Women in Non-Traditional Occupations: Challenging Men

228 Pages·2002·0.78 MB·English

by  Barbara Bagilhole (auth.)

Women in Non-Traditional
Occupations
Challenging Men
Barbara Bagilhole
Women in Non-Traditional Occupations
Also by Barbara Bagilhole
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND SOCIAL POLICY: Issues of Gender, Race
and Disability
WOMEN, WORK AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Women in Non-Traditional
Occupations
Challenging Men
Barbara Bagilhole
Associate Dean (Research) for the
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and
Reader in Equal Opportunities in Social Policy
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
© Barbara Bagilhole 2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-92926-1
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2002 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-349-42550-1 ISBN 978-0-230-50110-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230501102
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managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bagilhole, Barbara, 1951–
Women in non-traditional occupations: challenging men/Barbara Bagilhole.
p. cm.
“Reader in equal opportunities in social policy.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women – Employment. 2. Occupations. 3. Equality. 4. Sex
discrimination in employment. I. Title.
HD6053 .B245 2002
331.4–dc21
2002026753
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
Contents
List of Tables vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 An International Perspective on Women’s and Men’s Work:
Gender Segregation of Labour Markets 10
2 Explanations of Continuing Occupational Segregation and
Identification of Potential Levers for Change 26
3 Concepts and Themes around the Difference between
Women’s and Men’s Work 44
4 Four Non-Traditional Occupations for Women 58
5 No Change at Home? 76
6 Structural Barriers 96
7 Hostile Reactions: Male Culture 114
8 Equal Opportunities Structures and Policies 133
9 Men Were There First – Becoming One of Them! 149
10 Titles Don’t Always Count 165
11 Challenging Gender Boundaries: Common Themes and
Issues for Women in Non-Traditional Occupations 180
Appendix:Details of Case Studies 194
References 198
Index 219
v
List of Tables
1.1 Occupational segregation by sex in selected European
countries and the USA 14
1.2 Employment by sector, employees and self-employed
aged 16 and over 18
1.3 Employment by occupation, employees and self-employed
aged 16 and over 19
1.4 Occupational segregation, employees and self-employed
aged 16 and over 19
1.5 Top occupations for women and men in the USA 23
vi
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the women Civil Service managers, academics,
construction engineers, and priests in the Church of England who so
willingly and enthusiastically gave up their time and confidences. They
were all very open and frank about their experiences of working in
male-dominated occupations, even on issues that were very sensitive
and at times painful for them. Should any of them chance to read this
book, I hope they will be happy with the representation of their views,
experiences and perceptions.
I would like particularly to thank my colleague Ruth Lister for her
past and continuing support in my academic career, and for coming up
with the brilliant initial idea for this book. I would also like to thank
another colleague, Linda Hantrais, who conscientiously and meticu-
lously read the first draft of this book, and came up with so many
helpful and constructive ideas to improve it.
When I first started my academic career in 1991, I went to a seminar
given by Jo Campling on ‘getting published’. Her advice in that
seminar and subsequently has proved to be indispensable. This is my
third book with Jo, and as always she has acted as a wise adviser,
confidence booster, encourager and supporter, and deadline enforcer.
My thanks go to my sons George and Ben, and my mother Joyce for
their continuing support and love, and to my cats as the best compan-
ions and patient listeners through many hours of writing this book.
Finally, I would like yet again to especially thank my partner Rupert for
his love and making life fun.
vii
Introduction
‘Anything you can do I can do better! I can do anything better
than you!’ ‘No you can’t!’ ‘Yes I can’ ‘No you can’t!’ ‘Yes I can!
Yes I can! Yes I can!’
‘Annie Get Your Gun’, Irving Berlin, 1971
Man for the field and woman for the hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman for the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey:
All else confusion.
Tennyson, The Princess, 1847
Women who enter non-traditional occupations can be said to have to
masquerade as men, but not quite as literally as their sisters did in
history. One stark example of this was James Miranda Barry, on whose
true story Duncker (1999) based her novel. She was a woman who
pretended to be a man for 50 years, and pursued her career over three
continents as a surgeon officer in the Victorian British Army.
Edinburgh University, where she studied medicine, was for men only
and therefore provided the catalyst for her performing life as a man.
Barry wore three-inch soles to her boots, shoulder pads and a long
overcoat at all times. Only after her death in 1865 was it revealed that
she was a woman. She may have been one of many women in
Victorian times who were compelled to pass as a man, or otherwise be
prisoners of their gender and unable to pursue their desired careers.
The following poignant piece of conversation between Barry and
her father from Duncker’s novel expresses aptly how some women
1
2 Women in Non-Traditional Occupations
who desire to enter non-traditional occupations are expected to
conform.
‘Listen, soldier,’ said Francisco, ‘would you like to study properly? At
a university?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered, suddenly feeling sick and shivery.
‘Well, that’s what you’re going to do. There’s just one thing that
you’ll have to remember from now on. You never will be a girl. But
you won’t find that hard. You’ll just go on being a tomboy’ …
‘Welcome aboard, James Miranda Barry. You’d be wasted as a
woman. Join the men.’
(Duncker, 1999, p. 60)
This book is also about women in non-traditional, male-dominated
work. Its overall aim is to examine and analyse common issues and
concepts concerning these women. The overall question it explores is: if
women work in non-traditional, male-dominated work, are they agents
for change or changed themselves? Cockburn (1991, p. 2) stated that
‘many feminists increasingly moved into … employing organisations
taking their struggle with them … [and] by such “entrism” women have
for the first time approached the places of power and begun to
challenge powerful men and the way they operate’. But is this the case
in non-traditional occupations? Are these occupations full of feminists
challenging male dominance? Or are they full of conforming women
who have changed themselves for the sake of their career success? This
book seeks to find out which is the more accurate assessment.
To answer these questions it looks in detail at four case studies of
non-traditional occupations where the author has conducted qualita-
tive empirical research: Civil Service management, academia, construc-
tion engineering and the priesthood in the Church of England. The
four occupations make their appearance together (in Chapter 4), but
are cited in subsequent chapters as and when the themes under dis-
cussion draw them into view. Thus the case studies are of course not
presented as typical (although they may be), but rather as theoretical
explanations for the complex processes which accompany women in
male-dominated occupations.
The perspective of research on the segregation of the labour market
has changed. Analysis in the 1970s and 1980s stimulated research on
the exact measurement of occupational segregation, resulting in a
debate on the usefulness or otherwise of different indices. However,
by the 1990s, the usefulness of a single indicator was questioned.