Masculine Work Research Articles

Gendered cooperation in a post-NPM era: a comparative study of the perceptions of municipal technostructure experts and middle-line managers

ABSTRACT By exploring the perceptions of cooperation between technostructure experts and middle line managers of different departments in three Swedish municipalities in a qualitative study, this paper contributes to an understanding of how gendered norms inscribed in type of work influence expectations on cooperation. Theories of principal-agent, stewardship, and partnership, and a gender perspective are used. The comparative analysis shows that despite changes in work roles under the influence of NPM, traditional norms about gender appear to be reproduced in the expectations of cooperation. The results illustrate how cooperation is shaped in contexts associated with feminine respective masculine work.

IDENTIFIKASI FAKTOR GLASS CEILING PADA PEREMPUAN PENDETA

The Reformed Church reconstructed a new identity for women as equal to men. The church reforms provided a bridge to the acceptance of women as pastors. If pastoral status is no longer a major issue in most denominations, the structural strategic status of the church is not. The number of women pastors who have succeeded in occupying structural strategic positions is still low. This condition indicates the occurrence of a glass ceiling. Glass ceiling is a metaphor that describes the existence of an invisible barrier in the form of a glass ceiling that prevents minorities such as women from occupying strategic positions.This paper is intended to identify the factors that contribute to the glass ceiling in women pastors. Identification was conducted using the qualitative method of a literature review of several journals and books. The results revealed that there are four glass ceiling factors. The first is the internal factor, self-efficacy (self-confidence, intention to persevere and self-development, ambition, education and experience, adaptability, and cognitive ability). Second is institutional/organizational factors (work environment), such as masculine work environment and culture, "queen bee" syndrome, and the threat of sexual harassment. Third, the preference factor (women's sex role), namely the double role (double burden) causes women to experience overwork. Fourth, stereotypes are the result of patriarchal culture (sociological aspect) and church teachings (theological aspect).

Review on the role of women along the aquaculture value chain in Kenya

Aquaculture is perceived as masculine work in most regions despite several years of women’s involvement in the sector. Women participate in almost all activities of the aquaculture value chain such as pond construction, sorting of seeds, fertilization of ponds, making and mending of fishing gears, fish harvesting, processing, value addition, transport, and marketing. The majority of women engage in aquaculture to earn income and food for the household. Women’s involvement in aquaculture has led to the creation of more job opportunities thus increasing income generation for rural women. Nevertheless, women face several challenges in aquaculture with the most critical one being limited access to income despite their heavy involvement. They also lack limited access to certified seed, high cost of feeds, and collaterals to access credit. The promotion of aquaculture, gender equity, and empowerment of women and youths has been promoted through various initiatives including Sustainable Development Goals and Blue Economy. However, gender discrepancies are still high despite both gender playing fundamental roles in aquaculture development. Therefore, there is a need to promote gender equity as it will lead to recognition of their full potential towards increasing production, productivity, processing, trade, and economic growth.

Evidence for “Pushed Out” and “Opt Out” Factors in Women’s Career Inclusion Across the World of Work in the United States

There is an ongoing debate over the extent to which women “opt out” and/or are “pushed out” of various occupations ( Kossek et al., 2017 ). To advance this debate, we explore the correspondence of women’s interests in stereotypically masculine work activities with the work activities of their occupations/occupational-aspirations. We examine 42,631 responses to a survey of employed and unemployed persons in the United States and analyze associations along all six of Holland’s ( 1997 ) interest/work-activity dimensions. Overall, we find support for a “pushed out” perspective as women’s interests in hands-on/practical, analytic/scientific, and managerial/sales-related work activities are less strongly associated with being employed in occupations with those activities – in comparison to similarly interested men. However, these effect sizes are small and we find support for “opt out” dynamics in relation to hands-on/practical occupations. Altogether, our results indicate the need to continue looking beyond women’s vocational interests as explanations of their underrepresentation.

Liaison Librarianship in Shiny Packages: An Exploration of Product Ownership in Academic Libraries

This column investigates the emerging role of the product owner (PO) – an individual tasked with ensuring that a specific service meets the needs of users – in academic libraries. It explores the PO role at the intersections of functional specialization, public services, and technical services, as well as from critical perspectives on gendered labor in librarianship. By examining how our library used the PO model to address pressing problems with our library’s institutional repository (IR), we demonstrate the value that the PO approach can bring to improving library products, especially when the PO is appropriately positioned to advocate for user needs. We also interrogate the overlap in responsibilities between the PO and liaison librarian and argue that the role of the product owner is a rebranding of the liaison librarianship model in an effort to make the emotional and relationship labor more masculinized. By emphasizing traditionally masculine work such as technology and innovation, the PO model allows libraries to market these specialized liaison librarian roles in ways that are more prestigious and aligned with corporate culture, while also downplaying traditionally feminized library work, such as service.

The future is female, the future is diverse: perceptions of young female talents on their future in the (German) event industry

ABSTRACT While critical debates around equality have recently increased in industry-led discussions, empirical research on gender-related hurdles in the German event industry remains scarce. At the same time, and due to the COVID-19 crisis, the event industry appears to be losing appeal to young people. Semi-structured interviews with female alumni from an event-related study programme in Germany were conducted to analyse the gender-related hurdles they have encountered since starting to work in the industry. The main challenges pertained to the masculine work culture; the glass ceiling; gendered stereotyping; and the difficulties of combining work and family life. Facilitators were their own motivation; mentoring; role models; and support from others. While COVID-19 heavily affected the German event industry, the interviewees regarded the resulting transformation as a chance. The findings can contribute to an increased understanding of gender-related constraints and to help shape a diverse industry as an attractive field of future employment.

Performances of Populist Radical Right and Political Masculinities


 
 
 Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the study of populism, with increas- ing scholarly attention to the discursive, stylistic and performative aspects of different populisms. This study discusses the “discursive and stylistic turn”1 in populism studies and highlights the centrality of performances of masculinities to the populist reper- toire. Upon this framework, we explore the ways in which masculinities play out in shaping the discursive, stylistic and performative repertoires of European populist rad- ical right (PRR). The conceptualisation of political masculinities is used as an analyti- cal lens that helps us see the gendered structure of discourses and performances in two dissimilar cases of PRR leaders, namely Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) of the Netherlands. We employ a comparative perspective so as to identify how performances of masculinity work in radical right populisms of dissimilar historical trajectories in terms of the loca- tion of gender in culture. We focus on Orbán’s and Wilders’ narrations of themselves; of their understanding of ‘the people’ whom they claim to represent; and of their relation with ‘the people’. A re-reading of the use of narratives, metaphors, gestures, emotions through an analysis of the two leaders’ interviews, speeches, texts and media performances reveal their masculinist ‘brave bad boy’ performances, the ways they draw boundaries between ‘outsiders and insiders’, and the ways in which they claim to embody the people, and to be ‘men of the people’.
 
 

Challenging Assumptions About What Works to Improve Organizational Gender Diversity

Despite decades of scholarship, major investments, policy changes, and the tireless efforts of practitioners, achieving greater gender diversity is still on the to-do list of many organizations. Although the causes of gender inequality have been understood for some time (e.g., gender stereotypes and prejudice, masculine work norms; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Ibarra, Ely, & Kolb, 2013; Kanter, 1977), many current practices used by organizations (e.g., bias trainings, grievance procedures) have proven insufficient to produce meaningful change. As a result, women are still excluded from many professions and high-status roles within them. This symposium offers four new perspectives on improving gender diversity, introducing new theory and challenging our assumptions about: (1) how wise interventions can offset gender disparities; (2) the consequences of experiencing chronic concerns about confirming negative gender stereotypes on women’s collective action efforts; (3) which formal mentorship programs are most effective at increasing diversity; and (4) the role of chauvinistic supervisors in perpetuating sexist thinking. Together these talks provide managers with new tools to address gender inequality and encourage them to more wisely use the ones they already have. Wise Interventions as a Starting Point for Bringing About Gender Equity in the MBA Classroom Presenter: Jennifer Kim; U. de los Andes, Colombia Presenter: Joel Brockner; Columbia U. Presenter: Caryn J. Block; Teachers College, Columbia U. Stereotype Threat’s Silver Lining: Predicting Women’s Support for Gender Balance Presenter: Clarissa Cortland; UCL School of Management Presenter: Zoe Kinias; INSEAD Mentoring Programs that Work Presenter: Alexandra Kalev; Tel Aviv U. Presenter: Gal Deutsch; Tel Aviv U. Presenter: Frank Dobbin; Harvard U. Presenter: Kwan Woo Kim; Harvard U. Prototype Alignment: A Method for Reducing the Influence of Chauvinistic Leaders Presenter: Felix Danbold; UCL School of Management Presenter: Corinne Bendersky; U. of California, Los Angeles

An Exploration of Motivations for Women Mine Workers to Work Underground

Women have previously been discouraged from pursuing careers in the mining industry given the intense nature of the work in the field and societal norms. However, with the attainment of democracy in South Africa, new legislative frameworks were introduced which advocated for women to not be discriminated against working underground. This article, therefore, focused on exploring the motivations of 10 underground woman mine workers to pursue careers in the mining industry despite the masculine work culture which is deemed exclusionary to women. The article used semi-structured interviews to collect data. Data collected from participants were analyzed using thematic analysis, in conjunction with the literature reviewed. The article unraveled that although the new democratic dispensation has tried to make the mining industry attractive to women, many of them went into the industry as a result of their economic and social circumstances.

“I just gotta have tough skin”: Women's experiences working in the oil and gas industry in Canada✰

Women remain vastly underrepresented in the oil and gas workforce. As such, they are subject to gender-based discrimination and harassment, perpetuated by a hyper masculine work culture, yet little is known about their experiences working on the front lines. Guided by feminist interpretive inquiry, the purpose of this research was to understand the experiences of young women in blue collar and administrative positions within the oil and gas industry, in a small Canadian town. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 women ages 18–30 between February 2018 and March 2019. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic content analysis, and findings were validated by a Local Advisory Committee. Participating women experienced gender-based discrimination and harassment. Still, many women enjoyed their work, took pride in defying gender-based expectations, and tended to persevere by having ‘tough skin’. Women's coping mechanisms tended to reinforce the masculine culture that perpetuates the gender-based challenges they face. Findings suggest that industry practices must adapt to create a safe and inclusive workplace.

Changing Women Social Status and Roles in Silent Film During the 1910s to 1930s

Gender issue emerges in all workspaces. Femininity always identified as weak, small, quiet, dependent and emotional through American history. Regarding filmmaking, we still think it's a masculinity work, and the women are often relegated to feminine jobs as assistants or so. "However, a close examination of the history of American cinema before and during its classical ear reveals that their gendered expectations were not absolute. A few women did become motion picture directors and producers, and there were also women who had successful careers as screenwriters. Of course, female movie stars and actresses were more numerous and better known than those few women working behind the camera" [1] (Benshoff, Griffin, 2009, p. 217). In American silent film, during the 1910s to 1930s, women’s roles and social statuses changed, and this transition was represented by films, both in in front of camera and behind of camera. Specifically, this paper will analyse three films to show this shifting process, Birth of a Nation (1915), Sherlock Jr. (1924) and the Blonda Venus (1932).

Masculinity in the Workplace: Iranian Women Engineers’ Navigations of Hyper masculine Work Cultures

Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology is a peer-reviewed international journal, which publishes original papers promoting theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in the discipline of socio-cultural anthropology.

It’s something that you should go to HR about' – banter, social interactions and career barriers for women in the advertising industry in England

PurposeThis paper uses a Difference Approach and Bourdieu's habitus theory to analyse the experiences of women working in the advertising industry with a particular focus on employee relations such as social interactions in advertising offices, banter and career barriers.Design/methodology/approachThirty-eight qualitative interviews were conducted with women from the advertising industry in England, exploring both the employee and managerial perspectives on social interactions. Women were asked about their office culture, including networking expectations, dress code, banter, social interactions and potential career barriers such as exclusion from business decisions and having to work harder to succeed. Thematic analysis has been used to analyse data.FindingsThematic analysis revealed two themes, patriarchal culture in advertising offices and gendered social interactions and banter. Women believe they are excluded from business decisions and perceive career barriers in office culture grounded in masculine banter and masculine social interactions. Similar themes emerged regardless of women's length of experience or role within the organisation suggesting a problem with the masculine work culture in the advertising industry in England. Besides, women tend to prefer different social interactions to men, but find masculine interactions domineering advertising offices.Practical implicationsEmployers should consider implementing new internal policies on communication and behaviour in offices to create a more inclusive and respectful culture. More consciousness-raising is needed to make women aware that inequality is more than just a pay gap and glass ceiling, but also the structure of the organisation and the office culture.Social implicationsThe paper contributes towards a better understanding of the impact of social interactions in the office on the work culture with a case study from the advertising industry. The paper points towards differences in communication and social interactions between men and women and the fact the masculine form of social interactions and banter dominate advertising offices.Originality/valueTo the best of author's knowledge, this is the first paper tackling office culture in the advertising industry in England using the Difference Approach and Bourdieu's habitus theory.

Fathering, parental leave, impacts, and gender equality: what/how are we measuring?

PurposeThis research article explores several questions about assessing the impacts of fathers' parental leave take up and gender equality. We ask: How does the conceptual and contextual specificity of care and equality shape what we focus on, and how, when we study parental leave policies and their impacts? What and how are we measuring?Design/methodology/approachThe article is based on a longitudinal qualitative research study on families with fathers who had taken parental leave in two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Québec), which included interviews with 26 couples in the first stage (25 mother/father couples and one father/father couple) and with nine couples a decade later. Guided by Margaret Somers' historical sociology of concept formation, we explore the concepts of care and equality (and their histories, networks, and narratives) and how they are taken up in parental leave research. We also draw on insights from three feminist scholars who have made major contributions to theoretical intersections between care, work, equality, social protection policies, and care deficits: Nancy Fraser, Joan Williams, and Martha Fineman.FindingsThe relationship between fathers' leave-taking and gender equality impacts is a complex, non-linear entanglement shaped by the specificities of state and employment policies and by how these structure parental eligibility for leave benefits, financial dimensions of leave-taking (including wage replacement rates for benefits), childcare possibilities/limitations and related financial dimensions for families, masculine work norms in workplaces, and intersections of gender and social class. Overall, we found that maximizing both parental leave time and family income in order to sustain good care for their children (through paid and unpaid leave time, followed by limited and expensive childcare services) was articulated as a more immediate concern to parents than were issues of gender equality. Our research supports the need to draw closer connections between parental leave, childcare, and workplace policies to better understand how these all shape parental leave decisions and practices and possible gender equality outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe article is based on a small and fairly homogenous Canadian research sample and thus calls for more research to be done on diverse families, with attention to possible conceptual diversity arising from these sites.Practical implicationsThis research calls for greater attention to: the genealogies of, and relations between, the concepts of care, equality, and subjectivity that guide parental leave research and policy; to the historical specificity of models like the Universal Caregiver model; and to the need for new models and conceptual configurations that can guide research on care, equality, and parental leave policies in current global contexts of neoliberal capitalism.Originality/valueWe call for a move toward thinking about care, not only as care time, but as responsibilities, which can be partly assessed through the stories people tell about how they negotiate and navigate care, domestic work, and paid work responsibilities in specific contexts and conditions across time. We also advocate for gender equality concepts that attend to how families navigate restrictive parental leave and childcare policies and how broader socio-economic inequalities arise partly from state policies underpinned by a concept of liberal autonomous subjects rather than relational subjects who face moments of vulnerability and inter-dependence across the life course.

White, Male, and Bartending in Detroit: Masculinity Work in a Hipster Scene

The hipster scene in Detroit, Michigan, is explored via participant observation and in-depth interviews. Participants used hipster norms as a resource for masculinity dilemmas, including a lack of white- or blue-collar jobs and stable female partners. The analysis examines how these men successfully enacted their progressive values in some arenas (read: gender) but not in others (race relations). More specifically, their emphasis on the creative class, the bicycle as an attainable status symbol, and “bro-mances” served as masculinity balms. These strategies are examples of how homophobia and violence are not always the response to “threatened” masculinity. At the same time, participants enacted a definition of community and specific spatial practices that resulted in a subculture with a white majority within a city with a black majority. This work demonstrates how ethnography is a powerful tool for studying the intersectionality of race, gender, and class in subcultures.

Women leaders in the workplace: perceptions of career barriers, facilitators and change

Questions of gender equality pervade our culture, particularly in the world of work, where about three quarters of leaders are men. This paper draws on 60 interviews with women in the UK, in senior leadership roles, in a variety of fields. The research questions address the interviewees’ perceptions of three areas: career challenges (or barriers) for women who wish to access leadership roles; the main facilitators of career progress for women and changes they have seen and anticipate seeing for women leaders at work. The main challenges or barriers were perceived as a masculine work culture; discrimination and the glass ceiling; gendered stereotyping; and the difficulties of combining work and family life. Facilitators were their own determination and agency, mentoring and networking, with little mention of support through places of work. With regard to change for women at work, they saw the glass ceiling as moving gradually upwards, although some more ‘masculine’ industries were more difficult for women to navigate. With the exception of the women in higher education, they did not support feminism or an affirmative stance towards women’s progress and in the private sector were accepting of the prioritisation of business motives over equity issues.

Prosumption of Discourse of a ‘Beautiful Policewoman’ By Netizens in Online News Portal

The emergence of young and stylish policewomen called “beautiful policewomen” as newscasters in the traffic information broadcasting program and various events contribute to mass media coverage of policewomen. In February-March 2016 two online mass media in Indonesia, Liputan6 and Tribunnews, intensively reported a beautiful policewoman who worked as a secretary of West Java Police chief and involved in the handling of bomb incident operation in Bandung, West Java. The news discursively figure a professional woman in the masculine work field. Most of the news about “beautiful policewomen” mainly focused on their physical attractiveness and explored private issues. Such news had gone viral due to the content distribution through Facebook and gained various comments from netizens. This research focuses on the netizens’ comments on the news of “beautiful policewomen” on Liputan6 and Tribunnews, which had gone viral on Facebook. It is aimed to examine the prosumption of discourse of a “beautiful policewoman” by netizens. Using Gunther Kress’ multimodal critical discourse analysis, this research analyzes the forms of discourse of the related news contents and the way in which netizens discursively construct a policewoman as a subject. The research reveals that netizens tend to associate beauty with capability and physical attractiveness. On the other hand, the studied comments figure the prevalent masculine dominance in Indonesian police institution. The roles of professional women remain being overlooked not merely in the workplace such as police institution but also publicly by media as well as netizens.

Managing Sexual Joking in Manufacturing Organizations: Harassment or Humor?

Although humor is a relatively common communication interaction, it has multiple functions. This article examines the discourse about sexual harassment and humor using the tension-centered approach. Using data from 20 in-depth interviews of men and women working in manufacturing, I explored themes about the use of humor, sexual harassment, and organizational tension. Analyzing the data within the tension-centered approach revealed strategies male participants used to manage sexual joking in highly masculine work environments with women present. Results indicated that the male participants reinforced the notion that manufacturing is male space by using humor and used exclusion and regendering to manage the tension that arose during exchanges of particularly crude sexual joking. Implications for the workplace and sexual harassment are discussed.

Double Trouble: How Being Outnumbered and Negatively Stereotyped Threatens Career Outcomes of Women in STEM.

Masculine work contexts form an important source of social identity threat for working women. But what aspect of masculine work contexts is most threatening to women’s gender identity at work: A numerical majority of male colleagues (i.e., numerical male dominance), working in a profession in which women are negatively stereotyped (i.e., normative male dominance), or the combination? The current study aimed to disentangle these two aspects of masculine work contexts by testing its combined impact on the experience of gender identity threat among women and men who work in the STEM sector (i.e., Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A field study was conducted among women (N = 177) and men (N = 630) graduates holding an academic degree in a STEM educational program. Respondents either worked in- or outside the STEM sector (i.e., stronger vs. weaker gender stereotype) and estimated the ratio of men to women in their direct work environment. Results from a Structural Equation Model demonstrated that women in STEM face double trouble: The combination of working almost solely with male colleagues (being outnumbered) and working in the technical sector (where women are negatively stereotyped) predicted the highest levels of experienced gender identity threat, particularly among women who highly identified with their gender group. Gender identity threat, in turn, negatively predicted women’s work engagement and career confidence. Men did not face double trouble: Their experience of gender identity threat was not related to working in a masculine STEM sector. Importantly, considering that the women in this sample already hold a degree in STEM, and have proven their competence in STEM and resilience to gender stereotypes, this research reveals how in naturalistic work settings, prevailing social identity threats continue to affect women’s professional careers.

Repair work as good work: Craft and love in classic car restoration training

Repair work is essential if we are to develop environmentally-sustainable societies, but repair activity has largely disappeared in advanced economies. Where it survives, work in repair is typically ‘dirty’ and undesirable. This article asks how repair work can be experienced as ‘good work’, drawing on the accounts of 20 trainees on a classic car restoration course. We observe that two features made repair ‘good work’ in trainees’ eyes: craft and love. Craft skills enabled trainees to imagine improved employment futures, but also engendered emotional satisfactions. What the trainees emphasized even more was love, in four distinct ways. First, there was ‘object-love’ for the classic car. Second, love was evoked as repair reconnected them with ‘authentic’ younger selves. Third, love was claimed to be a prerequisite to do the work. Fourth, love mediated market relationships, connecting repairers and clients in a ‘community of enthusiasm’. Our discussion contributes to studies of workplace emotions, which typically focus on feminized work, by showing how love also matters in experiences of masculine work. Identifying the attractions of repair, we also consider the liminal context of training and highlight the key conditions for the survival and growth of repair as paid ‘good work’.