Although women make up nearly half of the US work force, most organizational structures are built around assumptions about the “ideal worker” being male, non-reproductive, and always available. Women’s reproductive bodies disrupt this ideal, introducing material needs that masculine workplace norms do not account for. This study focusses specifically on women and non-binary people who underwent the medical management of (in)fertility while employed. Using the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) as a guiding framework, this study examines sociomaterial formations to explore how materials and discourses work together to create meanings, identities, and realities for those navigating (in)fertility at work. Findings revealed that embodied exclusion architectures function to marginalize reproductive bodies by privileging male-centered norms and constraining bodily agency.
Gilder et al. (Sun,) studied this question.