Journal ArticleDOI
Doing gender in engineering workplace cultures. II. Gender in/authenticity and the in/visibility paradox
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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.Abstract:
Part I of this paper (in Volume 1, Issue 1) presented fieldwork observations about everyday interactions in engineering workplace cultures, which tend to make it easier for men than for women to build working relationships and to ‘belong’ in engineering. This second part extends the analysis, by examining the ‘in/visibility paradox’ whereby women engineers are simultaneously highly visible as women yet invisible as engineers. This paradox is a key to understanding how women engineers experience engineering workplace cultures, and a major factor underlying the poor retention and progression of women in engineering. 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. Their visibility as women brings contradictory pressures – to be ‘one of the lads’ but at the same time ‘not lose their femininity’. These in/visibility dynamics have a significant cumulative effect, not least be...read more
Citations
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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
Professional role confidence and gendered persistence in engineering
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used original panel data to examine behavioral and intentional persistence among students who enter an engineering major in college and found that women's relative lack of this confidence contributes to their attrition.
Journal ArticleDOI
Navigating the heteronormativity of engineering: the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual students
Erin A. Cech,Tom J. Waidzunas +1 more
TL;DR: This paper conducted an exploratory study of the ways LGB students at a major research university in the western United States both experience and navigate the climate of their engineering college and found that pervasive prejudicial cultural norms and perceptions of competence particular to the engineering profession can limit these students' opportunities to succeed, relative to their heterosexual peers.
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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.
References
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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.
Book
Men and Women of the Corporation
TL;DR: Men and Women of the Corporation: The Population, Industrial Supply Corporation: Setting Roles And Images as discussed by the authors, Men and women of the corporation: The population, the setting roles and images, the players and the stage.