledge-intensive, fluid environments where the old principles of command-and-control are ineffective, those of us connected to such environments are scrambling to understand how to achieve effective performance in a game where the only thing we know about the rules is that the old rules don't apply. In this scramble, we are continually brought back to the most fundamental question of organizing: what actions produce value; what actions are irerelevant to or destructive of value? Dr. Fletcher's book has the potential be important in helping us to act purposefully and successfully to create effective systems in this turbulant environment.

What we see as `real work' reflects only a portion of the work-related activity in organizations. For the most part, it reflects the portion that was of interest to the employers who created the industrial system of the early part of this century. As we face the challenges of knowledge-intensive work in fluid, underdetermined and rapidly changing environments, we are being forced to create another reality of work. The critical factors for working successfully simply do not lie within the area lit by the spotlight of industrial reality. But how do we take off blinders we have worn for a century to see things differently?

I can think of no better way than to challenge our thinking with explorations of what, for lack of a better term, I might call alternate realities. Dr. Fletcher's book is such an example. While it is highly informed by theory, it is a case study and illustrates its points with dozens of concrete examples. For the reader with an open mind who is prepared to be challenged, this book should stimulate a better understanding of how we might come to see the critical-but-hidden qualities that determine the success or failure of knowledge-intensive work.

More importantly, Dr. Fletcher demonstrates that what is invisible is not merely overlooked. It comes to be invisible as the result of systematic processes that `disappear' it. The lesson for us -- whether we understand it specifically in regard to gender or with reference to other factors shaping work in our time -- is that we cannot merely change organizations by `thinking outside the box' (to use a particularly unoriginal cliche for original thinking). We must first learn to SEE the box, to see the forces that sustain the box, to resist and change those forces.

At the turn of the last century, work was re-invented by employers, workers and experts on organizing, who produced a new reality of work. At the turn of the present century, this process is happening again. In this book, Dr. Fletcher makes a potentially important contribution to this immense, but necessary, task.

Book Description

When Herculeah Jones's best friend, Meat, decides to take a comedy class, he just expects to get a few laughs. But then he discovers a dead body in the bathroom, and realizes that there's nothing funny about murder. Things can't get any worse—until the body disappears! Meat needs Herculeah's help to uncover the clues, but she's busy investigating a case of her own . . . one that might just change Meat's life forever!

Customer Reviews:

The Best Herculeah Jones book yet!.......2003-09-01

This book will keep you turning the pages while you wonder, what job does Meats dad have? Who's blue wallet is it? And will Herculeah and Meat solve it all? You better find out in this heart pounding story of fate.

Disappearing Acts.......2001-03-29

I have read many of the Herculeah Jones Mysteries but this one is my favorint! It had a certain pull to the book some would say the same effect of Harry Potter. With this having two stories to it you had to keep on reading more if you wanted to know what was going to happen in the other story. An exilent book! Read it!

I Love It.......2000-10-14

I love the book Dissapering Acts. It is such a great book. Usually I am good at putting books down but this I could not put down ! It is so exciting and you never know what way they'll solve it . Every chapter in the book is so exciting! Now I am a big fan of Betsy Byars!

Average customer rating:

hated the ending
Prepare for Laughs
This is Terry's Best...
Good Fun
The book was great!

Disappearing Acts
Terry McMillan
Manufacturer: NAL Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451209133
Release Date: 2004-01-06

Book Description

He was tall, dark as bittersweet chocolate, and impossibly gorgeous, with a woman-melting smile. She was pretty and independent, petite and not too skinny, just his type. Franklin Swift was a sometimes-employed construction worker, and a not-quite-divorced daddy of two. Zora Banks was a teacher, singer, songwriter. They met in a Brooklyn brownstone, and there could be no walking away...

In this funny, gritty urban love story, Franklin and Zora join the ranks of fiction's most compelling couples, as they move from Scrabble to sex, from layoffs to the limits of faith and trust. Disappearing Acts is about the mystery of desire and the burdens of the past. It's about respect, what it can and can't survive. And it's about the safe and secret places that only love can find.

Customer Reviews:

hated the ending.......2007-04-23

It was a good book but I wanted a surprise ending but it never came lol.

Prepare for Laughs.......2007-04-09

This complex love affair is very true-to-life, and though the characters may not have the baggage couples in most stories do, you'll be riveted.

This is Terry's Best..........2007-01-22

work to date. I first read this book in 1994, and in the year 2007, I still consider it to be her BEST stuff!!!

I loved both Franklin and Zora. The complex love affair between the two characters is very real and it played out nicely throughout the book. I particulary loved having a front row seat to their individual thoughts as their relationship progressed.

Their story is a true testament of how easy it is to lose yourself in another when in love.

Good Fun.......2007-01-14

This book was one of the first that I had read that portrayed a reasonable male-female relationship without much of the baggage that seems follow many of these relationships. The male had problems dealing with ghosts of the past, the female had problems with her ghosts. Its nice that it has since become a movie. I think the book is a much better journey than the movie.

The book was great!.......2006-10-15

I love all of Terry's books. She tells it like it is from a woman's perspective.Books are always better than the movie. You get so much more out of it. I own the movie and it wasn't all that, not like the book.The movie could have been much better than it was.Waiting to Exhale and Stella were good movies as were the books. Those two movie adaptations are the only exceptions. If you want to enjoy a good read, kick up your heels and laugh, as I enjoy with her other novels, read this by Terry! She will keep you in stitches!

Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War" (New Americanists)

Average customer rating:

A subjective examination of the Dirty War...
Not a First Resource Seeking Information on The Dirty War
Wonderful, fresh look at Argentina's Dirty War

Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War" (New Americanists)
Diana Taylor
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822318687

Book Description

In Disappearing Acts, Diana Taylor looks at how national identity is shaped, gendered, and contested through spectacle and spectatorship. The specific identity in question is that of Argentina, and Taylor’s focus is directed toward the years 1976 to 1983 in which the Argentine armed forces were pitted against the Argentine people in that nation’s "Dirty War." Combining feminism, cultural studies, and performance theory, Taylor analyzes the political spectacles that comprised the warâconcentration camps, torture, "disappearances"âas well as the rise of theatrical productions, demonstrations, and other performative practices that attempted to resist and subvert the Argentine military.
Taylor uses performance theory to explore how public spectacle both builds and dismantles a sense of national and gender identity. Here, nation is understood as a product of communal "imaginings" that are rehearsed, written, and stagedâand spectacle is the desiring machine at work in those imaginings. Taylor argues that the founding scenario of Argentineness stages the struggle for national identity as a battle between menâfought on, over, and through the feminine body of the Motherland. She shows how the military’s representations of itself as the model of national authenticity established the parameters of the conflict in the 70s and 80s, feminized the enemy, and positioned the publicâlimiting its ability to respond. Those who challenged the dictatorship, from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to progressive theater practitioners, found themselves in what Taylor describes as "bad scripts." Describing the images, myths, performances, and explanatory narratives that have informed Argentina’s national drama, Disappearing Acts offers a telling analysis of the aesthetics of violence and the disappearance of civil society during Argentina’s spectacle of terror.

Customer Reviews:

A subjective examination of the Dirty War..........2006-06-17

As a graduate student of Latin-American literature, and a history buff, I can recommend this book to any uninformed individual on the Dirty War and its origins. But at the same time I would recommend that you take some of Dr. Taylor's comments with a grain of salt. Her neo-feminist attitude and strict anti-Christian stance on U.S. politics would lead some readers astray in understaning the Junta and their torture, abuse, rape, and subsequent murder of over 30,000 desaparecidos (disappeared persons).
She begins the book with her analysis of a play entitled "Paso de Dos" in which a woman, who represents the "Patria" is brutally abused in a sexual encounter with a uniformed man in a mud pit - not exactly an appropriate way to begin educating the ignorant reader about Argentine history or theatre. She could have begun differently. But after having read many of the plays of Argentina, and analyzing them in a University setting, I CAN say that Argentine theatre was written in order to be a metaphorical representation of Argentine history and "Paso de Dos" does indeed serve as an accurate metaphor.
Dr. Taylor's basic argument - which is well-documented with pictures, plays, and other historical sources - is that the Dirty War's inevitability lies in the struggle of violence (particularly against women), and that the "feminization" of opponents of past regimes in Argentina coupled with the loss of basic rights to the more subaltern groups of the country when the military are in power, both worked together after the regime of Juan Manuel Rosas to produce the Dirty War.
She gives a brilliant analysis of the Peron regime and the power wielded by both Evita and Isbelita (which had opposite results) and she also includes vivid "testmonios" when analyzing the claims of torture on the average citizens of the country from 1976-1983. I applaud her objectivity when describing the Junta and their homophobic and sexually charged desire to create an artifical definition of what it means to be "Argentine".
Now to why I give it only three stars: she does an horrific job at comparing the torture of the fascist government and their murder of the innocents of Argentina to the actions of the religious right in the U.S.A. today. As a member of what many would refer to as "the religious right", I am aghast that she would even begin to think that right-wing Christians would be in favor of creating a government even remotely similar to the Junta. Her comments in the opening chapters and the last chapter expose her misunderstanding of what it means to be Christian - because none of her comments contain the use of any Scripture, they are made from the standpoint of being a spectator, and, like most ignorant academics, she probably confuses Biblical Christianity with Roman Catholicism and sees little to no difference between them because she does not know theology.
Dr. Taylor should be ashamed at even thinking of bringing American politics into a book about Fascist Argentina thirty years ago. There is NO, I repeat, NO comparison to be made between the Junta and the religious right in the U.S.A. As a Christian, my goal is to show non-believers that they are sinners, that they diserve hell, that Christ died to pay for the penalty of their sin so that they do not have to go to hell, and that by a repentant faith in Him alone one can be saved from eternal damnation. I believe that homosexuality (because she brings it up in the book) is indeed sinful - but I would never torture a homosexual. Even if I considered homosexuals my enemies (which I do not), Christ commands me to love my enemies. I also would not slit the stomach of a pregnant woman who I planned to throw out of a plane to make her body sink faster, nor use electric shocks to torture "subversives", nor even think about mixing the Catholic church - or even my own Church - with the state of a country. The consequences of mixing church with state are evident in 16th century Europe - when under Bloody Mary thousands of Protestants were murdered at the stake. The last thing a Christian would want is to give the power of the state authority over the Church and vice versa - but try telling that to Taylor - she is more concerned with praising Hilary Clinton and other liberal women in a book that is supposed to be about Argentina. Go figure.
So, in conclusion: read this while only paying attention to what she has to say about Argentina and its history. That is valuable. Her commentary is not.

Not a First Resource Seeking Information on The Dirty War .......2005-03-10

Diana Taylor is a brilliant writer and an obviously informed expert on the Dirty War of Argentina (1963 - 1976), a writer who has composed a Doctoral Thesis approach to her well-informed information about this misunderstood atrocity that nearly destroyed Argentina. Yet sound as her thoughts are and intensely well documented though her theories prove to be, this book is not recommended as the first line of information about this subject.

Taylor's premise involves theories as to how the Dirty War, or the atmosphere under the military juntas that replaced Peronism, are based on her observations as to how the public remained fearfully silent during this time of concentration camps, torture, atrocities, and most importantly the 'desaparecidos' (or disappearing ones) whose only voices were in the quiet marches of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. She informs us that the use of plays and spectacles attended by the Argentinians were in their own way a show of defiance to the manipulative military juntas. Performance, theatre, and poetry were the elected means of tacitly protesting the totalitarian military rule that choked this country until the fall of the juntas in the war over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands with Great Britain.

While all of what Taylor has to say is interesting and novel and important, what is needed to gain the most from this heady book is more time spent educating the reader about the political and social history of Argentina. Though the "Dirty War' is at times referenced in conversations about South American politics, sadly most of what we as the general public know of what lead up to the military takeover of the government is what we glean from such feeble resources as the musical EVITA! Though Taylor attempts to reference the state of Peronism in contrasting the fall of Juan and Evita (and subsequently Isabelita) Peron as a period of hallowing the feminine influence of the 'weak' but loved leaders, she jumps too quickly into the theory of the military overthrow as a reaction to the feminine, the desecration of the female standard so toppled by the military in its abusive treatment of women and children.

Where Taylor particularly shines (and there is MUCH to appreciate in this turgid, difficult to read book) is in her extended discussion of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. Here her theories all seem to gel. What is copiously discussed in the plays, poetry, and public spectacles (and Taylor is an experienced performance artist herself) is very important information, but draws excessive focus to the sedentary response to the Dirty War.

This book is doubtless an important document about a too little understood period of Argentinean history and Taylor is careful to point out similarities of public response in the US and in other countries whose governments seem less and less For and Of and By the people. I would recommend starting with more basic book about this period in time to reap the rewards that Diana Taylor has to offer in DISAPPEARING ACTS: SPECTACLES OF GENDER AND NATIONALISM IN ARGENTINA'S 'DIRTY WAR'. Grady Harp, March 05

Wonderful, fresh look at Argentina's Dirty War.......1998-07-31

Taylor has created beautiful book out of a horrendous period in Argentina. She is a wonderful writer, and the book left me with a prfound sense of sadness and a desire to save the world. I am currently studying the Dirty War and I found this book has been the meat of my studies. She looks at the Dirty War at many different angles and ties them together masterfully. From its theatricality, its war against women, and what we, as Americans, must do as spectators to this Dirty War, Taylor urges that the spectators have the greatest role of all. Even twenty years after the war has ended, Taylor has created a book that forces Americans to evaluate our situation as spectators and contributors to the darkest period of Argentina's recent history. A must read...the book is easy to understand even if you know next to nothing about Argentina.

Average customer rating:

OK , but language was a little dated at times

Disappearing Act
Sid Fleischman
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060519649
Release Date: 2004-07-27

Book Description

An unseen man they call the Toad is stalking twelve-year-old Kevin and his older sister, Holly. They flee town in Holly's beat-up old car, driving west until they reach the Pacific Ocean. They change their names and attempt to hide in plain sight as street performers in Venice, California. But have they really eluded the Toad? Here is Newbery Medalist Sid Fleischman doing what he does best -- spinning a tale with style.

Customer Reviews:

OK , but language was a little dated at times.......2003-07-09

This was an ok book, certainly not the most exciting I've ever read but the plot moved along with kids on the lam from an unknown stalker after their mother died. It did seem easier for them to make money than I think real-world-on-the-lam kids would find it.

Book Description

Maris¿s work with the local underworld on the huge space station was anything but honest, but life was much more pleasant than it had been before the gang¿s leader had picked her up from the slums. Then her boss grabbed a visitor to the station who was asking too many questions, only to find out that she was a very important diplomat. Then his prisoner apparently committed suicide by jumping through an airlock into hard vacuum. Since Maris and the missing diplomat had a strong facial resemblance, he decided to let Maris¿s corpse be found with the diplomat¿s IDs to avoid a search in his territory. Instead, Maris used the IDs to escape to the planet the Diplomat was about to investigate¿and found herself in a hornet¿s nest of corrupt officials conspiring with a local tyrant in a mysterious scheme. Surrounded by people who wanted her eliminated, the only person she could trust was Gabrel, a young officer who set off on a cross-planet trek with her to get evidence that would expose the web of corruption. Maris was strongly attracted to Gabrel and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Of course, he thought she was a high-ranking government agent; but she was only a petty criminal on the run, and her deception could not be maintained much longer. . . .

Customer Reviews:

Intrigue and action .......2007-03-05

Margaret Ball's DISAPPEARING ACT tells of a woman who borrows a rich stranger's identity - only to find the woman is supposed to be bionically enhanced with abilities and weapons she can't possess. Intrigue and action follow.

Immensely entertaining Sci-fi action story.......2006-11-16

This is a really good action story by Margaret Ball. Those of her novels which I have previously read have been fantasy but this one is science fiction.

The central character is an young orphan called Maris who lives on a space station where the only life available to her is to work for the boss of a criminal gang. The gang boss orders her to tail a woman who has been asking too many questions. Then the woman is captured by the gang, turns out to be a government agent or "Diplomat" called Calandra Vissi with all sorts of special abilities, and walks out of an airlock to avoid being forced to tell what she's up to.

Noting some resemblance between Maris and Calandra, the gang boss decides to provide the police with a body which they could mistake for Calandra before they can take the station apart looking for her. So he has Calandra's ID gimmicked to match Maris, and plans to fake her accidental death. Realising what he's planning, Maris escapes by catching the Diplomatic shuttle which Calandra was due to take to the primitive world Kalapriya.

However, Maris's problems are only just beginning. She has no training in how to pass for a diplomat, none of the enhancements which a real diplomat would have, and she hasn't been on the planet of Kalapriya for half a day when one of the criminals who Calandra was coming to the planet to investigate tries to assassinate her.

But although she isn't a real diplomat, Maris turns out ot bemore resourceful than anyone, including herself, could possibly have expected.

Delightful story with all the humour and charm one can usually expect from Margaret Ball.

The one warning I would give to anyone thinking of buying this, is that the racket the bad guys are up to is not just evil but seriously disgusting, and parts of this novel are not for the squeamish. Apart from that I can very strongly recommend it.

Decent story .......2006-02-03

Decent story about a teenage alley cat girl from a intersteller space station who is forced to masquerade as a "diplo" (sort of a far-future secret agent type), when she figures out her cohorts in crime intend to murder her and use her body in place of her virtual double, the diplo. So, using her new identity, she is able to get off the space station before she gets killed, and she is then forced to continue the masquerade on a strange planet, where she must ingage in all sorts of adventures in order to get by.

Drawbacks to the book are that there is no new SciFi technology introduced, and at times the story gets a bit too corny... especially the ending, which is almost "Disneyesque".

Worth geting into.......2005-02-28

This is basically a very good sci-fi book. Set off-world in a distant, but familiar, future it is a story about power hungry people illegally trading bio-technology for arms. Those who accidentally unravel the organization are not necessarily motivated by good intentions. In their own way they plan to benefit from the illegal trade until the moral implications of the corruption disgust even them. Eventually, the would be good guys mend their selfish ways and overpower the bad guys for a happy ending. On the way questions are raised about the morality of colonization of new worlds, ethics of applying bio-enhancements to humans, and the acceptability of exposing advanced technology to developing societies. It had thought provoking moments even though it sometimes read like a coming of age romance. (After all, the lead character was 17 pretending to be 30.)

On the other hand, Disappearing Act was very poorly edited. The pacing was terrible. It took me 100 pages to figure out where the story was going. I could not tell if the title referred to one of the main characters, Calandra or Maris; or the political prisoners of Udara. There was too much detail, too much background on lesser characters, too many cultural observations... get on with the story already. And the names! I had a terrible time with the names of the characters and the places without a discussion of the meaning of the names. The last 100 pages was a bit of a "hurry up" ending. Details, so painstakingly included in the beginning, were suddenly skipped, and the time line became confusing. Even so, it was still a good read, a nice starting point for women reading science fiction.

Average customer rating:

Fifth in series of Kim and Marc, young HAMs.

Disappearing Act
Cynthia Wall
Manufacturer: DIMI Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0931625297

Customer Reviews:

Fifth in series of Kim and Marc, young HAMs........1998-07-22

Fifth in series of Kim and Marc, young HAMs using their hobby to help others. I give this story 4 stars only because it may frighten young children. In all other aspects, I rate it a 5. In this story, we learn about a search dog, Patches; how the practice drill of Fox and Hounds can be put to excellent use in real life; and how the amateur radio hobby can be useful in serious situations. Cynthia Wall has done it again. Now, I'm looking for her next book!

Average customer rating:

A very excelent book for a book report.

DISAPPEARING ACT (Ghostwriter)
Judy Blundell
Manufacturer: Skylark
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0553373080
Release Date: 1994-03-01

Customer Reviews:

A very excelent book for a book report........1999-01-16

It was hard to put it down. I stayed up late and didn't mind a bit. It's a great mystery and really held my interest. The characters were well defined and I liked them a lot.

3 Titles By Terry McMillan - Waiting to Exhale - How Stell Got Her Groove Back - Disappearing Acts

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3 Titles By Terry McMillan - Waiting to Exhale - How Stell Got Her Groove Back - Disappearing Acts
Terry McMillan
Manufacturer: various
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000RFT766

Product Description

Multiple books shipped as one item for your convenience. Save on Shipping/Handling charges.

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Disappearing Act
John Sussams
Manufacturer: Pen Press Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1904754481

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