Doing/Undoing Gender in Research and Innovation – Practicing Downplaying and Doubt

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the ways in which highly educated women ‘do’ and ‘undo’ gender when they reflect on their work and careers in research and innovation (R&I). The broader research task is to identify the gendering effects that ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender achieve in R&I work. The findings indicate a constant uncertainty among interviewees about whether gender is significant at work. There are few signs of interviewees ‘undoing’ gender with the aim of changing the status quo. Instead, they conceive of gender as insignificant for various reasons, usually because of an absence of individual experience. They understand the core of gender equality at work in terms of a numerical balance of women and men and the promotion of balance in female-dominated work communities. The argumentation by women in R&I about ‘doing gender’ can be defined as ‘gender-doubtful’. Interviewees oscillate between two notions of the effects of gender: they see that gender may have an impact, but at the same time they resist any feelings about that impact by deploying counterarguments or scepticism. This article calls for an analysis of the ways in which doing and undoing gender are situationally specific.