‘Family ideology’: identification and exploration

The issue of ‘family ideology’ has been systematically ignored by a majority of ‘family¹ scholars whilst it has been taken for granted by a minority. The following study arises from the author's attempts to explore the issue of alternative theoretical approaches to the analysis of family life’.² Increasing numbers of contemporary researchers concur in recognising the diversity of ‘family forms’ and the inappropriateness of speaking of ‘The Family’.³ Despite these recognitions many researchers find themselves re-adopting the term ‘The Family’ in their discussions and especially in the titles of their work. For example. Segal clearly recognises that the ‘traditional family model’ no longer reflects the reality of our lives (1983, 11) and yet the title of her book is What is to he done about THE FAMILY? (emphasis added). One reason for the re-importation of the idea of ‘The Family’ may be found in the rather limited nature of previous conceptualisations of ‘family ideology’. With the exception of Barrett (1980), recognitions of ‘family ideology’ tend to be conceptualised in terms of sets of partisan beliefs supporting a particular ‘family form’. Thus the concept of ‘The Family’ is rarely regarded as being problematic in itself, rather attention is paid to the presumed virtues or deficiencies of the particular form of ‘The Family’ which is assumed to be prevalent. Notwithstanding the recognition of ‘family diversity’ or the inappropriateness of the term ‘The Family’, nearly all discussion becomes a straightforward attack upon, or defence of. ‘The Family’.⁴ Only very rarely does analysis avoid this trap and question whether ‘The Family’ really exists to be attacked or defended; thus Collier et al. have asked ‘Is there a Family?’ (1982) and the present author has asked ‘Do we really know what “The Family” is?’(Bernardes, 1948a). The objective here is to identify and explore a specific conceptualisation of ‘family ideology’. The aim is to avoid engaging in attacks upon, or defences of, ‘The Family’ but rather to address the ideological context of such debates themselves, especially in respect of the assumed existence of ‘The Family’. It is hoped that this approach will stimulate a much more critical examination of ‘family ideology’ and the concept of ‘The Family’. More generally, the attempt to conceptualise ‘family ideology’ in this much broader sense is seen as a pre-requisite for the development of an alternative theoretical approach to the analysis of ‘family life’.     

Doing gender in the ‘new office’

This paper investigates how gender is performed in the context of an office setting designed to promote intensive, fluid networking. We draw on an ethnographically oriented study of the move of staff into a new office building constructed primarily from glass, and incorporating open plan offices, diverse collective areas and walking routes. Although the designers aimed to invoke changes in the behaviour of all staff, they conceptualized these changes in masculine terms. We therefore analyse the gender norms materialized by the workspaces of the ‘new office’ and how women responded to these. We suggest that the new office encourages an image of the ideal worker which brings together ways of acting and interacting that have been characterized as both masculine and feminine — active movement and spontaneous encounters, but also intensive face‐to‐face interaction and deep relationship‐building. Women are driven into this mode of working in an uncompromising, almost aggressive way, but a straightforward gender‐based dynamic does not emerge in their responses, with conventional gender characteristics being reshuffled and recombined.     

Bridging the Gap: ‘Doing Gender’, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’, and the Educational Troubles of Boys

This article reviews popular and social scientific perspectives on the academic gender gap in education, specifically the finding that boys underperform compared to girls. The article highlights the utility of sociology in analyzing the gender gap and in guiding how educators respond to students’ gender. It suggests that contemporary gender theories ‘doing gender’ and ‘hegemonic masculinity’ offer the best lenses through which to view academic gender differences. These perspectives can frame boys’ academic troubles as an important social problem, but one that is rooted in the social construction of masculinity rather than institutional discrimination against boys.     

‘Don’t underestimate the things that I will do’

Based on a true story. It is about an awakening in which a single mother realizes that she has been manipulated by her society — rather, what the society instilled into her mind.     

Doing hot and ‘dirty’ work: Masculinities and occupational identity in firefighting

Within industrial societies, firefighters are often sexualized, celebrated and elevated as respectable working‐class heroes. Drawing from fieldwork and interviews with 33 men currently employed in an Australian metropolitan fire service, I explore the making of masculinities across four stations. Utilizing Beverly Skeggs’ social exchange theory and Mary Douglas’ theory of risk and analysis of pollution, this article argues that men attempt to construct respectable masculinities, in an effort to protect their self‐image as the heroes of contemporary society. Exploring issues surrounding morality and physicality, the findings suggest that firefighters consciously distance themselves from potential sites of pollution, which include avoiding stigmatized stations. This article extends gender theory by showing how working‐class men distinguish from each other through intra‐age distinction in order to construct respectable working‐class masculinities.     

‘Doing femininity’ at work: More than just relational practice1

Workplaces constitute one of the more interesting sites where individuals ‘do gender’, while at the same time constructing their professional identities and meeting their organisation's expectations. Drawing on interactional data recorded in New Zealand professional organisations, this paper focuses in particular on how participants manage and interpret the notion of ‘femininity’ in workplace discourse. In much current usage, the concepts ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’ typically evoke negative reactions. Our analysis suggests these notions can be reclaimed and reinterpreted positively using an approach which frames doing femininity at work as normal, unmarked, and effective workplace behaviour in many contexts. The analysis also demonstrates that multiple femininities extend beyond normative expectations, such as enacting relational practice ( Fletcher 1999 ), to embrace more contestive and parodic instantiations of femininity in workplace talk.     

‘Doing Something Meaningful’: Gender and Public Service during Municipal Government Restructuring

Research on the gendered dimensions of workplace restructuring often focuses on management strategies and their structural consequences. Less attention is paid to employees’ gendered practices. In this article, we analyse material from in‐depth interviews with front‐line public‐sector employees following a major reorganization of their jobs and workplaces. Our study makes three contributions to theory and research on gender and organizational change. Firstly, it highlights the micro‐level dynamics at the heart of restructuring by showing how workers engaged with an ideal that was central to their understanding of public‐sector work — the public‐service ethic — which they believed was threatened. Secondly, it highlights the importance of gendered meanings and identities in shaping how workers engaged with the public service ethic. Thirdly, the study shows that front‐line employees did not passively accept management plans for change but struggled to resist or transform them in gendered strategies for dealing with organizational change.     

‘Doing Life’: Gender Relations in a Night Nursing Sub‐Culture

This paper explores a night nursing sub‐culture which is struggling to survive. The context is the NHS in the UK. This exclusively female group within an organization numerically dominated by women evokes hostile reactions from other cultural groups within the NHS, based on its perceived espousal of ‘female’ ways of being. Increasingly threatened by the new managerialism of the NHS, the permanent night shift faces extinction as a group. This paper describes the night nurse culture as it exists in a general hospital and offers some insights into the way that gender relations evolve to sustain male power in an organization where women are numerically dominant.     

‘Ass‐kicking’ Women: Doing and Undoing Gender in a US Livestock Auction

Using in‐depth interviews with farm operators and participant observation at a livestock auction, this article explores how women in conventional agriculture in the USA ‘do gender’ in a male‐dominated world. In particular the ways that space, both public and private, alters the performance of gender are analysed. Given that agriculture in the USA has traditionally been tied to masculinity and that more and more women are entering the field, the article examines the strategies women employ to negotiate the tension between being women and being farmers. The findings suggest that in general women's success is intricately tied to their ability to reproduce the masculinity that spells success for their male counterparts. These women dress in masculine clothing, swear and are ‘tough as nails’. Furthermore, women's mere presence as farm operators does not necessarily subvert the relationship between masculinity and agriculture. In many ways this notion is reinforced by the presence of these women and so the performance of gender ultimately reinforces rather than subverts the ties between hegemonic masculinity and agriculture.     

‘No Coward Soul is Mine’: A Family Systems Analysis of the Bronte Family

The Bronte family produced three major authors of the Victorian period, only one of whom, Charlotte, lived to enjoy her fame. Since the beginning, this family has elicited controversy, myth and speculation. The authors attempt an analysis of the complex dynamics of the Brontes, including its constituent ‘family cultures’, parent‐child alliances, sibling bonds and rivalries, the traumatic effects of three early deaths, and the strong theme of secrecy and ‘protection’ in a family dominated by Branwell Bronte's instability and eventual alcoholism. The authors speculate on how this family might have presented for treatment, and invite readers to consider how they, as family therapists, might have responded.     

Becoming ‘Real’ Entrepreneurs: Women and the Gendered Normalization of ‘Work’

This article focuses on the way in which women entrepreneurs legitimate their place in a gendered economy by reifying a divide between ‘real work’ and ‘not‐real work’. Using ethnographic approaches to follow the everyday lives of several women who own and operate small businesses in the USA, our article documents three gendering practices the women use for ‘becoming real workers:’ embodied, spatial and temporal. The study shows that women entrepreneurs become ‘productive workers’ by recasting reproductive work as non‐productive or not‐real work. At the end, we explore two possible alternative conceptualizations of ‘work’ that could contribute to dissolving this gendered divide.     

Accounting for Exclusion: Giving a ‘Voice’ and producing a ‘subject’

SUMMARY: This article examines a series of accounts of exclusion given by pupils and a teacher in interviews and a group discussion. It is argued that it is important to hear pupils' experiences. However, it is recognised that it is never possible to access an experience directly, since the process of research alway shapes the way an account is constructed. This does not invalidate the research, since it is argued that the way pupils relate to the interviewer and the way they talk about their exclusion seemed indirectly to reflect important differences in the way exclusion is experienced. Specifically, two ways of managing exclusion were identified by pupils: some pupils protested about being excluded and welcomed the invitation to tell their story. Others distanced themselves from the event, by speaking of their exclusion in objective and concrete terms. These styles of accounting are compared to the way in which the head teacher discusses the topic of exclusion.     

‘Belonging’ and ‘Otherness’: Sex Equality in Banking in Turkey and Britain

The struggle for sex equality at work has largely been achieved in the developed world, it is claimed. The number of well‐qualified young women entering white‐collar employment and achieving promotion to first‐line and middle management positions now matches or exceeds their male peers. Many young women have high career aspirations and argue that sex discrimination no longer exists. However, this perception is over‐optimistic. Major sex inequalities persist at senior management level in the salaries and benefits offered to female and male staff and in access to certain favoured occupations and sectors of employment. Questionnaires, interviews and documentary evidence from three Turkish and six British banks and high street financial organizations showed that their claimed commitment to equal opportunities by sex was not matched by their practices. Members of managerial elites (who were almost exclusively male) held firm views about the characteristics of ‘the ideal worker’, which informed organizational ideologies, including human resource policies and practices concerning recruitment and promotion. They also permeated organizational cultures, which affected employees’ working practices and experiences. The outcome of these internal negotiation processes was to differentiate between a favoured group of staff seen as fully committed to the companies’ values, who were promoted and rewarded, and an ‘out’ group, whose members were denied these privileges. This distinction between ‘belonging’ and ‘otherness’ is gendered not only along the traditional lines of class, age, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability, but also along the new dimensions of marriage, networking, safety, mobility and space. Despite local and cross‐cultural differences in the significance of these factors, the cumulative disadvantage suffered by women staff seeking career development in the industry was remarkably similar.     

Towards a Topology of ‘Doing Gender’: An Analysis of Empirical Research and Its Challenges

‘Doing gender’ is a much used term in research on gender, work and organizations. However, translating theoretical insight into empirical research is often a challenging endeavour. A lack of clarity with regard to the conceptualization and operationalization of key terms in turn often limits the theoretical and empirical purchase of a concept. The aim of this article is therefore to provide a systematization of empirical approaches to ‘doing gender’. This systematization leads to a topology of five themes that is derived from empirical research in the field. The five themes identified are structures, hierarchies, identity, flexibility and context specificity, and gradual relevance/subversion. Each theme explores a different facet of ‘doing gender’. This topology helps empirical researchers to be more specific about which aspects of ‘doing gender’ they are referring to. This in turn can help to unfold the theoretical potential of the concept of ‘doing gender’.