Nature Of Masculinity Research Articles

‘I’m good at science but I don’t want to be a scientist’: Australian primary school student stereotypes of science and scientists

ABSTRACTLow participation rates of students studying science at the secondary level are of international concern. One of the under-researched factors influencing low participation rates in the sciences in Australia is primary school student stereotypes concerning science and scientists. We explore how Year 4 (9–10-year-olds) students perceive science, scientists, and a career in science. Data sources included 45 students (m = 29; f = 16) attending six primary schools in diverse contexts in Queensland, Australia. Analysis indicated that when prompted to consider a career in the sciences 13 students aspired to a career in science, 6 students were unsure, and 25 students indicated no aspirations toward an occupation in the sciences. Findings indicated there were no significant differences regarding aspirations towards a science career based on the location of schools with socio-economic status not a salient influence. Categories and sub-categories identified included (i) Stereotypical views of scientists (non-gendered; paraphernalia), and, (ii) Non-Aspirations (difficulties and pressure; science work as physically dangerous). Outcomes provocate research into tensions between the non-gendered language used by students to describe who can be a scientist, on the one hand, and their reluctance to become a scientist due to the masculine nature and dangers of such work, on the other hand.

The boxing gym as masculine space

ABSTRACT This paper is divided into five parts. Parts I and II place the discussion in the context of anthropological spaces and more specifically sports spaces, including discussion of the extent to which these may be gendered. Part III focuses on the question of the nature of masculinity, while Part IV investigates the status of boxing as expression of masculine identity. Part V looks further into boxing and the spaces of boxing as an expression of modern masculinity, with part VI considering women’s recent appropriation of pugilism. The paper finishes with a brief reflection leading to the conclusion that although the boxing gym remains a masculine space it is no longer an exclusively male preserve.

I’ve Got Something to Say: Gender, Race, and Social Consciousness in Rap Music, by Matthew, Oware. 2018. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, Switzerland. 240 pages. $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 978‐3319904535.

I’ve Got Something to Say: Gender, Race, and Social Consciousness in Rap Music, by Matthew, Oware. 2018. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, Switzerland. 240 pages. $60.00 cloth. ISBN: 978‐3319904535.

The Iconography ofSonaf Nis NoneTraditional House in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

TheAtonitribe is a native of Timor, inhabiting the western and central parts of Timor Island. Its traditional house functions as a place for dwellings and for performing certain rituals. The form of the house is unique and contains rich meanings that could be studied. There are someAtonitraditional houses that are still maintained in Maslete Village, North Central Timor Regency in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. There are four types ofAtonitraditional houses namely,Sonaf, UmeKbubu, Lopo andUme Knat/Kanaf. This research will focus on studyingSonaf Nis None, the house with the highest hierarchy in Maslete Village. It is qualitative research with the method of descriptive analysis and using Panofsky's approach of iconography that was conducted through two stages. The first stage was pre-iconography stage which was conducted to obtain the textual meaning and the second was the iconography stage, performed to discover the contextual meaning. Findings reveal that the traditional house of theAtoniTribe has a rich meaning, conveying life values. The house was a manifestation of the outlook and philosophy of a harmonious life, articulated through the form of the house and its surrounding environment as a microcosm in accordance with the rules of the universe or and the wider world (macrocosm), by using a double pattern (pairs) in the architecture and interiors of the traditional house. The set of pairs as a whole is represented by the masculine and feminine nature of the fetomone couple (female-male), that have two opposing qualities but complement and enliven each other. These meanings have been the sources of inspiration for the design of today's homes. Their form and appearance may be modern, but the concept of the value presented is the continuity of Atoni's preserved cultural values.

The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature: Value and Economy in Late Medieval England by Diane Cady

Reviewed by: The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature: Value and Economy in Late Medieval England by Diane Cady Rosemary O'Neill Diane Cady. The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature: Value and Economy in Late Medieval England. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Pp. ix, 189. $84.99 cloth; $69.99 e-book. This innovative, engaging study explores how gender and economics are mutually reinforcing discourses in the literature of late medieval England, a time before the bifurcation of political economy from domestic economy [End Page 393] (a change Cady locates in the eighteenth century) occluded their interdependence (7). The book analyzes a wide range of poems in Middle English, from works by Chaucer and Gower to anonymous romances, to uncover a set of interlocking representations of gender and money. In text after text, Cady finds that wealth is a masculine prerogative, while poverty is emasculating; women are objects for possession, simultaneously untrustworthy and fickle like money itself. As she persuasively argues, these insights hold profound implications for how to think about both gender and economics, in the medieval period and also in the present day. Taking as its focus "gender as ideology" rather than embodied gender, Cady's analysis is particularly indebted to the work of Gayle Rubin ("The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex" [1977]) and Jean-Joseph Goux (Symbolic Economies: After Marx and Freud [1973, trans. 1990]). The influence of the former resonates most strongly in the book's organization around narratives of heterosexual courtship, in which men's relationships to material goods are negotiated through their relationships to women, and vice versa. In the introduction, Cady situates her argument within the rich vein of recent work in Middle English on economics and literature (4). Yet in blending historicism with psychoanalytic and semiotic approaches, the book also harkens back to the New Economic Criticism of the 1990s (6). Chapter 2, the first body chapter, elaborates two main claims: "Money and women have a similar nature, one that is marked by instability and movement," and "the link between erotic and fiscal possession in the medieval cultural imaginary [is crucial to] the construction of male identity" (13). To develop these claims, Cady explores medieval theories of reproduction as well as monetary value, before offering a series of close readings that illustrate the fickle qualities of female characters and their role as repositories of value in a series of representative texts, including the Lady Meed episode of Piers Plowman, Thomas Chestre's Sir Launfal, and The Reeve's Tale. The book's third chapter attends to a single text, the anonymous late medieval/Tudor romance The Squire of Low Degree, to explore how the text "enact[s] … fiscal and sexual fantasies" (33) that are essentially intertwined as the Squire seeks both love and money in the King of Hungary's court. Cady reads the king's daughter's seven-year retreat to her chamber in the company of a dead body as a refusal to participate in the erotic economy in lieu of a more transgressive expression of libidinal energy. The daughter ultimately returns to circulation through her [End Page 394] father's power, revealing both a conservative gender ideology that reserves power and wealth for the sovereign patriarch, and the conservatism of the romance genre more generally. Chapter 4 announces a new section, which turns to the notion of value itself and "how gendered notions of economy inform the ways we think about value, especially in realms that the West often treats as 'value free' or beyond economy, such as friendship, love, and poetics" (51). The three chapters that follow are an especially coherent and successful section of the book, perhaps because they mark a concurrent narrowing in focus to the nature of masculinity within the gendered economy. The fourth chapter, on Lydgate's Fabula duorum mercatorum, takes up friendship and its discontents within the context of the interested exchanges of goods that the characters' livelihoods comprise. The flow of goods between the narrative's two merchants allows us to chart an anxious masculinity, hemmed in by dangers: to trade in goods is to risk loss, yet to be too free with...

ГЕНДЕРНЫЙ АСПЕКТ ОБРАЗА АЛТАЯ В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ Г.Д. ГРЕБЕНЩИКОВА

The paper considers gender characteristics of the image of Altai in fiction and publicistic texts by George Grebenstchikoff. The texts under consideration are Grebenstchikoff’s essays Altai Rus’, My Siberia, the fairy tale Khan-Altai in Russian and in English. The paper aims at revealing the relationship between the narrator and the locus of the texts in terms of the category of gender. Imagological characteristics of the image of Altai gender identity in Grebenstchikoff’s texts show the mixture of subjective, emotional, objective, philosophical and analytical narrative traditions in these texts about Altai. Gender identity of the image of Altai is connected to the traditional, patriarchal androcentric worldview, when the way of verbal expression is “controlled by the dominating group”, and the reality of the less influential groups is not represented. The masculine nature of Altai, the Mountain Spirit, is shown in the Altai folklore, which is connected to the embodiment of Altai in the images of White Burkhan and his friend Oyrot. Symbolically, this masculine embodiment of Altai exists in George Grebenstchikoff’s texts as the image of Khan-Altai, the reminiscence to the art and prosaic works of Grigory Choros-Gurkin. This masculine image of Khan-Altai is associated in Grebenstchikoff’s texts with the motifs of running water (a river, a spring) and a song glorifying Altai (a hymn of eternal life). Both the masculine KhanAltai himself as well as Khan-Oirot, the male embodiment of the river (Chulyshmanbogatyr), the shepherd, and the shaman Bakhsa are endowed with a voice, can sing and, thus, participate in the communication with the gods and forces of nature. In selftranslations (My Siberia, Khan-Altai) Grebenstchikoff uses the standard pronoun it while referring to Altai. In the patriarchal, androcentric worldview the masculine image of Khan-Altai is represented with the traditional cognitive metaphors as A MAN IS A WARRIOR, A MAN IS A CREATOR and A MAN IS A SINGER. The narrator in Grebenstchikoff’s texts describes the internal space of Altai semiosphere. Opposite to the “chaos”, strange and dangerous space, this “fairy tale”, “mysterious” semiosphere is separated from the outer world by the line of the Altai Mountains. In his publicistic texts, Grebenstchikoff’s narrator is expressly objective, transferring the folklore metaphor ALTAI – BOGATYR, firstly, with the help of represented speech, and then, with by direct citing from the Altai epic. In the fairy tale Khan-Altai, the narrator is extremely emotional and subjective: he speaks directly to Altai-Bogatyr [Giant Altai], which is related to gaining insight into the spiritual vertical as well as the narrator’s ascending to the female embodiment of Altai – its highest peak, Belukha. The reference to Belukha, the queen of Altai, is made in Grebenstchikoff’s texts with the help of the pronoun ona / Ona [she / She]. The same strategy is used in the self-translations into English: the author uses the pronoun she / She contrary to the rules of the English grammar. Masculine embodiment of Altai, Khan-Altai, is the reminiscent image in Grebenstchikoff’s texts. But the real embodiment of Altai is a strong archaic symbol of the Altai queen, “the queen of Asian mountains”, the Belukha, which creates the spiritual stairs of the world for the narrator and his follow-travelers. The writer follows there the traditions of Russian Romantic montanistics, reconsidered in the context of modernism. The masculine embodiment of the Altai image, Khan-Altai, turns out to be a “reminiscence image” in the reviewed Grebenstchikoff’s journalistic and literary texts. The true embodiment of Altai is the powerful archaic image-symbol of the queen of Altai, the “queen of the Asian mountains” Belukha, who creates for the narrator and his companions the “spiritual vertical” of the world.

Texas Women and Ranching: On the Range, at the Rodeo, and in Their Communities ed. by Deborah M. Liles and Cecilia Gutierrez Venable

Reviewed by: Texas Women and Ranching: On the Range, at the Rodeo, and in Their Communities ed. by Deborah M. Liles and Cecilia Gutierrez Venable Elyssa Ford Texas Women and Ranching: On the Range, at the Rodeo, and in Their Communities. Edited by Deborah M. Liles and Cecilia Gutierrez Venable. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2019. ix + 164 pp. Illustrations, map, table, contributors, index. $32.00, cloth. Texas Women and Ranching is an edited collection that came out of a series of conferences and academic conversations centered on the long role that women have played in the Texas ranching industry. The book brings together scholars and writers from various disciplines, but most are historians from Texas. The introduction explains that it has been difficult in Texas to overcome the continued focus on men, not women, in ranching histories. The masculine nature of much of Texas history is true, and this book does not stand alone in its endeavor. It joins other recent work by Sara Massey, Jane Clements Monday, Carmen Goldthwaite, and Rhonda Lashley Lopez. The nine chapters highlight different women, ranching regions, and times, from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. It is a lot to accomplish, and the book would benefit from a thesis or themes to connect the chapters. The introduction divides the women into three categories—elite ranching women, women on smaller ranches, and rodeo women—while the title separates them differently: women on the range, at the rodeo, and in their communities. Despite these various divisions, most chapters examine women on the ranch. One chapter, Renee Laegreid's piece on Kathryn and Nancy Binford, mentions women in rodeo. A few, such as Jack Becker's chapter on Mattie B. Morris, highlight the roles these women held as ranchers within their communities. At times, nonranching community life comes to the fore. This is most prominent in the final chapter where Hollace Ava Weiner presents the life story of Frances Rosenthal Kallison. Kallison's story is a fascinating one of Jewish ranching in San Antonio, but the focus on her nonranching community involvement feels like a missed opportunity to place her experience into the broader context of Jewish ranching life. Most of the chapters are biographical in nature, and they tell us interesting stories about how these women came to own land and to ranch. The most successful are those that move beyond the narrative. In her piece on the fence-cutting wars, Brooke Wibracht effectively shows how two ranching women became active players in protecting their land. Sometimes they used their position as women but often they highlighted their rights as landowners, not women, in their public and private appeals for support. The beautiful cover art, provided by an inductee to the National Cowgirl Museum's Hall of Fame, and the short chapters make this book a quick, appealing read for those interested in women's history and western history. Elyssa Ford Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Northwest Missouri State University Copyright © 2021 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Bruin Ous Are the Main Ous: Memory and Masculinity in a South Durban Township

This study examines the importance of historical memory in galvanising constructions of masculinity in Wentworth, a formerly ‘coloured’ township in South Durban. Semi-structured focus group discussions and individual interviews with 28 coloured men uncovered a tradition of activist masculinities in the community and also revealed the complex ways in which the apartheid project continues to shape masculinity and family life in Wentworth. We explore the intergenerational nature of masculinity by considering how two generations of men (ages 30–45 and 45–65) use memories of apartheid in their processes of identity formation. We illustrate how memories of gender under apartheid modulate across time, contributing to masculinised performances of race and identity in a post-apartheid climate. We argue that a more nuanced understanding of coloured masculinities is necessary within the literature on race and gender in South Africa, as popular perceptions of coloured men as violent, aggressive and heterosexist loom large in the South African imagination. Such stereotypes obscure the complex history of gender and race in southern Africa and disregard the diverse expressions of masculinities in coloured communities.

Manly Merchants

This article explores intersections between masculinity, mobility, generation and commerce through the everyday lives of Afghan men who make up trading networks that are active across Eurasia. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork among Afghan traders in Ukraine’s port city of Odessa and in the international trading city of Yiwu in China. Building on recent work in anthropology concerning the ‘emergent’ nature of Middle Eastern masculinities, the article brings attention to the flexible and adaptable nature of the notions of masculinity held and performed by mobile Afghan traders. It emphasises the need for such conceptions of masculinity to be treated historically and draws attention to the forms of caregiving that are especially important to the traders’ intimate lives and self-understandings. The article also highlights the significance of complex notions of trust both to the traders’ articulation of conceptions of manliness and to their everyday modes of securing a livelihood.

Exploring strategies to improve gender equity in a masculinized field of study

Female student representation in PGA golf management academic programs has consistently hovered below 5%. The reasons for this low representation are unclear, although the masculine nature of the golf industry has been well documented and may be contributing factor. Through the use of focus groups with faculty directors of PGA golf management academic programs and PGA industry professionals, this study sought to identify barriers and facilitators women face when enrolled in PGA golf management programs. Findings point to changes in policies and practices that could contribute to an improved rate of persistence for women in these unique academic programs.

“Don’t Give Up! Don’t Give in!” Gender in International Relations and “Curious” Feminist Questions

“Don’t Give Up! Don’t Give in!” Gender in International Relations and “Curious” Feminist Questions

Real men: Sam Smith’s emasculation of the James Bond theme

ABSTRACTIn Spectre (2015), British pop star Sam Smith contributed the James Bond theme The Writing’s on the Wall and in so doing was accused of emasculating the towering figure of Bond who has been the epitome of ‘manliness’ since the franchise’s inception in 1962. In this article I argue that Smith Smith’s voice discomforted many of its critics because it penetrated the Bond universe with its passivity, revealing the enigmatic nature of masculinity in a franchise that has attempted to rebrand itself as an authentic representation of masculinity in the current moment. By giving Bond an ‘authentic’ voice, Smith’s theme song laid bare Bond’s emptiness and, in the process, undermined Smith’s own claim to authenticity. I argue that the weight of the franchise’s history precludes any real, deep-rooted, authentic ‘unveiling’ of Bond’s character. As such authenticity is impossible, Smith’s Bond might have challenged Bond’s masculinity on the surface, but ultimately it could not disrupt Bond’s elusiveness.

Masculinity and Neighborhood Bullying among Adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria

Masculinity, as an identity signifier along gender lines, varies from one society to another. The nature, definition, and expression of masculinity (dominance, oppression, violence, and aggression) through social interactions may breed bullying, as found in the Agbowo community of Ibadan, Nigeria. The data for the study were collected through mixed methods and revealed that patriarchal constructed masculinity allows for hegemonic dominance, aggression, oppression, and violent acts that foster bullying among adolescent males in Agbowo. Hence, to address bullying-related problems among adolescents, an understanding of the societal context in which it is carried out is required.

EMBRYOLOGY, FEMALESEMINAAND MALE VINCIBILITY IN LUCRETIUS,DE RERVM NATVRA

In a poem setting forth the way things are in nature, it is fitting for Lucretius to address, among many other phenomena, human conception and embryonic determination. With an eye toward ethics, Lucretius demonstrates how sexual reproduction at the seminal level can be explained by Epicurean atomism. In this paper, I am concerned with the biological ‘how’ of conception as explained inDe Rerum Natura(=DRN) but also with the ethical ‘therefore’ for Lucretius’ readership and (over)estimations of male autonomy. For modern audiences with a basic grasp of procreation that includes sperm supplied by a male and egg supplied by a female, encountering Lucretius’ verses on women contributing semen (semina) to the process of conception can be surprising (4.1209–62). The idea of female semen may give us pause as we calibrate it with our understanding of eggs and ovulation, but Lucretius, in his time, was not advancing some novel theory. Wading into established debates on male-only or joint male-female semen production and gendered insemination (that is, who produces semen and whose semen is active at conception), Lucretius sides with those promulgating mutuality for both questions (for example Democritus [DK 24 A13]) and rejects Aristotle's representative exclusivist claim of male activity vs female passivity (τὸ ἄρρεν ἐστὶν ὡς κινοῦν καὶ ποιοῦν, τὸ δὲ θῆλυ ὡς παθητικόν,Gen. an.729a28–30; cf. 726a30–6). That is to say, a sexually mature female, like her male counterpart, emits semen that has determining potency in the formation of a human embryo (Lucr. 4.1209–62). Although the discharge and activity of female semen is the focus of this paper, my investigation is not aQuellenforschungor historical survey of Greco-Roman ideas about women's contributions to insemination and fertility, since others have treated these matters extensively. I concentrate rather on how Lucretius employs the concept of female semen in terms of his poetics in Book 4 and what I see as an ethical argument against the domineering nature of Roman masculinity. The problem of female semen, from the point of view of Lucretius’ Roman male audience, is that it is potentially costly to men because it rivals and threatens their status from the physiological to the discursive level. Iain Lonie broaches the same issue from Greek perspectives.

Recreating Men’s Relationship with Nature: Toward a Profeminist Environmentalism

While feminist and profeminist scholars are increasingly in agreement with the thesis that hegemonic and destructive forms of masculinity are the source of current environmental crises, there is less agreement on how to address this issue or on the way forward for ecologically conscious and profeminist men. Some forms of ecofeminism essentialize women as being closer to nature than men, while arguing that men are closer to culture. There seems little capacity for men to change in this view. In a parallel development, some ecomasculinity theorists argue that the problem is not with the nature of masculinity per se but with the separation of men’s natural maleness from forms of masculinity that suppress their infinite capacity to care. It will be argued that such latter approaches espouse either an ecofeminine or ecomasculinist perspective rather than a social ecofeminist view. This article will explore the implications of the social ecofeminist critique (or what some writers refer to as feminist environmentalism) for understanding socially constructed masculinism, and what men can do about it, in the context of the social divisions between men across the world.

Site operatives’ attitudes towards traditional masculinity ideology in the Australian construction industry

There is a widely accepted assumption in the construction literature that the industry is highly masculinised. However, there has been a surprising lack of empirical evidence around workers’ own attitudes towards masculinity in the sector. Addressing this lack of research, a survey to measure construction site operatives’ attitudes towards traditional masculinity ideology was undertaken in Australia using the Male Role Norms Inventory Scale-Short Form (MRNI-SF). It is found that the focus of attitudes towards masculinity in the construction industry may be shifting to reflect trends in the wider population and may be more inclusive and less hegemonic than has been previously argued. It is also found that the focus of masculinity in the construction industry is closely related to the physical and high-risk nature of work and that sexuality and humour may also be an important source of masculine identity. These results are important since they contribute a more nuanced understanding of the dimensions and exact nature of attitudes towards masculinity in the construction industry. It is concluded that future research into the impact of masculinity in areas such as gender diversity, safety and mental health would benefit from a more inclusive theoretical lens which recognises the dynamic nature of masculinity and which highlights the institutional legacies of past hegemonies that have to be challenged to move the industry forward.

‘I need to be there’: British South Asian men’s experiences of care and caring

ABSTRACTThis article provides an insight into British South Asian men’s experiences of care and caring. Care is gendered, however the ways in which care features in the lives of British Asian men is under-researched and demands attention, particularly given the changing demographics in the UK. The discussion draws on qualitative empirical research with a sample of British Asian men in their early thirties to early fifties. In depth interviews were conducted to consider roles and responsibilities within families and communities in relation to care, either as parents and/or as having ageing parents or grandparents. The findings give voice to British Asian men’s experiences of care and enhance our understanding of care in the everyday and the complex and contested nature of contemporary British Asian masculinities. The findings challenge populist assumptions surrounding Asian men and provide an alternative insight into their experiences to highlight the centrality of care and caring in British Asian men’s lives and to document that British Asian men do care. Whilst the stories of care are diverse, there is a strong sense that British Asian men value care, and place importance on being able to provide care and support to family.

“Seatbelts don’t save lives”: Discovering and targeting the attitudes and behaviors of young Arab male drivers

The paper presents a two-part study that discovered then targeted beliefs and attitudes towards seatbelt use in young Arab men. The purpose of part one was to discover their safe driving beliefs, attitudes and behaviors as well as their responses to safe driving campaigns to ascertain message elements that could incite reactance. Part two targeted selected beliefs and attitudes in a message that was designed based on the results from part one to both address relevant beliefs and attitudes as well as avoid reactance. One belief, that seatbelts are not necessary in the back seat, and two attitudes, avoidance of wearing the seatbelt to prevent clothing from being wrinkled and to avoid friends’ derision, were targeted.Because the participants reported reactance to common safe driving campaigns, the options for the message were quite limited. Using fear appeals, shocking content or depicting the consequences of accidents was deemed likely to be ineffective, rather a novel approach was called for. Utilizing the collectivist and masculine nature of the culture, the resulting message featured a group of young Arab men who are convinced by a personified Seatbelt to wear their seatbelts after an adventure. The message succeeded in eliciting statistically reliable belief and attitudinal change on all three dependent variables after one exposure, suggesting that tailored messages that avoid triggering reactance and are culturally contextualized while aimed at specific beliefs and attitudes can be persuasive. Although risk taking behavior can result from group pressure, our message used culturally specific group pressure but depicted it as being against the risky behavior and positively reinforced the less risky behavior, demonstrating that such approaches can be effective. The film was not a typical safe driving message, utilized social norms from the target audience and was carefully matched to their attitudes and beliefs while not being an overtly persuasive. We argue that message campaigners can utilize both the method and results for subsequent campaigns aimed at young Arab men.

Are rural Prairie masculinities hegemonic masculinities?

ABSTRACTOur aim in this article is to provide readers with a critical overview of some of the recent research in psychology, sociology, geography and critical masculinity studies with a focus on rural places and masculinities. We begin our critical review of rural masculinities with a discussion of hegemonic masculinity, a concept well known to theorists of masculinities, before providing an overview of the literature on rural men, which leads into to a larger theoretical discussion about the nature of masculinities and rural studies. We discuss how we can operationalize these theories and answer the question, are rural Prairie masculinities hegemonic masculinities. We argue that scholars must do more to unpack the complexity and relationality of masculinities that take place across changing rural settings.

An Investigation of Barriers to Females’ Involvement in the Nigeria Construction Industry

The continuous domination of the Nigeria construction industry by men remains an issue of concern to construction stakeholders as females in the Nigerian construction industry continue to be largely underrepresented. The objective of this study was to investigate the barriers to females' involvement in the Nigerian construction industry with a view to suggesting strategies that will assist to bridge this barrier. The survey reviewed literature on the level of female participation, the perceptions about women, the opportunities available to females and strategies of increasing the number of female participation in the industry. The instrument for data collection was obtained by the use of a survey questionnaire as well as the reviews of extant literature. The sampling method employed is stratified random sampling. The questionnaires were administered to built environment practitioners in consulting and contracting establishment in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. The findings revealed that the barriers which influence female under-representation in the Nigerian construction industry include; the male-dominated structure of the construction industry, family commitments such as marriage and childbirth, masculine nature of the job, long working hours. The strategies recommended to bridge this barrier include the formulation of employment policies which prevent sexism, educating young women about the industry, providing better working conditions and flexible working policies for women, provision of incentives in order to attract more women into the Nigerian construction industry.