IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bxr/bxrceb/2013-108954.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender (In) Authenticity, Belonging and Identity Work in Engineering

Author

Listed:
  • Wendy Faulkner

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept of ‘gender (in)authenticity’ to think about the apparent congruence or non-congruence of gender and engineering identities for men and women engineers respectively, in terms of the normative pressures of ‘the way things are’. Drawing on ethnographic evidence, it demonstrates that gender (in)authenticity is consequential. Women engineers often face an ‘(in)visibility paradox’ whereby they struggle to be seen as either ‘real’ engineers or ‘real’ women. They have to do more practitioner and gender identity work, where men engineers belong more readily on both fronts. These subtle gender normative dynamics can significantly undermine the retention and progression of women in engineering. Yet sustained efforts can challenge these dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Wendy Faulkner, 2011. "Gender (In) Authenticity, Belonging and Identity Work in Engineering," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 54(2-3), pages 277-293.
    • Handle: RePEc:bxr:bxrceb:2013/108954
    Note: Special Issue "Beyond the leaky pipeline - Challenges for research on Gender on Science" Guest Editors :Maria Caprile, Danièle Meulders, Sile O'Dorchai and Nuria Vallès
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/108954/1/ARTICLEFAULKNER.pdf
    File Function: ARTICLE FAULKNER
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Denise Wilson & Jennifer VanAntwerp, 2021. "Left Out: A Review of Women’s Struggle to Develop a Sense of Belonging in Engineering," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.
    2. Andrea Vera-Gajardo, 2021. "Belonging and Masculinities: Proposal of a Conceptual Framework to Study the Reasons behind the Gender Gap in Engineering," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-14, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bxr:bxrceb:2013/108954. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dulbebe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.