Endorsing equity and applauding stay-at-home moms: How male voices on work-life reveal aversive sexism and flickers of transformation

What can we learn about women's organizational challenges by talking to men about gender roles and work-life? We attend to this question through an interview study with male executives, providing a close interpretive analysis of their talk about employees, wives, children, the division of domestic labor, and work-life policy. The study illustrates how executives' tacit hesitancy about women's participation in organizational life is closely connected to preferred gendered relationships in the private sphere. The case reveals a story of meaning in movement-aversive sexism marked by flickers of transformation-demonstrating how talk can both reveal and disrupt enduring gender scripts, and why hearing male voices is integral to addressing women's work-life dilemmas.