Journal ArticleDOI
Doing gender in engineering workplace cultures. I. Observations from the field
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, the authors present observations about gender dynamics in engineers' everyday interactions, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in three companies, and they see that doing the job often involves "doing gender".Abstract:
It is frequently claimed that women who enter engineering have to ‘fit in’ to ‘a masculine culture’, but there is little systematic evidence on this. This article presents observations about gender dynamics in engineers' everyday interactions, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in three companies. The overall picture is mixed. Engineers are generally respectful in their interactions, but there are subtle dynamics which make it easier for (more) men than women engineers to build effective work relationships and to ‘belong’. Topics of conversation are generally quite wide-ranging and inclusive amongst close colleagues, but lean heavily on gender-stereotypical subjects with outsiders. Most engineers take some care not to cause offence to others, but in some workplaces the humour and chat are very sexualised and sexist. Engineering can accommodate a range of masculinities, but some are more influential than others. Throughout, we see that doing the job often involves ‘doing gender’. Workplace cultures not only...read more
Citations
More filters
Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
TL;DR: The body politics of Julia Kristeva and the Body Politics of JuliaKristeva as discussed by the authors are discussed in detail in Section 5.1.1 and Section 6.2.1.
Journal ArticleDOI
Doing gender in engineering workplace cultures. II. Gender in/authenticity and the in/visibility paradox
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the in/visibility paradox, whereby women engineers are simultaneously highly visible as women yet invisible as engineers, and found that women engineers' invisibility as engineers is evident in the greater effort required of them to be taken seriously as "real engineers" and the undermining of confidence which can ensue.
Journal ArticleDOI
Engineering Identity: Gender and Professional Identity Negotiation among Women Engineers
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider how women in a gendered profession, engineering, construct their professional identity in response to workplace interpersonal interactions that marginalize it and explore how these interactions influence the engineers' sense of self and belonging in engineering.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reconstructing engineering from practice
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the foundation of engineering practice is distributed expertise enacted through social interactions between people, and that engineering relies on harnessing the knowledge, expertise and skills carried by many people, much of it implicit and unwritten knowledge.
Book ChapterDOI
The (Mis)Framing of Social Justice: Why Ideologies of Depoliticization and Meritocracy Hinder Engineers’ Ability to Think About Social Injustices
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that two prominent ideologies within the culture of engineering, depoliticization and meritocracy, frame social justice issues in such a way that they seem irrelevant to engineering practice.
References
More filters
Book
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
TL;DR: The body politics of Julia Kristeva and the Body Politics of JuliaKristeva as mentioned in this paper are discussed in detail in Section 5.1.1 and Section 6.2.1.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gender and power : society, the person, and sexual politics
TL;DR: In this paper, the Mystery in Broad Daylight: Gender Formation and Psychoanalysis is described as a "mystery in broad daylight": the body and social practice of women in the context of political theory.
Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame and silence in the construction of gender identity.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the social and historical construction of both hegemonic masculinity and alternate masculinities, with an eye toward offering a new theoretical model of American manhood.