Episode 20: Taylor Cavallo and Mark Gatto, Work Dystopias and the Business of Gender

<p>In this episode we are joined by two guests, Taylor Cavallo (an Instructor at the University of Minnesota) and Mark Gatto (Assistant Professor in Critical Organisation Studies at Northumbria University). Our conversation with Taylor and Mark centres on the topic of work, drawing on their academic, professional, and personal experiences, and examines the dystopian and utopian elements of real and imagined work practices. We open by discussing how work is presented in the television shows <em>Severance</em> (2022+) and <em>The Handmaid&#39;s Tale</em> (2017-2025), and go on to talk about real-world work policies around things like parental leave may have utopian or dystopian bearings.</p><p><br></p><p>We discuss Taylor&#39;s and Mark&#39;s publications throughout this episode. Taylor&#39;s article, &#39;Beyond the womb: a mosaic of organizational advocacy for reproductive justice&#39; (2023), co-authored with Nicole Dillard, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13668803.2023.2277119" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">can be found here</a>. You can find Mark&#39;s book, <em>Parents at Work:</em><em><strong> </strong></em><em>A Dystopian ‘Fictocriticism’ to Subvert Patriarchal Organisations</em> (2023), <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-15482-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">here</a>, and his article, &#39;Parenthood demands: resisting a dystopia in the workplace&#39; (2020), <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13678868.2020.1735832" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">here</a>.</p><p>If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know! You can follow and rate the podcast, leave us a comment, or email us on <a href="utopiananddystopianfictions@gmail.com">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠utopiananddystopianfictions@gmail.com</a></p>