Gendered Projects of Solidarity: Workplace Organizing among Immigrant Women and Men

Drawing on an ethnography of organizing among Latina/o immigrant janitors in Los Angeles, I argue that constructing workplace solidarity between women and men is a dynamic, gendered project. I demonstrate both how this project unfolds and how it can be halted, with varying implications for gender and class inequality at work. Organizational restructuring upsets gender‐segregated divisions of labour making solidarity between women and men possible but restructuring also allows workers to reinforce gendered divisions and cultural distinctions. The mechanism pushing workers one way or the other is the degree to which the process of organizing recognizes gender inequalities.     

Differences in Family Norms for Men and Women Across Europe

The authors examined double standards regarding divorce among parents with young children and regarding having children within nonmarital cohabitation across Europe. Whether people disapprove more of men or of women engaging in these behaviors is not a priori clear. The authors formulated arguments in both directions and expected double standards to vary cross‐nationally by the level of socioeconomic gender equality in a country. They conducted multilevel analyses on a sample of about 44,000 individuals nested in 25 countries, obtained from the European Social Survey (2006). Double standards were measured with a split‐ballot design. The findings indicated that men were generally more disapproved of than women when displaying the family behaviors under study. Overall, women endorsed both double standards, whereas men endorsed only the double standard regarding divorce. However, substantial cross‐national differences in the double standards exist. The higher the level of socioeconomic gender equality, the larger these double standards in favor of women.     

‘Live to Work’ or ‘Work to Live’? A Qualitative Study of Gender and Work–life Balance among Men and Women in Mid‐life

Many contemporary studies of ‘work–life balance’ either ignore gender or take it for granted. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with men and women in mid‐life (aged 50 to 52 years) in order to compare their experiences of work–life balance. Our data suggest that gender remains embedded in the ways that respondents negotiate home and work life. The women discussed their current problems juggling a variety of roles (despite having no young children at home), while men confined their discussion of such conflicts to the past, when their children were young. However, diversity among men (some of whom ‘worked to live’ while others ‘lived to work’) and women (some of whom constructed themselves in relation to their families, while others positioned themselves as ‘independent women’) was apparent, as were some commonalities between men and women (both men and women constructed themselves as ‘pragmatic workers’). We suggest ways in which gender‐neutral theories of work–life balance may be extended.     

Constructing the Deviant Other: Mothering and Fathering at the Workplace

Gender stereotyping is a widely described and documented process that permeates working life in western societies. It is characterized by ascribing greatly simplified attributes to women and men and forging a dualistic view of gender in which women and men are conceptualized as antipodes to each other. Through this ongoing reproduction of simplistic views; contradictions, variations and complexities are concealed, together with the richness of individuals’ competence and experiences. Intimately related to this gender stereotyping are assumptions that distinct kinds of jobs and positions fit either men or women. In this article I investigate the constructions of motherhood and fatherhood as important elements in the processes of gender stereotyping. I argue that the production of stereotypes is part of an inter‐discursive contest which has a significant impact on gender relations and women's opportunities. My discussion derives from an anthropological study of one workplace.     

Doing Gender in the Conference Hall: Do Men and Women Behave Differently in Engineering Scientific Environments?

The literature on women in STEM areas displays the barriers that women face at scientific workplaces, showing important interaction where they do and undo gender. However, there is a lack of research about the extent men and women do and undo gender in networking environments. This is a participant observation at Human-Computer Interactions annual conferences in a mainly male-dominated environment. It explored how researchers are ‘doing’ and ‘undoing’ gender focusing on two main dimensions: the gender roles adopted by men and women during the presentations and social activities, and the gender contents exposed in their research talks. A first result shows that sex and gender issues are trivialized in research contents by both men and women researchers. A second result reveals that men and women unintentionally and successively ‘do’ and ‘undo’ gender as a strategy to fit into a neutral and accepted identity of engineering and computer scientists.     

Cisgendered Organizations: Trans Women and Inequality in the Workplace

This article responds to calls to better understand how intersecting “inequality regimes” operate in organizations. Through in‐depth interviews with 25 white trans women about their workplace experiences, my analyses highlight how trans women navigate relational practices that are simultaneously gendered and cisgendered—that is, practices that maintain cultural connections between sex and gender and maintain gender as immutable. Findings demarcate three distinct mechanisms by which cisgenderism, a system that devalues women and trans people, operates and strengthens hierarchical privileges at work: (1) double‐bind constraints; (2) fluid biases of cissexism and sexism; and (3) group practices of privilege and subordination. In the first regard, analyses reveal unique double binds that trans women face—binds that dictate contradictory feminine and masculine ideal worker expectations but also expectations of gender authenticity. Second, I find that trans women often hover between two subordinate statuses (i.e., gender and transgender status) in a given workday, a fact that prods a more fluid conception of cisgenderism. Finally, this study highlights how cis men collectively mobilize through group practices to repair cisgender system breaches. All three dimensions are critical for understanding the production of workplace inequality between not only trans women and cis men, but all feminine‐identified workers.     

Gender Labor,Assimilationism, and Transformative Practices: The Relational Negotiations of Cisgender Women and their Transgender Men Partners

Despite the rise in research on the experiences of transgender men (female‐to‐male, FTM) in recent years, little academic attention has been paid to the partners of these individuals. The experiences of a large portion of this population, cisgender women whose partners transition from female to male, provide a unique perspective on how individuals negotiate performances of normative gender ideals and heteronormative practices in transitioning non‐normative relationships. Research has shown that when these cisgender women find themselves in relationships that are socially defined as heterosexual, they often begin questioning their sexual orientation in relation to their partner's gender identity as well as the role and applicability of their beliefs regarding gender equality and anti‐heteronormative practices. This article provides an overview of the current literature that addresses the enactment of gender labor, the practice of reaffirming another person's gender through physical, emotional, and sexual care, by cisgender women whose partners transition from female to male. Specific focus is given to how, in some situations, the performance of gender labor manifests in assimilationist ways that adhere to typically heteronormative frameworks as well as how, in others, the performance of gender labor manifests in potentially transformative and destabilizing ways that serve to challenge normative structures. Gaps in the existing literature as well as directions for future research are also explored.     

Reflexivity and the Construction of Competing Discourses of Masculinity in a Female‐Dominated Profession

This paper contributes to the debates on reflexivity and change by extending our understanding of (non‐)reflexivity mechanisms in the discursive constructions of gender. Specifically, I explore how and why women persistently construct contradictory discursive accounts of men and masculinity in a female‐dominated profession of counselling psychology in Russia. Drawing on the concept of ‘interpretative repertoires’ I argue that female counsellors construct different kinds of masculinities based on three ‘repertoires’: psycho‐biological, structural and relational. I demonstrate how these constructions of masculinity are imbued with different meanings and are used to explain only certain contexts, which precludes women's ability to reflect on their contradictory nature. I conclude by discussing how an exploration of discursive (non‐)reflexivity extends our understanding of the conditions for gender transformations.     

Joining the Dark Side: Women in Management in the Dominican Republic

This article presents evidence of the challenges faced by women in management in their interactions with men and other women, contesting the idea that men organizationally oppress women and suggesting instead that both men and women can be organizational oppressors of women. Using empirical evidence, this article provides new insights into the working lives and challenges of women in a Latin American and Hispanic Caribbean context. The article highlights struggles of power and credibility in women in management's relationships with men and other women. It draws on findings of research conducted in the public sector in the Dominican Republic, where in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with professional men and women. This article has significant implications for advancing understanding of the dynamics of gender and organizations in developing countries, in particular, the experiences of women in management.     

Coping with the COVID‐19 crisis: force majeure and gender performativity

This article examines the coping strategies of individuals during the confinement in France using a sensemaking lens. We draw on two studies consisting of 85 qualitative surveys followed by a diary in which 20 individuals wrote about their experiences during the first three weeks of the confinement. We employ an interpretative phenomenological approach to analyse the data. The findings reveal two patterns in the ways men and women cope with their experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The first pattern shows intensification of gender performativity manifested in the reproduction of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ reactions to the crisis. The second pattern detects a tendency towards a gradual deflection from gender performances through mental improvisations that foster new awareness of the crisis presenting an opportunity to transcend traditional gender roles. Our study highlights some potential emancipatory implications the COVID‐19 crisis may have for the practices of ‘doing gender’ and perceptions of work–life balance therefore instigating a transition towards more egalitarian households.     

Conforming to and Resisting Dominant Gender Norms: How Male and Female Nursing Students Do and Undo Gender

Much existing research has shown that men are able to construct and enact masculine identities in female‐dominated occupational contexts. However, few studies have examined the experiences of both men and women in these occupations. Furthermore, few studies attend to how men and women in these occupations both conform to and resist gender norms. In this study, I draw on the undoing gender frameworks developed by Deutsch and Butler to address the limitations mentioned above. Most notably, this study attends to the ways in which male and female nursing students do gender by conforming to dominant gender norms, as well as undo gender by resisting these norms. The main contribution of this study is thus to show the multiple ways through which gender can be done and undone in the professional training of both male and female nurses. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of attending to both women and men in research on female‐dominated occupations and of examining both similarities and differences in the gender performances of men and women.     

The Relational Contexts of Migration: Mexican Women in New Destination Sites

This article assesses Mexican immigrant women's experiences of isolation and autonomy in three new destination sites in Montana, Ohio, and New Jersey. We highlight six case studies from our cross‐comparative data set of in‐depth interviews and field work with 98 women to illustrate the intersections between contexts of reception and gender relations in shaping women's settlement experiences. We find that women in sites with a concentrated Mexican population and a well‐developed social service infrastructure are relatively autonomous in accomplishing daily activities independent of their relationships with husbands or partners. In contrast, for women living in sites with few social support services, relationships with the men in their lives, what we call their “relational contexts,” matter for women's experiences of isolation or autonomy outside the home. Relational contexts have not been emphasized in previous literature on gender and migration but may be significant in shaping women's experiences across varying contexts of reception.     

Man Up,Man Down: Race–Ethnicity and the Hierarchy of Men in Female‐Dominated Work

Scholars have largely overlooked the significance of race and socioeconomic status in determining which men traverse gender boundaries into female‐dominated, typically devalued, work. Examining the gender composition of the jobs that racial minority men occupy provides critical insights into mechanisms of broader racial disparities in the labor market—in addition to stalled occupational desegregation trends between men and women. Using nationally representative data from the three‐year American Community Survey (2010–2012), we examine racial/ethnic and educational differences in which men occupy gender‐typed jobs. We find that racial minority men are more likely than white men to occupy female‐dominated jobs at all levels of education—except highly educated Asian/Pacific Islander men—and that these patterns are more pronounced at lower levels of education. These findings have implications for broader occupational inequality patterns among men as well as between men and women.     

Role Conflict and Self‐Efficacy Among Employed Parents: Examining Complex Statistical Interactions

In response to growing concerns with explaining how work and family interfere with each other and with statistical approaches that do not capture the way in which predictors interact, this study tested statistical interactions involving personal and social resources of 410 full‐time employed women and men. The results indicate that self‐efficacy is a strong predictor of family interfering with work (FIW) and work interfering with family (WIF). Gender moderates the relation between supervisor support and WIF moderates the impact of efficacy beliefs and instrumental support at home on FIW. Specifically, while supervisor support is negatively related to WIF in women and men, high levels of support more strongly affected men's perceptions of WIF. In low self‐efficacy men, high levels of support at home improved their perceptions of FIW but these perceptions worsened in women. These findings contrast with earlier research that focus predominantly on the predictive value of structural demands (for example, the number of hours worked per week and family size). This study shows that gender plays a critical yet intricate role as a predictor of the successful management of work and family roles: it is not gender per se but its interaction with personal and social variables that informs us about differences in the experience of employed parents.     

Breaking Singles Up: Sexual Satisfaction among Men and Women

ABSTRACT

Using the National Health and Social Life Survey, we investigate sexual satisfaction by marital status and gender. We disaggregate the “single” category into “never-married” and “ever-married” individuals, rather than lumping never-married, divorced, separated, and widowed individuals into the “single” category. We argue that the use of a combined category neglects variation between never-married and ever-married single individuals due to differences in age and life-course transitions. We find that self-reports of physical and emotional sexual satisfaction vary between ever-married and never-married single individuals, and also between men and women. Further, we find that intimacy and commitment beliefs are associated with only emotional sexual satisfaction for women but with both physical and emotional sexual satisfaction for men.     

Trans Men: Embodiments,Identities, and Sexualities

This article examines the experiences of 25 persons who were assigned female status at birth but do not wish to live as women and take on a masculine or queer gender identity. We employ the concept of “gendered embodiment” and introduce the concept of “sexualized embodiment” to highlight what is involved in this process. We ask how experiencing a masculine gender identity is reflexively tied to a trans man's sexuality and the ways in which these two embodiments are tightly, moderately, or loosely coupled. For example, a tight coupling appeared when trans men began to use testosterone and obtained surgery such as breast removal; a moderate coupling was found where gender validation was sought from a sexual partner (with this being related to sexual preference identities as well as the interpretation of vaginal penetration); the loosest coupling of the gender‐sexuality embodiments was linked to the liberality of the locale and whether “queer” identities could be easily adopted. In sum, our research demonstrates the link between gender and sexuality as a result of the body work trans men do and the historical and geographical situations in which they find themselves.     

Re‐inventing the Gendered Organization: Staff Attitudes towards Women and Gender Mainstreaming in NGOs in Malawi

Gender inequality within non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) is constructed on a daily basis through the gendered norms, attitudes and practices of individuals within them. The continual re‐invention of a gendered organization ensures the maintenance of the status quo and therefore the privileging of male/masculine interests over female/feminine interests. Gender mainstreaming is an approach designed to alter the status quo and facilitate women's empowerment. In Malawi, many NGOs have adopted gender mainstreaming as a strategy to address gender inequality both within their organizations and with the communities where they work. Gender mainstreaming initiatives involve a variety of activities including hiring more women staff members, designing policies within the organization to promote gender equality and educating staff members about gender issues through training workshops. While these strategies represent important steps forward for gender equality, it is not clear to what extent these policies and initiatives are translating into meaningful change within the organization.     

Disabled men with muscular dystrophy negotiate gender

Disability is often portrayed as a one-dimensional category devoid of further intersections. Work which has addressed the intersection of disability and male gender has rarely considered different types of disability or impairment, or foregrounded the experiences of disabled men themselves. This article is based on empirical work carried out in England with men who have Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). We explored with participants their sense of themselves as men and their commonalities and differences with other men. Findings suggest that men with DMD claim, reject and redefine what it meant to them to be men. Doing gender was often heavily reliant on the availability and permission of others. Our study highlights the usefulness of exploring gender with men with particular experiences of disability and of looking at how this might change over a life course, especially when the nature and extent of the life course is a precarious one.     

Intermarriages Between Western Women and Palestinian Men: Multidirectional Adaptation Processes

This article addresses cultural adaptation of Western‐Palestinian intermarried couples. Using in‐depth interviews, information was gathered from 16 participants, 7 Western women and 9 Palestinian men, living in Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Adaptation strategies are typified by the extent to which each spouse embraces the partner's culture. The data suggest that intermarriage engenders a multidirectional adaptation process. Patriarchy and East‐West power relations affect mainly the women, having to face marginalization on the basis of their gender and their foreignness. The men undergo a double process of cultural adaptation: to the Western culture and to their native culture after their return. Both the husbands’ extended family and the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict were found to affect both partners’ adaptation.