The paradoxical processes of feminization in the professions: the case of established, aspiring and semi-professions

Abstract

The past three decades have been characterized by dramatic labour market developments including the mass entry of women to exclusively male domains. Professional work is particularly indicative of this trend where growth in female membership has fuelled optimistic predictions of shattered glass ceilings and gender equality. This article seeks to challenge these predictions and to explore the associated assumptions linked with the feminization of work in the UK. It does so by focusing on three professional groups: law, teaching and management which, despite some substantial differences, present a common and recurrent theme in the gendered processes of professional projects that marginalize, downgrade and exploit women and women's work. It is argued that the fluidity of such processes lead to a series of paradoxes as the professions are increasingly dependent on the contribution of their female members and yet numerical feminization, without truly including women, serves to undermine and even reverse professional projects

‘Impact’ in the proposals for the UK's Research Excellence Framework: Shifting the boundaries of academic autonomy

“…It is helpful to view professions as "projects" that unfold over time (Bolton and Muzio, 2008), and whose central aim is the quest for autonomy. The great achievement of the scientific field during the 19 th century was to have established its own incompatibility with politics and other non-scientific modes of cultural production (Bourdieu, 1984, p.57).…”

Gender essentialism and occupational segregation in insolvency practice

“…25-35). Studies suggest that the development of feminine niches is designed to preserve masculine professionalisation projects threatened by increasing feminisation (Roberts & Coutts, 1992: Bolton & Muzio, 2008. These arguments have potency in the professional sub-field examined in this paper.…”

“…It has been suggested that gender segregation represents a form of intra occupational polarisation designed to protect the professionalisation project of the male elite (Bolton & Muzio, 2008; also Crompton & Sanderson, 1990) 2 . In the accounting profession Roberts & Coutts (1992) argued that the increasing location of women in marginalised niches constituted a response by patriarchal forces to the threat posed by the advancing feminisation of accounting.…”

Getting in and getting on in medical careers: how the rules of the game are gendered

“…It would seem that while a proportion of women do successfully navigate the labyrinth of medical careers that they must accept and display "a male role" in order to do so. Bolton and Muzio (2008) point out that the feminization of a professional group is not just a numerical but is also a cultural process. Thus, rising numbers of women at medical school and at the early stages of a medical career can not really be said to be "feminizing" medicine, similar to findings in relation to veterinary medicine (Irvine and Vermilya 2010).…”

“…Our work adds to the dialogue about how gender is done, and patterns of inequality reproduced, in the professions (Bagilhole 2002;Bagilhole and Goode 2001;Bolton and Muzio 2008;Irvine and Vermilya 2010). Our contribution is to draw attention to stark (gendered) inconsistencies in discourses about male disadvantage (at entry) and female disadvantage (in attaining career progression) in medical careers.…”