SI 016 C with editorial changes.pdf (294.69 kB)
How women engineers do and undo gender: consequences for gender equality
journal contribution
posted on 2012-12-07, 09:27 authored by Abigail Powell, B Bagilhole, Andrew DaintyThe image of engineering as a masculine profession has reproduced the
perception that engineering is unsuitable for women. While various strategies
have been used to try to increase the number of women entering
engineering education and employment, their success has been limited. At
the same time it has been argued that the way gender is ‘done’ in work can
help diminish or increase inequality between the sexes. Using empirical
research exploring women engineering students’ workplace experiences,
this article considers how gender performance explains their behaviour
and attitudes. Butler implied that doing gender can result in our being
‘undone’. This was specifically found to be the case for the women students
in this study, who performed their gender in a particular way in
order to gain male acceptance. In doing this they utilized certain coping
strategies: acting like one of the boys, accepting gender discrimination,
achieving a reputation, seeing the advantages over the disadvantages and
adopting an ‘anti-woman’ approach. These strategies are part of women’s
enculturation and professionalization in engineering, yet they also fail
to value femaleness. In ‘doing’ engineering, women often ‘undo’ their
gender. Such gender performance does nothing to challenge the gendered
culture of engineering, and in many ways contributes to maintaining an
environment that is hostile to women.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Citation
POWELL, A. ... et al., 2009. How women engineers do and undo gender: consequences for gender equality. Gender, Work and Organization, 16 (4), pp. 411 - 428.Publisher
© 2008 The Author(s); Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing LtdVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2009Notes
This article was published in the journal, Gender, Work and Organization [© The Author(s); Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Ltd] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2008.00406.xISSN
0968-6673eISSN
1468-0432Publisher version
Language
- en