Dialoguing …

Sustaining Tensions between Binary Oppositions

One issue that requires the sustained attention of communication scholars is learning how to maintain tensions between dualisms. As a feminist third wave emerges, a primary characteristic of this phase is learning to live with and navigate contradictions and ambiguities (Bailey, 1997; Orr, 1997). Contemporary feminist work opposes either/or thinking and behaving by revaluing the missing half of oppositions and promoting both/and thinking. Of particular importance to feminist organizational and managerial communication research is our continuing critique of sameness/difference and inclusion/exclusion, among other dualisms.

Sameness/difference typically refers to claims about the similarity or uniqueness of women and men. When women are presumed to be identical to men in all aspects except some biological characteristics, then advocates argue for equality. Equality arguments run into trouble when they neglect the disparate life experiences of women and men, the worldwide devaluation of the feminine, and the different expectations and consequences for identical behaviors enacted by women or men. However, when women are considered to be different from men, then two-culture arguments surface; the sexes' ways of knowing, relating, leading, making moral decisions, and viewing their organizational lives presumably are so different that women and men could come from different planets (e.g., Gray, 1992). Difference is problematic because of essentialist assumptions; namely, all women and all men are assumed to behave in certain sex stereotypical ways. The variations within and between the sexes are considered inconsequential. The complexities in work that seeks to understand women's and men's lives are obscured by pressures to simplify and arrange hierarchically.1

In addition to sameness/difference divides between the sexes, we also can look at sameness/difference with regard to race and ethnicity and sexual-social orientation. Expectations and consequences for similar behaviors enacted by whites or people of color and by heterosexuals or gays and lesbians are vastly different. Women of color may find themselves second-guessing or questioning what they know to be true or being subjected to others' assessments that they have been hired or promoted as “twofers” (see Allen, this volume). Gays and lesbians may situate themselves in an uneasy space in conversations and decision making about their lifestyle preferences when they are unsure about whether they will be accepted by others (see Spradlin, 1998; Woods, 1994). Sameness/difference arguments come into play at sites where identities are challenged and our responses cannot address the complexities of the situation. If we assume sameness, then we lose the diversity in human existence that enriches our experiences and thinking. If we take the argument about difference to the extreme, then we lose sight of the underlying similarity that unites all of us—our humanness and desires to be treated with dignity and respect.

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