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Re-inscribing gender binaries: deconstructing the dominant discourse around women's equality in science, engineering, and technology

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 21:26 authored by Alison Phipps
This paper tracks and attempts to unravel a persistently dominant discursive construction of the problem of women's under-representation in science, engineering, and technology (SET) education and work: the idea that the interaction of gender stereotyping with the masculine image of SET disciplines and workplaces prevents girls and women from choosing SET subjects and going into SET careers. The discursive framework of 'Women in SET' will be examined at both macro and micro levels as it operates in the field of activist and pedagogic activity that has grown around the issue since the 1970s. A Foucauldian analysis will be applied in order to explore the kinds of subject positions this framework enables and excludes. It will be argued that the Women in SET framework re-inscribes the gendered binaries that have at a symbolic level defined girls/women and SET as mutually exclusive, and as a result practices based on this framework may be counter-productive because their subjectivating effects on girls and women may undermine their broad political aims.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Sociological Review

ISSN

0038-0261

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Issue

4

Volume

55

Page range

768-787

Pages

16.0

Department affiliated with

  • Sociology and Criminology Publications

Notes

The article presents data from a pioneering macro-analysis of gender activism within science, engineering and technology. Its contribution to the field lies in the adoption of a variety of methodological and theoretical tools to produce a more sophisticated sociological analysis of women's under-representation in science, engineering and technology.

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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