Re-Inscribing Gender Binaries

Deconstructing the Dominant Discourse around Women'S Equality in Science, Engineering, and Technology

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3143902
AutoresAlison Phipps (0000-0001-5958-1207)
Año2007
Volumen55
Número4
Páginas768-787
Fecha de publicación2007-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-954x.2007.00744.x
OpenAlexW2135743198
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas46

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

Epistemology · Field (mathematics) · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics) · Set (abstract data type) · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Career Development and Diversity · Computer Science · Gender and Technology in Education · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Studies · Law · Mathematics