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The Re‐Creation Of Gender In A Male Workplace
Author(s) -
Padavic Irene
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1991.14.3.279
Subject(s) - masculinity , femininity , gender studies , collar , psychology , blue collar , participant observation , work (physics) , doing gender , sociology , social psychology , demographic economics , business , engineering , social science , mechanical engineering , finance , economics
This paper draws on participant observation in a male‐dominated blue‐collar job to understand how the concepts of masculinity and femininity are re‐created through coworker interactions on the shopfloor and the effect of this on women. Men typecast women in these jobs as either feminine or unfeminine and treated them differently, but in both cases, women's presence was useful for defining–and in the case of sex‐role appropriate women–enforcing masculinity. Such treatment isolated women from the on‐going work culture and constrained them to certain behaviors.