Male-dominated Settings Research Articles

THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY IN ANGELA CARTER’S THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES

Over the past decades, cis-women have obtained opportunities to demonstrate their skills and voice their opinion in what had predominantly been male-dominated settings, estab- lishing that there is no such environment unbefitting of their presence. However, this develop- ment in gender equality carries the question whether people of all genders are conditioned to change their innermost self in order to feel welcomed in Western societies which are predicated on masculine principles. In The Heroine’s journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness Maureen Mur- dock utilizes Jungian archetypes to examine the methods in which collective and one’s individual femininity keeps being suppressed in favor of traditionally established masculine traits. Outlin- ing each stage of the heroine’s journey, a psychoanalytic model of her own making, Murdock asserts that each individual must strike the balance between masculinity and femininity within themselves in order to complete their own, and others’, quest for wholeness. Considering that in The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter transforms masculine-driven fairy-tales into those celebrat- ing the aforementioned quest for balance, the purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed exam- ination of how Carter’s anthology follows the heroine’s journey. The paper establishes that each story corresponds to a stage in the heroine’s mythic quest, and that Murdock’s interpretation of Jungian archetypes echoes the character arcs of Carter’s heroes and heroines.

Online mental health training program for male-dominated organisations: a pre-post pilot study assessing feasibility, usability, and preliminary effectiveness

PurposeThe emergence of digital health interventions for mental ill-health in the workplace is expansive. Digital interventions delivered in male-dominated settings are less so. This pilot study aimed to assess the usability, feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects of an online intervention in a male-dominated organization. We focus on male-dominated as mental ill-health is frequently unrecognized and underdiagnosed among males.MethodsUnwind, a 7-week internet-based program with stress-management components, was tested in a pre-post pilot study. Unwind gets users to identify and understand their stress triggers and assists them to develop adaptive ways to manage these and their stress. Participants were Australian adults employed in a mining company. Follow-up assessment occurred 8 weeks after baseline. The primary outcome measure was change in stress symptoms, with secondary outcomes; change in depression, anxiety, insomnia, well-being, and alcohol use. User feedback and program data were analyzed to assess usability, engagement, and intervention adherence.ResultsEligible participants n = 87 showed significant reductions in stress (g = 0.46, p < 0.001), depression (g = 0.47, p < 0.001), anxiety (g = 0.50, p < 0.001), insomnia (g = 0.44, p < 0.001), and well-being (g = 0.32, p = 0.004) post-intervention. Significant improvements were observed in both well and unwell (mental ill-health) and male and female participants. There was no gender effect on outcomes. A dose–response was observed as the number of modules used was related positively to improvement in anxiety (F1,86 = 5.735, p = 0.019; R2 = 0.25). Overall users rated Unwind as useful and engaging.ConclusionThis study presents evidence base that Unwind is a feasible and acceptable approach to reducing employees’ mental health-related symptoms in typically difficult-to-reach male-dominated industries. Unwind is feasible for larger scale delivery within male-dominated industries.

It's Complicated: How a Subordinate's Gender Influences Supervisors' Use of Past Performance Information When Appraising Potential

ABSTRACTFirms often ask supervisors to appraise subordinates' potential to succeed in higher-level positions. These appraisals can take place within social and organizational contexts that emphasize improving the experiences of females in male-dominated settings. Using this context, we experimentally examine whether supervisors differentially interpret and use the same accounting information when appraising the potential of subordinates of different genders. We draw on attribution theory and research suggesting that a diversity emphasis sends two conflicting signals—females are less able than males, but more valuable from a diversity standpoint. We find that supervisors' beliefs about subordinates' abilities in their current positions are lower for female than male subordinates. While prior research suggests this should result in supervisors appraising female subordinates' potential as lower than males', we find the opposite. Our results suggest that firm efforts to improve the workplace experiences of females may do little to mitigate underlying gender stereotypes.

Arising of Informal Women's Learn-to-code Communities

Female-focused, grassroots communities purporting to help women learn to code are popping up in a variety of settings, indicating the motivation on the part of the participants to evade male-dominated settings while learning. However, little is known about how these groups function as an activity system. With current technology enabling the forming of virtual communities and the meteoric rise in use of the Salesforce CRM (customer relationship management) platform, a group of women have formed a coaching and learning community designed to help women move from Salesforce administrators to software developers through learning to code. We used activity systems analysis (ASA) to investigate this real-world instance of the larger phenomenon using an ethnographic approach. We used ASA to organize and make sense of the data by first creating a table listing the points on the activity system triangle (subject, rules, object, etc.) and filling in the points of the triangle based on the design of the coaching and learning group as described by participants; this gave us a high-level view of the activity system. To understand the subjects’ point of view of the system, we then created a new column in the table to fill in themes that emerged from our qualitative data analysis organized by dimension of the activity system. This process enabled us to capture the activity and the voices of participants as well as tensions that had emerged in the system. Findings show a range of outcomes, from participants crediting the group as a kickstart to the journey to successfully landing a job as a developer to members stalling in their progress after involvement. Results also show that purposeful tensions of welcoming novice questions and offering unsolicited verbal encouragement built into the activity system create a welcoming, safe environment for women learning to code.

‘We need a whole range of different views’: exploring the lived experiences of women leaders in Australian rules football

Sport has traditionally been a male-dominated pastime, where the structures and practices within sport have most often favoured males. More recently, the dynamic of sport has changed and the capabilities of women as athletes and employees (including leaders) are being recognised. While there are ongoing explorations focussing on the barriers that women have faced as a minority group in a male-dominated setting, it is also imperative to acknowledge the positive experiences of women as they navigate such a setting. This paper explores the experiences of 26 women working in traditionally male-dominated leadership positions in the sport of Australian rules football. While these women have faced some challenges relating to gender within their roles, this paper, through a third wave feminist lens, will focus specifically on highlighting the positive experiences of, and changes that are evident for, women in traditionally male-dominated leadership positions in Australian rules football.

“Try Not to Make Waves”: Managing Gender Discrimination in Outdoor Recreation

The presence of women in male-dominated settings, such as outdoor adventure recreation, is received with suspicion, whereby they must demonstrate competence before they are accepted and treated as being equal to men. This multiple case study examined four female professional outdoor athletes to explore experiences of gender discrimination in their professional interactions and their response to those experiences. The athletes experienced disparate treatment and each articulated distinct and clear examples of overt discrimination. In response to this discrimination, the athletes downplayed their experiences and indicated they could or should have managed these situations better and described how they took it upon themselves to adapt to the “reality” of being a woman in the professional ranks of outdoor recreation. While the athletes’ responses conform to broad cultural expectations, they warrant additional investigation and exploration.

“Are you crewed up with that bird from the uni?” the complexities of conducting ethnographic research in policing

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide some initial reflections on the complexities and challenges faced when conducting observations with police officers working in response and neighbourhood policing roles from the perspective of a young, female, researcher.Design/methodology/approachThe research consisted of 200 hours spent with operational police officers in a medium sized UK police force, predominantly in 3 cities, to explore the realities of frontline policing and policy implementation. This paper offers a reflexive account of conducting the research, as opposed to a discussion of the findings which align to the original research aim.FindingsConducting this fieldwork highlighted a number of complexities arising as a result of conducting ethnographic research in policing. This paper is concerned with the constructing of a researcher identity and navigating moral dilemmas based on the culture and use of language observed.Originality/valueWhilst this will be of interest to those engaged with similar policing research, such findings are also likely to apply to those conducting ethnography where there is conflict between their insider/outsider status, the potential for internalised moral debates and women conducting research in male-dominated settings.

Penalties for Unexpected Behavior: Double Standards for Women in Finance

ABSTRACT We present 179 investment professionals with a scenario that manipulates whether a male or female analyst persists in pitching a stock pick after it has been voted down. Respondents evaluate analysts as less promotable when they do not persist, but only if the analyst is female. Results are consistent with categorization theory, which suggests that evaluators rely on stereotypes to interpret unexpected behaviors. In male-dominated settings, the same unexpected behavior may be perceived as evidence of a “lack of fit” in evaluations of women, but nondiagnostic in evaluations of men. Analysis of free-response questions confirm that the unexpected behavior was a predominant focus in performance evaluations of women, but not for men. Semi-structured interviews with 13 senior investment professionals provide additional support for the role of expectations and categorization heuristics on promotion decisions. Our findings shed light on factors that may contribute to the investment industry's “leaky pipeline” for women. JEL Classifications: M40; M41; M49; M51. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

Strength in Numbers: A Field Experiment in Gender, Influence, and Group Dynamics

Policy interventions to increase women's presence in the workforce and leadership positions vary in their intensity, with some including a lone or token woman and others setting higher quotas. However, little is known about how the resulting group gender compositions influence individuals' experiences and broader workplace dynamics. In this paper, we investigate whether token women are disadvantaged compared to women on majority-women mixed-gender teams. We conducted a multi-year field experiment with a top-10 undergraduate accounting program that randomized the gender composition of semester-long teams. Using laboratory, survey, and administrative data, we find that even after accounting for their proportion of the group, token women are seen as less influential by their peers and are less likely to be chosen to represent the group than women on majority-women teams. Token women also participate slightly less in group discussions and receive less credit when they do. Women's increased authority in majority-women teams is driven primarily by men's behavior, not homophily or self-assessment. We find that over time, the gap in general assessments of influence between token and other women shrinks, but this improvement does not carry over to task-specific assessments. Finally, predictors of future grades are different for token women than for other participants, and regardless of treatment condition, women's task expertise is incorporated into group decisions less often than men's. Our findings have implications for team assignments in male-dominated settings and cast significant doubt on the idea that token women can solve influence gaps by leaning in.

Comparison within gender and between female and male leaders in female-dominated, male-dominated and mixed-gender work environments

ABSTRACT The aim of the study was to compare the self-rated leadership behaviors of men and women in female-dominated, male-dominated and mixed-gender work environments and make within-gender comparisons across these three contexts. Data was collected using the Developmental Leadership Questionnaire from a sample of Swedish leadership course participants (N = 1897). Female leaders rated themselves more favorably than male leaders in female- dominated and mixed-gender work environments. Only small gender differences were found in male-dominated settings. Women in female dominated and gender-mixed work environments reported more favorable self-ratings than women in male dominated contexts. Among male leaders, fewer differences were observed between different work environments. The results are discussed in terms of organizational culture, individual selection preferences and a rapidly growing proportion of women leaders in the Swedish labor market.

Gender Bias through Recategorization of Financial Analysts

We present 179 investment professionals with a scenario that manipulates whether a male or female analyst persists in pitching a stock pick after it has been voted down. Respondents evaluate analysts as less promotable when they do not persist, but only if the analyst is female. Results are consistent with categorization theory, which suggests evaluators rely on stereotypes to interpret unexpected behaviors. In male-dominated settings, the same unexpected behavior may be perceived as evidence of a “lack of fit” in evaluations of women, but nondiagnostic in evaluations of men. Analysis of free-response questions confirm that the unexpected behavior was a predominant focus in performance evaluations of women, but not for men. Semi-structured interviews with 13 senior investment professionals provide additional support for the role of expectations and categorization heuristics on promotion decisions. Our findings shed light on factors that may contribute to the investment industry’s “leaky pipeline” for women.

Female Masculinity at Work

In this study, the author interviewed 49 self-identified masculine women in the United States to examine how they negotiate stigma in the workplace. Masculine women often negotiate dual stigmas due to both their gender nonconformity and perceived sexual orientation. Participants used a variety of strategies to cope with their stigmatized identity including modifying clothing; incorporating feminine behaviors to counteract masculine appearance; working in high-demand, undesirable jobs; working in male-dominated settings; and opting out of formal work organizations. While some participants experienced mistreatment in male-dominated settings, many reported positive outcomes including strong relationships with male coworkers, opportunities for advancement, and a general comfort in the work environment. Participants challenge Goffman’s notion of sexual orientation as a concealable status, showing that sexual orientation minority women who are gender nonconforming employ strategies similar to members of other visibly stigmatized groups. Findings from this study suggest that researchers addressing sexual orientation minorities should include gender expression as a variable that can influence individual experiences and outcomes. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index .

THE GENDER POLITICS OF POSTFEMINIST SEMANTICS

1.IntroductionPostfeminism exploits a concept of feminism as inflexible, far-reaching, anti-sex and affair, challenging and extremist, providing the contentment of (re)claiming a distinctiveness manageable by gender politics, postmodernism, or established critique. Postfeminism frequently operates as a way of recording and apparently determining the continuity of option quandaries for women. The tremendous ideological effect that is constituted by an accrual of postfeminist cultural matter is the underpinning of conventional norms as the critical preeminent options (Bratu, 2016; Magrini, 2016; Schwieler and Magrini, 2015) in women's lives. Postfeminism confers substantial relevance to the configuration of a meaningful personal routine and the capacity to decide on the appropriate articles of trade to accomplish it, fetishizing female ascendancy and craving while reliably placing them within definite boundaries. (Negra, 2009)2.The Intricate, Shifting Gender Dynamics of the Present Postfeminist CultureThe influential politics within feminism has come out from the liberaldemocratic practice with a stress on marginal restructuring. The main goal is equality of chance, in which personal development is highlighted over essential alterations in the structural regulation of society. State interference concentrates on attaining a harmony between individual self-determination and community interests (Barnett, 2015; Krivochen, 2016; Rauch, 2016), assisting in moderating between opposing concerns. Liberal feminism is bound to accomplishing superior gender equality via legislative and policy amendment, its mission being to formulate and engage in carrying out schemes for alteration and bringing about equality for women via regulation within the political mechanisms and social strategies of liberal democracy. (Coppock et al., 2014)Postfeminism repudiates the egalitarian doctrines of feminism, becoming established as an ideological system in an epoch in which democratic fairness has coagulated into entitlism, substantially developing in the framework of influential antidemocratic propensities. The choices, chances, and incentives undergone by women in postfeminist media ensue to a gilt-edged group in possession of substantial informational, social, and financial resources. Postfeminism represses flexibility, furthering hindrance and the compliance to normative patterns of distinctiveness (Buchely, 2016; O'Neill, 2015; Zaharia and Zaharia, 2015) even while publicizing self-improving consumerism. Postfeminism flourishes on restlessness about aging, revamping the latter among a diversity of generational clusters and encompassing the possibility of age evasion. Postfeminism directs representational attention on household, time, labor, and consumer culture, and is likely to generate accounts and pictures that signify female apprehension and imagine female emancipation in these spheres. Retreatism is an essential social routine of postfeminist culture, being both vague and politically inconclusive. The postfeminist media culture inclines to reprocess established representational codes but deprives them of their reformist and/or conflicting attributes. In a hypermatrimonial, post- feminist culture, critical situations frequently convert to analysis even as individuals' recollection of topical mediathons disappears. (Negra, 2009)Individuals of all genders embrace the neoliberal, postfeminist subject view. Postfeminist rhetoric has highlighted and valorized female accomplishments within male-dominated labor settings. Postfeminism's emphasis on the female expert shapes the presumed entitlement to toil and spend money as the rationale of personal autonomy for women. Postfeminism formulates the newfangled self-determination for women as the capacity to make personal decisions, although the unmitigated amount of options and the requirement (Chen, 2015; Peters, 2015) to make them on an incessant reason has contributed to option occasionally becoming a burden. …

Gender and Detective Literature: The Role of Miss Marple in Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library

Considering the rise of detective fiction in the twentieth century, it is clear that Agatha Christie plays a very important role in the development of detective novels. As a female author, she achieves producing distinctive works and creating remarkable sleuths. Although her works reflect the conventional characteristics of detective narrative, what makes her fiction distinguished is the female sleuth Miss Marple, who is an unconventional character in terms of her position in Christie’s writings. Particularly, in her The Body in the Library , the character, Miss Marple, comes to the fore as an amateur investigator, who surpasses the power of patriarchal society. Her appearance among the male sleuths changes the route of the investigation when she accomplishes attaining the truth about the murder and revealing the mystery of crimes. In this sense, in a male-dominated setting, Miss Marple establishes order and morality in society and proves that women are as intelligent, reasonable and challenging as men. In this paper, Christie’s contribution to detective fiction by means of her character, Miss Marple in The Body in the Library , will be highlighted. Moreover, the stratagems Miss Marple employs to solve the uncertainties about the criminal case will be explored so as to emphasize the conflict between women and men not only in society but also in the field of criminal investigations, therefore together with her talents in the field of criminal cases, her struggles with the patriarchal values will also be discussed in this study. Thus, in this paper, Miss Marple’s efforts to enlighten the murder, her overcoming the prejudice against women and her prevailing over male-domination will be analyzed.

Isotta Nogarola--The Beginning of Gender Equality in Europe

This text focuses on two works by Isotta Nogarola (1418?–1466): her early letter to Ermolao Barbaro and her mature work, the Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve. Her letter to Ermolao Barbaro already shows traces of her style, which will become fully developed in the Dialogue: in one layer of textual meaning, she uses irony to give advantage to her male interlocutor, but in another layer she shows herself equal or even superior to him. A particular emphasis is put on the almost neglected second “edition” of her Dialogue, complied and published by her ancestor Francesco Nogarola in 1563. A comparison between the two editions shows differences in the perception of educated women: a female scholar who must fight for and justify her participation in a male-dominated setting of a philosophical discussion (in Isotta’s Dialogue) becomes a welcome and desired interlocutor in Francesco’s Dialogue.

‘Doing intimacy’ in a public market: how the gendered experience of ethnography reveals situated social dynamics

This article considers the way in which gender gains significance during ethnographic research to reveal situated social dynamics. As a female ethnographer in a male-dominated setting, I map my own movement and interaction through the field setting over time to show how my ‘practice of ethnography’ becomes, as it also reveals, a ‘practice of intimacy’. I pay critical attention to the physical realities of the field setting as they structure patterns of interaction, such that three seemingly simple actions, ‘hollering’, ‘kicking it’, and ‘walking’, emerge as highly consequential practices through which people construct, experience, and protect intimacy in public space. Following the ‘ethnography’ into the ‘discovery’, this article pushes the potential of reflexivity to illuminate the way in which multiple gendering processes unfold and become interrelated.

Gender segregation as a benefit - a qualitative study from Pakistan.

To explore the possibility of exploiting gender segregation as a benefit for registered female nurses. Nursing is a highly gendered profession in Pakistan with 95% of nurses comprising females who suffer from low professional status, negative identity and unfavourable work environments. A qualitative research design was used to interview 12 nurses in management positions through purposive sampling. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the views of female nurses on the benefits, if any, of gender segregation in the nursing profession. Content analysis identified three major categories of benefits of gender segregation for female nurses including: (1) demand for female nurses compared with demand for males, (2) resilience of female nurses in the face of difficult work environments and (3) comfort and safety of female co-workers in a male-dominated setting. Realising the benefits of gender segregation could mobilise nurse teamwork and union efforts in order to improve nurse identity, professional status and work environments. The present study highlights the nurse manager role in advancing knowledge of gender segregation benefits, team-building for gender solidarity, control of nurse supply, union mobilization and raising community awareness for women's health development.

Setting an egalitarian social norm in the classroom: improving attitudes towards diversity among male engineering students

This study tested the effect of a message describing a social norm of egalitarian attitudes and behaviors in an engineering college on male students’ attitudes and behavioral intentions surrounding diversity in engineering. Participants were first-semester university students enrolled in four sections of an introductory engineering course in two academic terms (Fall 2009 and Fall 2011). At the beginning of the semester, students in two of the four sections received the egalitarian social norms message in the form of an oral presentation given by a senior White male faculty member (social norms message condition). Students in the other two sections did not receive this presentation (control condition). At the end of the semester, all students were invited to complete a survey. Results from a sample of 129 students showed that compared to the control condition, male students in the social norms message condition had stronger intentions to speak out against racist behaviors in their engineering courses and teams, and (among White compared to racial minority men) more positive attitudes toward diversity in engineering. These results suggest that setting a tone of egalitarianism and intolerance of bias for incoming students could help create a more inclusive environment in a White male-dominated educational setting such as a college of engineering.

Off the corner and into the kitchen: entering a male-dominated research setting as a woman

Drawing on ethnographic data about 15 juvenile offenders, collected before and after my own pregnancy, this article shows how becoming a mother enabled me to access a previously closed-off research site while studying young male offenders on Chicago’s South Side. In this study, I introspectively reflect on the obstacles female ethnographers may encounter as they are trying to build rapport in a male-dominated setting. My narrative shows that the apprentice role, often adopted by male ethnographers of the American inner city, may be challenging for women to take on. Sexual advances and limited access to male-only spheres can significantly impede data collection. Yet, as I will demonstrate, women can alternatively rely on nonsexual, gender-specific roles, such that of a mother, not only to build rapport but also to broaden the perspective on field sites that have largely been explored from a male point of view.

Systematic social observation of police decision-making: the process, logistics, and challenges in a Canadian context

Research on police decision-making and the use of discretion predominantly relies on official records or qualitative interview and participant observation data. Pioneered by Albert J. Reiss, Jr. in the 1960s, systematic social observation is a field research method simultaneously gathering quantitative and qualitative data in a natural setting. Data collection procedures are stipulated in advance reducing bias and allowing for scientific inference, replication, and measurable process outcomes as the observations recorded are independent of the observer. Although three large scale studies have been conducted in the United States to understand police behaviour, this ‘gold standard’ is used infrequently due to methodological challenges in an applied setting. The current research is the first sole observer and non-U.S. study conducted with a Canadian regional police service. Discussion of methodological innovation, challenges, and process are based on the experience of collecting data on 406 police–citizen encounters involving 568 citizens over 637 observational hours. To assist future researchers, the method and data collection using modified instruments as well as the challenges of resources, police cooperation, bias, reactivity, field role, and dynamics of conducting research as a female in an insular, male-dominated setting are explored.