Undoing Gender Research Articles

What's good for the gander is even better for the goose: Women buying commercial sex in China.

Research about the commercial sex industry rarely examines the women who are the clients purchasing sexual services. Examining how this challenges gender stereotypes through the undoing gender framework reveals how gender norms can be reshaped through contextual changes. Based on 3years of ethnographic data from a high-end bar in Tianjin, interviews with 27 female clients and 47 MSWs paint a complex picture of how some women adopted ungendered strategies regarding sexuality. As women take control of their own sexual behavior, they free themselves of some traditional societal expectations about their identity. Primarily motivated by pleasure and control, purchasing sex becomes a means for women to experience empowerment and self-confidence by breaking with traditional gender norms and expectations. Undoing gender involves expanding gendered repertoires, with women finding empowerment in adopting a masculine model of sexuality. However, social stigma and personal efficacy indicate that gender deconstruction is a gradual process. The research contributes to understanding complex gender dynamics and sexual behaviors within commercial sex transactions, shedding light on societal norms and individual agency.

UNDOING GENDER: HOW YOUNG WOMEN DECIDE TO BECOME ENGINEERS

Numerous studies continue to explore the reasons for women's persistent underrepresentation in engineering education. While a large body of research has documented how the field's affiliation with masculinity deters women, rarely has sufficient consideration been given to asking women why they pursue engineering majors. Using data from 35 in-depth interviews with racially diverse women, I analyzed women's accounts of choosing engineering majors. Drawing on the sociological perspective known as undoing gender, I find that women describe how their families encouraged an interest in engineering by helping them challenge the connection between masculinity and engineering. The findings also revealed how career advice from teachers is influential in shaping their choices. Contrary to research showing that engineering careers are often unattractive to women, women frame engineering as a profession befitting of their professional and future family plans. The findings suggest that engineering does appeal to women in certain contexts and provides implications and ideas for educators and engineering outreach programs seeking to recruit women to the profession.

What ChatGPT Tells Us about Gender: A Cautionary Tale about Performativity and Gender Biases in AI

Large language models and generative AI, such as ChatGPT, have gained influence over people’s personal lives and work since their launch, and are expected to scale even further. While the promises of generative artificial intelligence are compelling, this technology harbors significant biases, including those related to gender. Gender biases create patterns of behavior and stereotypes that put women, men and gender-diverse people at a disadvantage. Gender inequalities and injustices affect society as a whole. As a social practice, gendering is achieved through the repeated citation of rituals, expectations and norms. Shared understandings are often captured in scripts, including those emerging in and from generative AI, which means that gendered views and gender biases get grafted back into social, political and economic life. This paper’s central argument is that large language models work performatively, which means that they perpetuate and perhaps even amplify old and non-inclusive understandings of gender. Examples from ChatGPT are used here to illustrate some gender biases in AI. However, this paper also puts forward that AI can work to mitigate biases and act to ‘undo gender’.

Neo-androgynous management: managing the English further education in an era of neoliberalism?

ABSTRACT The study draws on mixed methods research with further education middle managers across England in order to explore whether there are gendered differences in management. There remain debates about whether there are gender differences in management or leadership. The study adds to this debate with results that reveal that women and men are behaviourally flexible, employing a repertoire of knowledge, competencies and skills, which are not necessarily gendered, in order to manage change in an increasing neoliberal further education working environment. We therefore propose a novel theoretical contribution of neo-androgynous management, which suggests ‘undoing gender’ in management in an education sector that has seen increase in women’s employment.

Navigating Detransition Borders: An Exploration of Social Media Narratives

Detransition, a relatively recent phenomenon within academic discourse and mainstream media, refers to individuals who transition from the gender they transitioned into. Experiences of detransition, including those shared on social media, are poorly understood. Drawing upon narratives of gender detransition as shared on a global social media site, this analysis explores and seeks to better understand how detransition experiences are shared; and the effect of detransition narratives on gendered embodiment and belonging. Employing Butler’s (Undoing gender. Routledge, 2004) notion of livable lives and Crawford’s (Seattle J Soc Justice 8(2):515–539, 2010) conception of trans architecture, this analysis theoretically extends trans conversations to include discourses and narratives of detransition. A total of 130 archival posts by 36 contributors relating to detransition were collected from a popular global social media site where the engagement of reflexive thematic analysis contributed to the development of three themes: Contemplating transformation; Experiences of detransition; and Prominent discourses for detransition. Study findings suggest that detransition narratives expressed on this social media site demonstrate the multifaceted and complex ways in which non-normative gendered lives are rendered unlivable. In response, this analysis problematizes gender by conceptualizing detransition as a transformation toward a trans space outside a cisnormative frame contributing to making gendered lives more livable.

Method for assessing structural gender barriers in an organization: Development and assessment of psychometric properties

In gender studies, there is a lack of instruments to assess the severity of gender inequality in an organization. Gender inequality at the structural level of the organization manifests itself as gender asymmetry in an organization and in certain status positions. It is indicated by metaphors of “glass” phenomena: “glass ceiling”, “sticky floor”, “glass walls”, “glass escalator”, “glass rock”, “glass box”. The article is devoted to the development and testing of the author’s methodology for assessing structural gender barriers in an organization. The study was conducted using an online survey in 2020, with a sample of 273 employees aged 18 to 62 years (median 34 years) from various organizations. The survey included, in addition to the developed questionnaire for assessing structural gender barriers, a methodology for assessing gen- der inequality at the individual-behavioral and normative levels in an organization (“Doing gender” and “Undoing gender” scales, “Scale for the severity of norms that support gender inequality” (author’s development), “Perceptions of Politics Scale” (author’s modification of the methodology of K.Kacmar and D.Carlson). The survey also included questions about the characteristics of the organization to assess the criterion validity. Reliability analysis, correla- tion analysis, and structural modeling were used. The results of the study showed good reli- ability of the scales, the results of SEM analysis show that the obtained data do not correspond to the six-factor model. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out, the resulting one- factor solution explains 54% of the variance. A positive correlation was found between the severity of structural gender barriers and the severity of norms that support gender inequality, with the presence of unfair policies in the organization and with the use of the “Undoing gender” individual behavioral strategy. A negative correlation was obtained with the number of women in high leadership positions in the organization. The obtained results testify in favor of the reliability, constructive and criterion validity of the new instrument. It is planned to further test the properties of the questionnaire on a larger sample.

Gender a změny v dělbě práce v domácnostech s dětmi v době pandemie covidu-19

The article ties in with the scholarship on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender equality. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with parents of children under 12, we examine the processes that led to the increase or dismantling of the gender division of labour in families during the first nationwide lockdown. Using the concepts of path dependency and 'doing' and 'undoing' gender, we explain the strategies couples with children used to adapt to the enormous increase in reproductive work in the family during lockdown. 'Doing gender' practices witnessed during lockdown included an acceptance of the increased care work as the responsibility of women, ensuring 'a room of one's own' only for men, and separating the public and private sphere only for men. Practices that led to 'undoing gender' involved mainly the explicit negotiation between partners of the division of labour during the lockdown and the organisation of reproductive work in 'shifts'. The division of labour within a couple before the pandemic proved to be crucial for what strategy they chose to adapt to the lockdown. According to our findings, extending the egalitarian division of labour has led to greater satisfaction among partners and indicates greater societal resilience to crises.

USING DOING & UNDOING GENDER STRATEGIES IN RUSSIAN WOMEN’S CAREER DEVELOPMENT

In Russia, the overall number of educated, qualified, healthy, working women is significantly higher than that of men. Nevertheless, women face unequal wage distribution and feel the income gap, rarely reach managerial positions, are not represented at high managerial levels, and are excluded from political life, which is a manifestation of gender inequality. The research was based on the concept of gender strategies of Doing & Undoing Gender Strategies.
 The aim of the study was to identify and examine gender-specific career development strategies of Russian women as a way of narrowing the gender gap. The study involved 51 women aged 22 to 60 who were asked to complete a semi-structured interview.
 The results were processed by content analysis and frequency analysis. The main results were to confirm the existence of gender strategies as a way of overcoming the gender gap in the organization and to identify and describe the specifics of Russian women’s application of gender strategies in their career development. The Doing Undoing Gender Strategy was used more frequently than the Undoing Gender Strategy. However, the scope of Undoing Gender was significantly wider and more variable. Those women who used a combination of gender strategies rated themselves as “strong performers”, emphasized high subjective satisfaction with their lives (having a family and children), and noted a successful career path, unlike those who used only one of the strategies. A combination of gender strategies can help to promote women’s careers in the best possible way and bridge the gender gap in the organization.

‘An impossible dream’? Non-binary people’s perceptions of legal gender status and reform in the UK

ABSTRACT The meaning and significance of gender is currently a focus of heated and, often, polarised debate in the UK and elsewhere. This article provides a new perspective in the gender debate through focused exploration of UK-based non-binary people’s perceptions of legal gender status and reform. Binary gender/sex systems, such as the legal gender system in the UK, are underpinned by cisgenderism and are challenged by those whose identity falls outside of the binary of woman and man. In contrast to most lay participants in the Future of Legal Gender (FLaG) project, the majority of non-binary participants reported support for reform (85.5% (n = 165) in favour) to the current UK legal gender system. Over half (57%, n = 110) were in favour of abolishing legal gender (i.e. the state would no longer assign a legal gender status), although this was constructed as ‘an impossible dream’. Situating non-binary people’s perspectives at the heart of the debate about the certification of gender offers novel insight which could have significant ramifications for how societal structures could support undoing gender in the future.

Men as middle managers doing and undoing gender in organizations

Although middle managers are often presumed to resist change in organizations, they can act as change drivers. This article shows how men as middle managers aim to act as change agents for gender equality through doing and undoing gender. Through practices such as bonding with women by objectifying them, being engaged in women‐focused initiatives and using gender equality to advance their own careers, men as middle managers aim to create gender equality but often reaffirm existing gender inequalities. However, men were more successful in moving towards gender equality when developing those who are different from themselves. The article contributes to understanding the complexities in analyzing and conceptualizing how men as middle managers are undoing gender by showing that many undoing gender practices can lead to a (re)doing of gender. However, only by engaging with those complexities can men in middle management positions become effective change agents for gender equality.

Glimpses of change? UK fathers navigating work and care within the context of Shared Parental Leave

AbstractThis study focuses on the lived experiences of 25 professionally employed UK fathers who are first‐wave beneficiaries of Shared Parental Leave (SPL), which facilitated a period of leave from work during their child's first year. Using exploratory qualitative interviews, we investigate the ways in which family relations, organizational initiatives, and public policy collaborate to disrupt or transform what have hitherto been traditional gendered expectations around early infant care. Our understanding is framed using Giddens' democratic family and notions of “undoing gender”. Our longitudinal design allows us to capture fathers' lived experiences at two points, firstly pre/during their period of SPL and secondly following their return to work. In seeking glimpses of change, we first explore this at the level of men's disruption of generational biographies, then how fathers navigate SPL policy within a contested gendered context, and finally their subsequent transformations in work/care practices. We discuss the implications for policy, recognizing shortcomings in the current design of UK leave offerings.

Strategies for Overcoming the Gender Gap by Working Women (Case Study of Russian Organizations)

In the context of the global economic crisis associated with the pandemic, the gender gap index has increased, indicating increasing gender inequalities and, consequently, gender assimilation in society. Despite the fact that in Russia the total number of educated, qualified, healthy, working women is significantly higher than that of men, women face unequal wage distribution and feel the income gap, rarely reach managerial positions, are not represented at high managerial levels, and are excluded from political life. The aim of the study was to identify and examine the specifics of gendered career-building strategies by Russian women as a way of narrowing the gender gap. The following methodological approaches were used to consider gender inequalities in the organizational context: Gender in organization, Gendered organization, Doing & Undoing Gender Strategies. Key results: confirming the existence of gender strategies as a way to bridge the gender gap within an organization; identifying and describing how Russian women apply gender strategies in their career development. The “Doing Gender” strategy was used more frequently than the “Undoing Gender” strategy. However, the scope of Undoing Gender was much wider and more variable. Those women who used a combination of gender strategies (“Doing & Undoing Gender”) rated themselves as “strong players”, emphasized high subjective satisfaction with their lives (having a family and children), and noted a successful career path, unlike those who used only one of the strategies. A combination of gender strategies can help to promote women’s careers in the best possible way and bridge the gender gap in the organization.

Muslim Women in Austria and Germany Doing and Undoing Gender: Making Gender Differences and Hierarchies Relevant or Irrelevant by Constanze Volkmann

The ambiguity of the category ‘Muslim women’ is emphasised at the very beginning of the introduction. This upfront addressing of an ambiguity demonstrates Constanze Volkmann’s awareness of the complexity of identifications in a highly politicised area, namely the amalgamation of Islam, migration, and gender. The author names the development of a new gender theory (p. 2) as the ambitious first of three aims of her book, next to the application of this new theory and empirical insights on life realities of those identifying as or being identified as Muslim women. This empirical work focuses on Austria and Germany as comparable

Women and Men Municipal Managers Doing and Undoing Gender

Abstract Drawing on the literature from critical gender studies and feminist critiques of bureaucracy, we explore the demands for gender work created when women occupy traditionally masculine roles in municipal government management. The article traces the work performed when municipal managers and municipalities respond to gendered demands, maintain gender perceptions, and negotiate gendered expectations, collectively referred to as gender work. To examine this process, we apply inductive qualitative method to analyze 21 semistructured interviews with men and women municipal managers in southeast United States. Our study reveals gender work at different levels of organizational hierarchies and in multiple ways. We find that women CAOs perform masculine gender work to negotiate a place in municipal leadership. We also find that municipal governments and men CAOs do feminine gender work to cultivate an environment for women to occupy counterstereotypical roles. This study suggests that jobs, institutional rules and policies, informal arrangements, work structures, and individuals’ private lives interplay to require gender work from women that is more complex and more demanding than that required of men in the same roles.

Fashioning Masculinities through Migration

The vast majority of literature on migrant masculinities presents situations where migration challenges normative forms of manhood—“undoing gender.” Yet for the Romanians who come to London, migration has the opposite effect, as men are drawn into the wide and lucrative building industry. The article follows constructions of masculinity through an analysis of: (1) the working environment of Romanian men, generally characterized as ridden with risk; (2) the gender dynamics in the household; and (3) the temporariness of the men’s migration in London. The article demonstrates that, in this case, mobility does not entail a “gender compromise,” but a reinforcement of hypermasculine traits, necessary to succeed in an environment seen as highly competitive and risky.

Doing Murga, Undoing Gender: Feminist Carnival in Argentina

Murga porteña, the satirical street theatre tradition associated with Carnival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is historically a strongly patriarchal institution. Prominent roles such as reciting poetry, singing, and playing percussion instruments have been reserved exclusively for men. As the feminist movement in Argentina has grown in visibility and importance in recent years, feminist murga participants disrupted these patriarchal patterns. Women murga performers (murgueras) have begun to use murga as a space for feminist practice, both by creating women-only organizations to learn murga skills and by bringing feminist perspectives into mixed-gender murgas. Murgueras are engaged in a multifaceted feminist project that disrupts gendered patterns by building women-only spaces to develop competence in the performance of historically masculine skills such as percussion. Drawing on ethnographic participant-observation of murga events as well as in-depth interviews with key organizers at the confluence of murga and feminism, we explore the ways in which murga has provided the spaces and strategies for collective feminist engagement. Murgas have become important social institutions in which women are “undoing gender” and disseminating feminist perspectives, even as most members join them not as explicitly feminist institutions.

미투 시대, 아동문학 교육의 방향 - 젠더 허물기를 중심으로 -

미투 시대, 아동문학 교육의 방향 - 젠더 허물기를 중심으로 -

Alpha, Omega, and the Letters in Between: LGBTQI Conservative Christians Undoing Gender

Sociologists studying gender have debated West and Zimmerman’s premise that “doing gender is unavoidable,” seeking to ascertain whether people can “undo” or only “redo” gender. While sociologists have been correct to focus on the interactional accomplishment of gender, they have neglected one of Garfinkel’s key insights about interaction: that people hold each other accountable to particular narratives. Neglecting the narrative aspect of doing—and undoing—gender impedes our ability to recognize processes of social change. Based on a qualitative study, we show how the movement for LGBTQI acceptance within U.S. conservative Protestant churches works to make gender not “omnirelevant” by challenging conservative “complementarity” narratives that posit two complementary, opposite sexes as a commandment preceding the Ten Commandments in time and importance. We explore this movement’s ambivalent relationship with homonormativity, highlight three ways this movement resists projecting binary gender narratives into scripture, and examine how some in this movement see the pursuit of social justice as a Christian mandate. The efforts of LGBTQI conservative Christians exemplify how reshaping sex/gender/sexual narratives can create possibilities for undoing gender.

Fathers as Solo Caregivers in Spain: A Choice or a Need?

The increase in fathers’ involvement in childcare in Western societies has not translated into an equal distribution of childcare between mothers and fathers. While some couples actually succeed in “undoing gender” when the first child arrives, their characteristics that define them are not yet clear. This article provides four different explanations that contribute to understanding how parents share routine care in Spain, using a sample of dual-earner, heterosexual parents from the Spanish Time Use Survey 2010. The results show that fathers are more likely to be “equal sharers” when they earn less than their spouse; do not hold traditionally masculine jobs (e.g., managers or blue-collar workers); have time available and, more important, their spouses are not available from 5 p.m. onward. In line with previous research, this study provides evidence that dismantles the “myth” that higher status employees, and/or those with college education, are more egalitarian in practice.

Gender Differences in Couples' Matrimonial Property Regime in Italy

ObjectiveThis study investigates the characteristics of spouses in Italy who choose to pool their economic resources.BackgroundIf resource pooling is common among male‐breadwinner couples, expectations regarding resource pooling are mixed for female‐breadwinner couples or, more generally, for couples with wives who are economically advantaged when compared with their husbands. This study asks whether resource‐pooling strategies differ between couples with economically advantaged husbands, couples with economically advantaged wives, and couples in which spouses have similar economic resources.MethodThe article uses an objective measure of pooling of wealth available for Italy at the time of marriage: the matrimonial property regime, indicating the choice between a shared or separate ownership of assets accumulated during marriage. Using data from the 2015 marriage register, the article models the probability that a couple chooses the community of property with a logistic regression model.ResultsCouples with husbands who were economically advantaged when compared with their wives (i.e., the husband was older, more educated, or employed with a nonemployed wife) were more likely to choose the community of property when compared with couples with similar resources (both spouses were employed, of similar age or educational attainment); conversely, couples with economically advantaged wives were more likely to choose the separation of property.ConclusionEconomically advantaged women seem to be “undoing gender” by protecting their economic resources via the separation of property.