The construction industry remains the most male dominated sector in Australia. Several decades of formal gender equality initiatives by government and business have failed to bring about any meaningful change to the hierarchical and numerical representation of women in the sector. Drawing on new institutionalism, particularly the concepts of 'robustness' and 'revisability', the nature and intent of formal policies and programs that impact on gender equality are analysed in two large Australian multinational construction firms. Through in-depth interviews with senior management and a document analysis of formal policies, it is concluded that gender equality initiatives and broader policies are primarily focused on increasing the numbers of women in construction rather than addressing gender practices and outcomes. These policies lack many of the qualities of robustness and revisability, which impacts on their capacity to genuinely challenge the gendered norms, practices and narratives of the sector.

The construction industry is the most male-dominated in Australia, despite companies implementing formal policies and initiatives to address this. While previous research has examined the role of workplace culture as a barrier to women in the industry, our research investigates the role informal institutions play in obstructing gender equity in construction. We examine the gendered dimension of informal institutions (practices, narratives and norms) in two multinational Australian construction companies using feminist institutional (FI) theory and rapid ethnography. The findings show that informal gendered institutions obstruct women's recruitment, retention and progression in construction. Recruitment into and within the industry is framed by male sponsorship, cultural fit and traditional education pipelines. Retention is compromised by poor parental leave practices and norms, which tolerate sexism and gender stereotypes, as well as unsustainable work practices. Progression is impaired by the need for strategic alliances with powerful men and a lack of transparency around promotion opportunities.

The Australian construction industry is male dominated and highly confrontational. Critical decision and concept mapping methods are employed to explore the connection between these two characteristics by contrasting the cognitive bases of judgement and communication used by male and female workers in hypothetical conflict settings. Results indicate that the Australian construction industry's genderlect is male-centric and that this perpetuates the relatively high incidence of conflict. Women and men also behave differently in conflicts and in jobs that require them to engage in conflict and confrontation. Consequently, levels of conflict in the Australian construction industry could be reduced by increased female participation and feminizing communicative and behavioural responses to conflict.Gender, conflict, dispute, communication,

reproduce particular patterns of status and domination. Its second intervention is to reveal the gender effects of rules, including the formal and informal rules around the access to political power and to resources, on political and policy outcomes, and on organisational stasis and change (Chappell & Waylen, 2013;Lowndes, 2019). This article draws greater attention to how privilege operates through formal and informal 'rules in use', and the effects these rules have for the political appointment and the employment lifecycle of men and women across the stages of recruitment, retention and promotion.Our article is organised into five sections. Drawing on feminist institutionalism and gender theory, the article begins by outlining how gender and the rules intersect to produce and maintain masculine privilege. The second section details the problem of male dominance in two work spheres: the Australian construction sector and Australian parliament. Section three provides an overview of the methodology applied in each comparative case. The fourth section is the discussion that compares the operation of masculine privilege across the work spheres before the article's conclusion, the fifth section that draws out key lessons from the study. Gender, privilege and the rulesIn recent years, the FI literature has been concerned to differentiate between types of gendered rules and their effects. Institutions are often described as 'the rules of the game' that operate within workplaces and are known, followed and enforced (North, 1990, p. 3).They are made up of formal and informal institutions that together form the 'rules in use' (Ostrom, 1986): the 'distinct ensemble' of rules that one learns on the ground (Lowndes et al., 2006, p. 545). Formal institutions are rules and practices that are consciously designed