Ideal Workers, Ideal Gender

As we saw in Chapter 2, there have been substantial changes in the world of work. With these changes, individuals are being encouraged to work flexibly and to operate like small firms (Beck, 2000b; Castells, 2004a; Pongratz and Voß, 2003; Sennett, 1998). Whereas in old employment relations the ideal worker was regularly conceptualised as masculine (e.g. Acker, 1990; Benschop and Doorewaard, 1998a; 1998b; Gherardi, 1995; Puwar, 2004; Wajcman, 1998), the new skills profile that is emerging appears to be saturated with femininity (Adkins, 2000; 2002; Castells, 2000: 12). This is also the case in technical work (Donato, 1990; Funken, 1998; Panteli et al., 2001; Wright and Jacobs, 1995). However, as I argued in Chapter 2, the skills attribution and recognition process is a gendered one (Cockburn, 1983; Fletcher, 1999; Frenkel, 2008; Peterson, 2005; 2007; Phillips and Taylor, 1980; Woodfield, 2000; 2002). Therefore, I provide insight by exploring, first, how ICT workers themselves construct the ideal worker and, second, how they position themselves in relation to the ideal worker. Third, I show how flexibility is enshrined in the ICT labour process, before I explore, fourth, how skills in ICT work are gendered. I pay particular attention to how gender is performed by constructing the ideal worker and positioning oneself in relation to the ideal worker. I thus show how the work environment itself is changing and what these changes mean in terms of gender. Further detail on the companies discussed here and how the research was conducted can be found in Appendix 2.