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Out of the frying pan, into the fire? Persistent gender barriers in Australian fire‐fighting and challenges for HRM
Author(s) -
Batty Alex,
Burchielli Rosaria
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
asia pacific journal of human resources
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.825
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1744-7941
pISSN - 1038-4111
DOI - 10.1177/1038411110391704
Subject(s) - fire fighter , agency (philosophy) , coping (psychology) , firefighting , glass ceiling , work (physics) , political science , gender studies , psychology , social psychology , sociology , geography , engineering , medicine , law , social science , mechanical engineering , cartography , environmental health , psychiatry
By directly accessing women's accounts of their active and ex‐volunteer fire‐fighting at the Australian Country Fire Authority (CFA), this paper seeks to understand women's experiences in fire‐fighting. The study documents the voices of women in work where they are mostly conspicuous by their absence, thus contributing to the small body of empirical studies of women in fire‐fighting. Findings confirm the underrepresentation of women and provide evidence of horizontal and vertical gender segregation. Women fire‐fighters are significantly challenged and discriminated against by individual and organisational behaviours. Other findings of this study are the co‐existence of hostile and positive job factors for women fire‐fighters; and women's tolerance for complexity and paradox. These are scarcely documented in the literature on non‐traditional occupations for women, and the paper suggests explanations based on concepts such as agency and coping strategies. Although women fire‐fighters at the CFA had only a partial understanding of factors contributing to gender segregation, they voiced a desire and directions for organisational improvement to address gender issues.