Aesthetic worldings of work: Exploring invisible women workers and work in glittery STEM careers

This article engages with the growing literature on visuality in work and organisations to examine how glitter functions as a compelling aesthetic means, organising how we perceive workers and work. Drawing on an empirical illustration of women STEM workers and work, it shows how glitter is deployed to enhance visibility, inviting broader gendered identification and encouraging more young women to pursue future STEM careers. However, by developing the new concept of ‘visual cuts’, the article argues that glitter does more than make visible, as it also renders invisible. Glitter directs visual attention towards certain representations of women STEM workers and work while obscuring others, thereby limiting understandings of diversity in STEM careers. Nonetheless, the article concludes that glitter retains a radical potential for organising more diverse workspaces thus emerging as a complex aesthetic means with critical implications for how we understand visibility, knowledge, ignorance and value in work and organisations.