Doing and undoing gender: women professionals' persistence in technology occupations

PurposeThis study aims to identify women professionals' strategies to persist in the male-dominated technology industry situated in the Bangladeshi socio-cultural context.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews with women tech professionals were conducted to identify and explore the strategies. Thematic coding was used for data analysis.FindingsThe findings suggest that the complex interplay of macro-, meso- and micro-factors pushes women to defy societal and gender norms in their choice and persistence, yet they simultaneously conform to these norms. By simultaneous expressions of doing and undoing gender, these women dealt with hierarchies and inequalities, navigated masculinized industry and empowered themselves within a patriarchal culture. The strategies effectively allowed them to demonstrate agency and persist in tech occupations.Research limitations/implicationsThe study participants were women and recruited using snowball sampling. Future research could benefit from recruiting a larger, more varied sample using random sampling.Practical implicationsThe study can inform teaching and policy initiatives to increase women's representation in tech sectors through awareness campaigns, policy interventions and counseling.Originality/valueThe research extends the doing and undoing framework by integrating the relational perspective to explain women's agency and resilience situated in a patriarchal context. The paper focuses on women's micro-individual strategies to navigate macro- and meso-level forces. Moreover, Bangladesh is an under-researched context, and findings from the study can help design potential intervention strategies to increase women's participation.

Multimedia Analysis of Spanish Female Role Models in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Horizontal segregation in the higher education framework is a problem that goes up in the work environment. Women are assuming traditional gender roles due to phenomena such as the threat of stereotyping, which prevents them from opting for higher studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This research work arises within the project W-STEM, “Building the Future of Latin America: Involving Women in STEM”. The research aims to investigate women’s academic and professional development in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through their personal experience in making career-related decisions. The research was developed by applying a qualitative method. During the year 2020, video semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-one women professionals in the STEM field. Of the twenty-one participants, six are linked to science, eight to technology, fifteen to engineering and one to mathematics. Due to their research lines, some of them are located in more than one STEM area, for example, in technology and engineering. These women were interviewed about their choice of studies and training, their jobs, professional achievements, family and social environment and their perspective on the gender gap in STEM. They all agree on horizontal segregation and consider it necessary to motivate girls and young women to study what they like. Furthermore, they all show passion for their work.

Predictors of subjective career success amongst women employees: moderating role of perceived organizational support and marital status

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between subjective career success (SCS) and proactive career behavior as well as family support, with a focus on women professionals in India. The study also investigates the moderating role of perceived organizational support and marital status on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of 363 women professionals working in the information technology-enabled services industry in India. The study is cross-sectional in design. Findings Findings from this study posit the positive moderating role of perceived organizational support on the relationship between proactive career behavior and SCS and on the relationship between family support and SCS. As a moderator, marital status has a positive impact on the relationship between proactive career behavior and SCS but has a negative impact on the relationship between family support and SCS. Practical implications The results from this study will help organizations understand the predictors of career success of women employees. Another practical implication is that this study establishes knowledge of perceived organizational support, a controllable organizational factor as a moderator in positively influencing the success of women’s careers. Leaders and managers can, therefore, use organizational factors to facilitate the success of women employees. Originality/value This study is perhaps the first to examine the relationship between antecedents of career success for women professionals in the context of India.

Next Wave of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Survivors

This study seeks to deepen our understanding of the survival adaptive behaviors, particularly features of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS), identified by Black women professionals who exist at the margins in academia and society. To date, exploration of posttraumatic growth has not been researched concomitantly with PTSS. By examining these variables collectively, this study’s model provides an original contribution to a growing but insufficient literature on Black women professionals who endure institutional racism. Using the Listening Guide, this study presents data from seven (7) Black women professionals in higher education. The study finds interviewees adopt Angry Black Women and Strong Black Woman schema, and PTSS features as a survival strategy stemming from gender discrimination rooted in proximity to Whiteness and habitual attacks on their professional acumen. Congruently, learnings revealed (1) Identity and Positionality, (2) Generational [In]visibility, (3), Professional Rage Located, and (4) Voices of PPTTG—Prayers, People, Trials, Tribulations and God. Dismantling White Supremacy must center Black women's survival herstories and healing at the intersection of anti-Black racism and hidden systematic policies. Practice models that nuance PTSS trauma-informed assessments, the addition of PTSS to the DSM, and widely accepted African-centered paradigms are essential for this wave of race work

Delving into the dichotomous trajectory of Indian women flexpatriates: using the lens of JD-R theory

PurposeDrawing from the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, this paper aims to identify unique job demands, job resources and personal resources in the context of Indian women flexpatriates (IWFs) and understand how they manage to perform in their short-term international assignments (SIAs).Design/methodology/approachThis study takes a qualitative approach by conducting in-depth interviews of 15 IWFs.FindingsThematic analysis reveals dual-role workload, emotional demands and diluted importance of the assignments as job demands; opportunity for professional growth, social support and combination of work and leisure as job resources, and building up of self-esteem and self-efficacy as personal resources. Also, the unique Indian family structure, Indian women's desire to have “me-time” and zeal to strengthen their identity emerge as differentiating factors for IWFs that enhance their performance.Practical implicationsIWFs are enthusiastic to take up SIAs as it gives them opportunity to enhance their career and strengthen their identity. In addition to their willingness to travel, advance planning of SIAs and profiling of women based on marital status, family type and children can be done for selection.Social implicationsDespite hailing from paternalistic and male-dominating society and facing familial challenges, IWFs find SIAs liberating, which gives them an opportunity to spend some “me-time,” strengthen their identity and enhance their professional growth.Originality/valueThis is the first qualitative study contextualizing flexpatriation with gender and region by studying Indian women professionals.

An Empirical Investigation of the Mentor-Mentee Relationship Among Female Architects and Female Architectural Students

Women are highly underrepresented in the construction industry. In line with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations of gender quality and reducing inequalities, there is a need to think of innovative and sustainable frameworks to increase women's quota in the construction trade, especially in architecture. The study investigated the mentor-mentee relationship between female Architects and female Architectural students. The study utilized a research survey approach using a questionnaire data instrument. Using a purposive sampling technique, 84 research participants, consisting of female Architects and female Architecture students, participated in this study. The data collected are presented using bar charts, mean scores, principal component analysis (PCA), and categorical regression (CAT-REG). The study identified characteristics associated with good Mentors and good Mentees in the design profession. Mentees identified the main features that make a good mentor as the ability to teach, listen attentively, and communicate effectively. On the other hand, Mentors identified the qualities of a good mentee who communicates, is focused and demonstrates intelligence. The study showed that the significant negative experiences in a mentor-mentee relationship include a clash of personalities between the mentors and mentees, stealing credit for work done by both parties, and unrealistic expectations. Furthermore, these negative experiences result from poor attitude, wrong emotions, and loss of motivation. In conclusion, the study showed that proper implementation of Women mentoring programs among design professionals could lead to potential outcomes such as improved productivity, empowerment of inexperienced personnel, attracting likely female students, retaining women professionals, higher salaries, higher job satisfaction, and an increase in role models/mentors.

Indian Women at Workplace: Coping with “Role boundedness” through “Hardiness”

Stress has become a matter of concern in the present post-globalization world which has brought in enormous changes in the ways organizations work, the professionals’ work-style and pattern, extended working hours, meeting deadlines, added roles and responsibilities, role overload and ambiguities; and cultural and technological changes. Researchers have demonstrated a gender variation with respect to coping with role stressors or stressful life events. Golpelwar [1] finds that Indian women professionals suffer from a role stress typically termed as “Role boundedness”, a result of wanting “to be everything for everybody”. The present descriptive research work, probably one of the first on the issue, highlights the importance of “hardiness” - a stress resilient personality disposition [2] - in coping with “role boundedness” and shows a relationship between role boundedness and hardiness in women professionals indicative of the protective mechanism of hardiness in coping with role boundedness.

Carried away: 'revisioning' feminist film theory toward a radical practice.

""It's difficult to believe that after over 30 years of feminist theory "breaking the glass ceiling" is still a term often heard from women professionals. Still, while women continue to make up a trifling percentage of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, and are continually paid 72% of the wages of their male counterparts, 2 small advances continue to be made by women in both these areas? Yet, one profession that stands out as persistently keeping women on the outside looking in is mainstream filmmaking, especially directing. Indeed, no woman has ever won an Oscar for directing, and women are rarely nominated in the category, most likely because women direct less than 1 % of mainstream films. While women continue to chip their way up the corporate ladder, albeit excruciatingly slowly, women directors of mainstream films are actually declining in numbers. It is ironic that it should be in the area of filmmaking that women have made such small progress. The implication of feminist film criticism's rifts and divisions, played out in theories of heterogeneity or what makes up a feminist aesthetic, typifies the continuing contribution that feminist criticism has made to critical and ultural studies on a whole. Much current critical theory is indebted to feminist film theory, but in tum, critical, psychoanalytic, post structuralist and cultural studies' influences on radical feminist theory have effected--or at least influenced--a shift that tends to privilege a critical practice dealing primarily with image/representation. As a result, feminist approaches to media have centred on '[re]reading' popular culture through a narrow feminist paradigm which in film criticism, especially, has meant that dominant critical strategies chiefly have been limited to a political tactic of "reading against the grain," rather than a tactic of producing contemporary feminist films."--Pages 2-3.

Carried away: 'revisioning' feminist film theory toward a radical practice.

""It's difficult to believe that after over 30 years of feminist theory "breaking the glass ceiling" is still a term often heard from women professionals. Still, while women continue to make up a trifling percentage of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, and are continually paid 72% of the wages of their male counterparts, 2 small advances continue to be made by women in both these areas? Yet, one profession that stands out as persistently keeping women on the outside looking in is mainstream filmmaking, especially directing. Indeed, no woman has ever won an Oscar for directing, and women are rarely nominated in the category, most likely because women direct less than 1 % of mainstream films. While women continue to chip their way up the corporate ladder, albeit excruciatingly slowly, women directors of mainstream films are actually declining in numbers. It is ironic that it should be in the area of filmmaking that women have made such small progress. The implication of feminist film criticism's rifts and divisions, played out in theories of heterogeneity or what makes up a feminist aesthetic, typifies the continuing contribution that feminist criticism has made to critical and ultural studies on a whole. Much current critical theory is indebted to feminist film theory, but in tum, critical, psychoanalytic, post structuralist and cultural studies' influences on radical feminist theory have effected--or at least influenced--a shift that tends to privilege a critical practice dealing primarily with image/representation. As a result, feminist approaches to media have centred on '[re]reading' popular culture through a narrow feminist paradigm which in film criticism, especially, has meant that dominant critical strategies chiefly have been limited to a political tactic of "reading against the grain," rather than a tactic of producing contemporary feminist films."--Pages 2-3.

Women Information Technology Professionals: Digital Sisterhood

This study is an exploratory study of the sisterhood circles among women professionals of the information technology industry. It focused on how the medium of technology helped the women to relate to others, form relations of trust and bond as allies in the virtual world over their common concerns in the real world. Adopting a phenomenological perspective, the research aimed to study the experiences of women sisterhood networks and its impact on their professional lives.