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Volunteering masculinities in search and rescue work: Is there “a place for girls on the team”?

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  • Sarah‐Louise Weller
  • Caroline A Clarke
  • Andrew D Brown

Abstract

This article explores performative enactments of gender at work in a UK‐based Search and Rescue voluntary organization, QuakeRescue. Based on ethnographic research, we analyze how gender is performatively constituted in this male‐dominated setting, focusing in particular on how hegemonic masculinity is enacted through bodies, physicality, and technical competence. Our findings show how performative acts, predicated on essentialist understandings of superior masculine bodies, constructed femininity as limited, deficient, and Other, legitimizing the assigning of mundane, routine tasks to women volunteers. By endorsing women's presence, albeit as low‐status team members, there was sufficient recognition to ensure that sedimented practices of “doing gender” at QuakeRescue remained largely unquestioned. We conclude that hegemonic masculinity predicated on bodily practices in male‐dominated workspaces is oppressive in its effects, and until this is recognized and acknowledged, transformative potential is limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah‐Louise Weller & Caroline A Clarke & Andrew D Brown, 2021. "Volunteering masculinities in search and rescue work: Is there “a place for girls on the team”?," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 558-574, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:2:p:558-574
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12592
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Katherine Harrison, 2015. "‘No Thought of Gender’: Bodily Norms in Swedish Rescue Services Incident Reporting," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 211-220, May.
    2. Deborah Kerfoot & David Knights & Ida Sabelis & Janet Grace Sayers & Deborah Jones, 2015. "Truth Scribbled in Blood: Women's Work, Menstruation and Poetry," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 94-111, March.
    3. Maria Johansson & Lisa Ringblom, 2017. "The Business Case of Gender Equality in Swedish Forestry and Mining - Restricting or Enabling Organizational Change," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 628-642, November.
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    1. Susan Durbin & Rae Cooper & Hazel Conley & Tessa Wright & Ana Lopes, 2022. "Working in nontraditional employment roles: Understanding and breaking down the barriers to gender segregation," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1612-1616, September.

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