IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v22y2008i2p281-299.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Sharon Bolton

    (Strathclyde University, UK, Sharon.Bolton@gsb.strath.ac.uk)

  • Daniel Muzio

    (Leeds University, UK, D.Muzio@lubs.leeds.ac.uk)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharon Bolton & Daniel Muzio, 2008. "The paradoxical processes of feminization in the professions: the case of established, aspiring and semi-professions," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(2), pages 281-299, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:22:y:2008:i:2:p:281-299
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017008089105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017008089105
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017008089105?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gerard Hanlon, 1999. "Lawyers, the State and the Market," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-14686-4, December.
    2. Jeffrey Evans Stake & Kenneth G. Dau‐Schmidt & Kaushik Mukhopadhaya, 2007. "Income and Career Satisfaction in the Legal Profession: Survey Data from Indiana Law School Graduates," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(4), pages 939-981, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. McDonald, Ruth & Campbell, Stephen & Lester, Helen, 2009. "Practice nurses and the effects of the new general practitioner contract in the English National Health Service: The extension of a professional project?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1206-1212, April.
    2. Bosch, Maria José & Heras, Mireia Las & Russo, Marcello & Rofcanin, Yasin & Grau i Grau, Marc, 2018. "How context matters: The relationship between family supportive supervisor behaviours and motivation to work moderated by gender inequality," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 46-55.
    3. Ozbilgin, Mustafa F. & Tsouroufli, Maria & Smith, Merryn, 2011. "Understanding the interplay of time, gender and professionalism in hospital medicine in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(10), pages 1588-1594, May.
    4. Charlotta Stern, 2016. "Undoing Insularity: A Small Study of Gender Sociology’s Big Problem," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 13(3), pages 452–466-4, September.
    5. Edgley, Carla & Sharma, Nina & Anderson-Gough, Fiona, 2016. "Diversity and professionalism in the Big Four firms: Expectation, celebration and weapon in the battle for talent," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 13-34.
    6. Haynes, Kathryn, 2017. "Accounting as gendering and gendered: A review of 25 years of critical accounting research on gender," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 110-124.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Faulconbridge, James R. & Muzio, Daniel, 2021. "Valuation devices and the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus: The case of PEP in the English legal profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Joni Hersch, 2023. "Gender, race, and job satisfaction of law graduates: Intersectional evidence from the National Survey of College Graduates," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(2), pages 339-376, June.
    3. Daniel Muzio & David M. Brock & Roy Suddaby, 2013. "Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 699-721, July.
    4. Hanlon, Gerard, 2010. "Knowledge, risk and Beck: Misconceptions of expertise and risk," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 211-220.
    5. James Faulconbridge & Daniel Muzio, 2008. "Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(1), pages 7-25, March.
    6. James R. Faulconbridge, 2008. "Managing the Transnational Law Firm: A Relational Analysis of Professional Systems, Embedded Actors, and Time—Space-Sensitive Governance," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 84(2), pages 185-210, April.
    7. Edgley, Carla & Sharma, Nina & Anderson-Gough, Fiona, 2016. "Diversity and professionalism in the Big Four firms: Expectation, celebration and weapon in the battle for talent," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 13-34.
    8. Laurie Cohen & Adrian Wilkinson & John Arnold & Rachael Finn, 2005. "‘Remember I’m the bloody architect!’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 19(4), pages 775-796, December.
    9. Bertrand Malsch & Yves Gendron, 2013. "Re-Theorizing Change: Institutional Experimentation and the Struggle for Domination in the Field of Public Accounting," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 870-899, July.
    10. Elyesa KOYTAK, 2020. "Meslek Sosyolojisinde Teorik Yaklaşımlar," Journal of Economy Culture and Society, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 0(1), pages 1-27, September.

    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:sae:woemps:v:22:y:2008:i:2:p:281-299. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.