Doing a Man sized job_Women in Trades Thesis

Doing a Man-Sized Job:
Exploring Hegemonic Femininity in Relation to Women Employed in
Non-Traditional Vocations
Annette Bennett
Student No
13302838
Bachelor of Adult Education (Honours)
School of Applied Social & Human Sciences
University of Western Sydney
Supervisor:
Jane Durie
14th
October, 2005

ABSTRACT
A relatively small number of Australian women are currently employed in ‘man-sized’ jobs
(non-traditional blue-collar vocations). Much has been written, over the past quarter century,
regarding women’s entry into the ‘blue-collar’ trades. This body of work has tended to focus on
structural barriers to women’s access to employment in non-traditional vocational areas and
exploring the creation of opportunities for employment of women in these areas.
This project, however, did not attend to these structural issues, but had a separate and distinct
focus on the female body. The study engaged with discourses of hegemonic femininity and on
the notion of the female body as a potential site for the imposition of gender norms - from the
perspective of women who are currently employed in non-traditional vocations. The research
specifically focused on how the female body ‘moves’ and is ‘located’ within dominantly male
workplaces. To understand the implications of gender constraints, concepts of femininity,
identity, performativity and power were explored among women who are in effect subverting
and resisting gender norms.
The thesis utilised a feminist post-structuralist methodology to analyse the talk of the women
focus group participants; to highlight the ways that gender is ‘played out’ and ‘played with’
among these women and to understand how these women make sense of their presence in
traditionally male dominated, ‘ blue collar’ work environments. The project has an activist
agenda in that it seeks to understand and deconstruct the limitations placed on women/women’s
bodies, and thus to open up different possibilities for women working in non-traditional ‘blue
collar’ work.
ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that this thesis does not incorporate without acknowledgement any material that has
been previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my
knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another
person except where due reference is made in the text itself.
Annette Bennett
iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Most importantly, I acknowledge and sincerely thank my supervisor, Jane Durie, for
demonstrating boundless patience in perusing each draft of this thesis. I am also thankful for her
invaluable critique and suggestions and for the reassuring support and encouragement she has
provided over the duration of this project.
I express my sincere gratitude to the women who participated in this research project – for their
input in time and significant contribution to the understanding of women’s perspectives of
working in non-traditional vocations.
My thanks also to Dr Adam Possamai (Honours Course Coordinator) and Associate Professor
Michael Bounds for the valuable insight they have provided in the facilitation of the Honours
course. I express my appreciation to Honours students Patricia Vogels and Jenelle Moore for the
friendship we have formed and consolidated over the past two years.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement, but especially my
husband Geoff Bennett for his enduring love and support and for offering me the space I needed
to complete this project.
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION………...…………………………… 1
1.1 The Project Genesis……………………………………………....................... 1
1.2 Locating Myself within the Research…………………………........................ 2
1.3 My Epistemological Standpoint…………………………………..................... 4
1.4 Establishing the Research Problem……………..…………………………….. 5
1.4.1 The Gender/Sex Impasse…………………………………....... 5
1.4.2 Delineating the Research Questions………………………...... 6
1.5 The Thesis Framework……………………………………………….……...... 8
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………... 9
2.1 The Categories of Sex and Gender in Relation to the Body………………….. 9
2.2 The Persistence of the Binary……………………………………………….... 11
2.3 The Poststructuralist Subject, Positioning and Relations of Power….............. 15
2.4 Defining Hegemonic Femininity……………………………………………... 17
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY…………………………………….. 20
3.1 Methodological Approach and Rationale…………………………………….. 20
3.2 Feminist Poststructuralism as a Methodology………………………………... 21
3.2.1 Poststructuralism……………………………..……………….. 21
3.2.2 Feminism……………………………………………………… 23
3.2.3 The Union of Feminism and Poststructuralism……………….. 24
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CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS……………. 26
4.1 Rationale ……………………………………………………………………... 26
4.2 Data Collection Method ……………………………………………………… 27
4.2.1 The Focus Group Interview ………………………………….. 27
4.2.2 Identified Limitations ………………………………………… 28
4.3 Participant Selection …………………………………………………………. 30
4.4 Focus Group Composition …………………………………………………… 30
4.5 Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………… 31
4.6 The Question of Empowerment ……………………………………………… 32
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION/FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS….......... 33
5.1 The Female Body within a Hegemonically Male Work Environment ………. 34
5.2 The Female Body and Manual ‘Heavy’ Work………………………………... 38
5.3 Markers of Femininity ……………………………………………………….. 43
5.4 Gender/Sex Attribution by Others …………………………………................ 48
5.5 Feminine Identity, Positioning and Relations of Power ……………………... 50
5.6 The Possibility for Change……………………………………………………. 54
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUDING COMMENTARY………………........ 56
APPENDIX A: Focus Group Information ……………..………………………. 58
APPENDIX B: Focus Group Discussion Schedule …………………………….. 61
APPENDIX C: Statistical Information …………………………………………. 62
REFERENCE LIST …………………………………………………… 69
vi

Exploring Dominant Hegemonic Femininity in Relation to
Women Employed in Non-Traditional Areas of Work
When doing our job on munitions we don’t neglect our
appearance  but still keep our feminine charm by always having
our Escapade lipstick with us. (Women’s Weekly, ….)
CHAPTER 11: - IntroductionINTRODUCTION
When doing our job on munitions we don’t neglect our appearance  but still keep our
feminine charm by always having our Escapade lipstick with us.
(Australian Women’s Weekly: 3 July, 1943)
This introductory chapter will present background information about the research. I begin by
outlining how my interest in this project developed and also how I locate myself within the
research; including my epistemological standpoint. From this basis I introduce the research
problem and context, concluding the chapter with an outline of the research framework.
1.1 The Project Genesis
At the time I was preparing to submit a proposal for this research project I was reading the
autobiography of Australia’s first female major airline pilot, Deborah Wardley-Lawrie. Having
attained my commercial pilot’s licence in 2000, I was both fascinated and irritated to read of the
blatant sex discrimination Deborah endured in her struggles to gain employment with Ansett –
discrimination that came from both men and women. However, one aspect of Deborah’s

struggles to gain employment as an airline pilot that I could not relate to was her seemingly
inordinate fear of ‘losing’ her femininity.
I was in an environment where there were women running around everywhere who were all dressed nicely;
what was I doing here in this male uniform and wearing these revolting shoes? Here I was supposed to be
doing a man’s job, and who was I? How was I supposed to act? Was I really meant to be flying aeroplanes?
Why couldn’t I dress like the other women? … I must look more elegant – my old fear of losing my
femininity had manifested itself again and I had to find a solution. I knew I wanted to fly aeroplanes, that
was for sure, but I no longer wanted to be dressed like a man (McKenna & Lawrie, 1992, p.241).
What was the substance of the discourses that compelled Deborah to emphasise her femininity?
Was it to somehow excuse or make amends for the fact that she was doing a ‘man’s job’? Why
was it so abhorrent to her to be portrayed or perceived as unfeminine? It was Deborah’s
experience of struggling to negotiate and reconcile her sense of feminine identity with her
chosen vocation that inspired this project. I pondered about other women working in non-
traditional vocations – especially the blue-collar trades – did they also have similar struggles?
Were they also reconciling an apparent social imperative to maintain femininity with a vocation
that could be perceived as a male domain?
1.2 Locating Myself within the Research
Some of my earliest memories are of bumping up against societal limits and expectations, as an
Australian-born female child, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, and continually challenging,
defying and refusing the boundaries with all the rebelliousness I could muster. It was not that I
wanted to be a boy, but that I recognised and resented the limitations placed on girls; that young
girls were expected to behave in circumscribed ways that precluded adventurous and aggressive
exploration and experimentation. I began to perceive that being ‘lady-like’ required a body that
was properly ‘contained’, whose actions were controlled and deliberate. As a child I was told, for
instance, that there were lady-like ways to sit, eat, climb and even ride a bike – ways that I made
a conscious decision to reject. Not surprisingly then, during my childhood, adolescence and even

into adulthood I was often labeled a ‘tom-boy’ or told that I should have been born a boy and my
behaviours, actions and appearance sometimes resulted in sex/gender misattribution by others.
As an adult, and over the past twenty-five years, I have studied, worked and taught in a
vocational area that has been categorised as non-traditional for women.
Lofland and Lofland (1995) suggest that a researcher’s personal biography is significant since it
fundamentally shapes their theoretical, interpretive and analytical frameworks. Taking this view
into consideration, I acknowledge that even before beginning this research, as well as during the
research, I am implicated in it – not as a disinterested, disconnected mediator endeavouring to
maintain an ‘objective’ position – but unsurprisingly drawn into it in complex intersections and
mergers of woman, teacher, tradeswoman, researcher and feminist. I find myself implicated not
only as a shifting subject of these intersections and mergers, but also through the beliefs and
values I bring to the research.
Indeed, one assertion that I make upfront regards the activist agenda of this research thesis. I
acknowledge that I am motivated by a deep sense of my own frustration as a woman who has
worked in a non-traditional vocation for over a quarter of a century – encompassing the period
that heralded in legislative reform and purportedly opened the way for women to take up these
vocations. My dissatisfaction arises from seeing little change to the deep-seated sexism that
seems to be a part of tradeswomen’s lived experiences. In my desire to challenge and bring about
change, this thesis deploys theory to bring attention to and analyse the ways in which hegemonic
femininity imposes or creates expectations of conformance, which women have to work
within/against in choosing to participate in non-traditional careers.

is an expression of my,Bearing in mind the above thoughts, many stakeholders in industry and
education have also pondered the possible reasons why larger numbers of women do not pursue
careers in so called non-traditional vocations. TAFE NSW statistics (see Appendix C) indicate
that the removal of structural barriers for women in the 1970s and 1980s via the Federal Sex
Discrimination Act of 1984, equal employment opportunity legislation and access and equity
programs has not brought about the expected significant increases in the participation rate of
women in traditionally male-dominated trade courses.
One ostensibly ‘rational’ conclusion that has been drawn from the statistics is that girls simply
do not want to do this type of work. My contention is that this assumption is over-simplistic,
notwithstanding the enormous social and political changes that have opened the way to other
myriad educational and vocational opportunities for women in Australia. I believe that the under-
representation of women, especially in the manual trades, has a deeper and more complex basis
to do with being a woman/being in a woman’s body, as has been alluded to above. It is these
notions of hegemonic femininity that will be further expounded and explored in the project – no
longer as my rational attempt to ‘know what is going on’, but perhaps as a way of asking
different questions or presenting other ways of knowing that confront and rigorously re-work
conventional understandings of the signifier ‘feminine’.
1.3 My Epistemological Standpoint
It is my argument that the epistemological stance of the researcher informs the most fundamental
assumptions that the research will be constructed upon. In relation to this project then, my
acceptance of knowledge as constructed through discourses and my standpoint on the
multifarious nature of ‘truth’ (or more appropriately – truths) are inextricably bound to the
research. This view of framing the slipperiness of knowledge and its status was important in both

the formulation of the research questions and how the research would fit together, namely the
methodological approach. Indeed, it could be suggested that a ‘symbiotic’ relationship exists
between the research problem and the approach to the research outcomes, in that a close and
mutually beneficial association connects the two. Both were constituted out of a feminist
poststructural analysis. The crafting of the research problem around a poststructuralist
framework, which generates the research questions and cultivates ‘answers’, clamours for the
interrogation and troubling of dominant discourses of femininity that presently persist. The very
act of unsettling and disturbing these discourses provides a springboard for new meanings and
‘ways of knowing’ to be construed.
1.4 Establishing the Research Problem
1.4.1 The Gender/Sex Impasse
We live in a profoundly gendered/sexed world. The ubiquity of the male/female or
masculine/feminine binary makes it difficult, it could be suggested, to conceive or think about a
human body outside of this dualism. This deeply entrenched categorisation of human bodies is
conspicuously reflected in the requirement that the sex of an Australian child be registered at
birth as either male or female; since there is no right to a birth certificate without a sex, and no
status as a citizen without an official birth-sex (Bird, 1998). It is within this binary sex/gender
system that I somewhat reluctantly locate the research work. I do this simply because the
pervasiveness of sex/gender demands engagement on its terms of reference, in order to provide
coherence for my readers. Moreover, I cannot research women in non-traditional trades without
acknowledging that the participants in the research have identified themselves as belonging to
one of two binary sexes/genders.

This gender/sex impasse extends beyond its nexus with bodily constitutiveness, pervading the
social fabric in an elaborate way – arguably in such a complex manner that its involvedness is
rendered invisible and becomes ‘common-sense’ or ‘natural’. Myriad inanimate objects in
company with human emotions, practices, actions and non-human behaviours are incorrigibly
gendered symbols. For example, products associated with bodily hygiene such as soaps,
shampoos and deodorants have developed into gendered objects and gendering extends to
colours, various foods and drinks, machinery, sports, careers and job types, clothing, bodily
postures and movements – even to the manner in which wastes are eliminated from the body!
The complex social interactions that produce gendered objects and practices have varying social
effects on women. The effect of advertising-mediated ‘gendered’ deodorants, for example, is not
as significant as the gendering of vocations, the sexual division of labour and the resulting
inequities for women in the labour market. Nonetheless, in this gendered/sexed world, the
ubiquitous association of ostensibly ‘feminine behaviours’ with female bodies and ‘masculine
behaviours’ with male bodies has in effect connected the two (behaviour and body) in a union
that appears ‘natural’, even mutually supporting, thereby imposing powerful discursive
constraints and expectations on women and girls, along with men and boys.
1.4.2 Delineating the Research Questions
What will a body that has been medically categorised as female (Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Fausto-
Sterling, 2000; Bird, 1998) experience in society when she chooses to pursue a vocation that has
been historically defined as suitable to bodies that are male? What gender relations of power do
women experience in being part of a ‘man’s world’? Given the powerful gender demarcation and
the structures of dominance implicit within the gender binary, how does the subject ‘woman’
operate in such a historically and culturally male domain? What negative sanctions is she likely
to experience from both subversive and overt denials of conventional gender arrangements?

I discovered that the literature search leading to a more informed statement of these questions
was not a linear, neat or logical progression through the issues, but that a move in one direction
generated an abundance of questions and alternate, competing directions. Coupled with this, I
found the proliferation of literature on gender and femininity and how it is socially enacted and
mediated, contrasted noticeably with the scarcity of literature on how that enactment may
operate with women in traditionally male-gendered vocations and male-dominated workplaces –
specifically addressing how the female body ‘moves’ and is ‘located’ in this site. This apparent
disproportion in the literature formed a basis for the research problem; not only to address the
disparity in some way but also to simultaneously trouble it.
There is no denial that much has been written about women and work in non-traditional
vocations, however the focus has been inclined towards structural issues such as adaptation (by
the women) to a ‘male’ environment, harassment, child care, the breaking down of legislative
and cultural barriers, access and equity and participation rates in educational programs – all
tending to emphasise women as a collective, unified category and essentially different from men.
(See for example Pocock, 1988; Pocock, 1992; Saunders & Evans, 1992; Summers, 2002;
Summers, 2003).
This project however, does not attend to these structural issues. The study focuses on hegemonic
femininity and on the notion of the female body as a potential site for the imposition of gender
norms, from the perspective of women who are currently employed in non-traditional vocations.
To understand the implications of gender constraints, issues of identity, performativity and
positioning within discourses of femininity are explored among women who are in effect
subverting and resisting gender norms, simply by engaging in non-traditional vocations.

Accordingly, gender, identity and the body are explored within a particular site – the male-
dominated, ‘blue-collar’ trade workplace.
The starting point for the dialogue is the premise that these women made a ‘decision’ to move
into these vocations in at least a partial knowledge of the potential conflicts and restraints
imposed by hegemonic discourses of femininity – albeit that knowledge may not derive from a
personal experience or perception of constraints. From this basis the research then centres on
exploring the ways in which these women position themselves (and are positioned) within
dominant discourses of femininity, how (or if) gender as a performance (Butler, 1999a) has
impacted on the way these women perform ‘men’s work’ and how they experience being in a
‘woman’s body’ whilst performing that work. In what way do these women disrupt common
gendered practices in the arena of non-traditional work, how do they make meaning of these
disruptions and how are they talking about it? Indeed, do the women consider their presence in
‘non-traditional’ vocations as a disruption? Hence, in essence the project is a narration of the
multiple ways that gender is ‘played out’ and ‘played with’ by these women within male-
dominated ‘blue-collar’ workplaces, and how they make sense of their involvement and presence
in this arena.
1.5 The Thesis Framework
The thesis has been organised into six chapters, including this chapter, the introduction. Chapter
2 aims to locate the research project within a contemporary social context, via an overview of the
current literature that discusses and analyses the concepts relevant to this thesis. In Chapter 3 the
theoretical underpinning to the research is discussed – feminist poststructuralism. Chapter 4
details the research design; including the method used to collect the data – focus group
interviews - and the methodological approach utilised in the analysis of the data. A thematic

presentation of the participants’ narratives is presented in Chapter 5, along with an analysis of
the participants’ discussion. The research is drawn to a conclusion in Chapter 6 with a final
synopsis of the issues and themes that emerged from the research.

We live in a profoundly gendered/sexed world. The ubiquity
of the male/female or masculine/feminine binary makes it
difficult, it could be suggested, to conceive or think about a
human body outside of this dualism. This deeply entrenched
binary is conspicuously reflected in the requirement that the
sex of an Australian child be registered at birth as either
male or female; since there is no right to a birth certificate
without a sex, and no status as a citizen without an official
birth-sex (Bird, 1998). Gender extends beyond its nexus with
bodily constitutiveness, pervading the social fabric in an
elaborate way – arguably in such a complex manner that its
involvedness is rendered invisible and becomes ‘common-
sense’ or ‘natural’. Myriad inanimate objects in company with
human emotions, practices, actions and non-human
behaviours are incorrigibly gendered. For example, products
associated with bodily hygiene such as soaps, shampoos
and deodorants have developed into gendered objects and
gendering extends to colours, various foods and drinks,
machinery, sports, careers and job types, clothing, bodily

postures and movements – even to the manner in which
wastes are eliminated from the body!
Hence, in this gendered/sexed world, the ubiquitous
association of ostensibly ‘feminine behaviours’ with female
bodies has in effect tied the two in a bond that makes the
union appear ‘natural’, even mutually supporting, thereby
imposing powerful discursive constraints and expectations
on women and girls. What then does a body who has been
medically categorised as female (Bird, 1998) experience in
society when she chooses to pursue a vocation that has
been historically defined as suitable to bodies that are male -
exhibiting behaviours and appearances of ‘masculinity’?
Given this powerful gender demarcation, how does the
subject ‘woman’ operate in such a historically and culturally
male domain? What negative sanctions is she likely to
experience from such subversive and overt denials of
conventional gender arrangements?

I discovered that the literature search leading to a more
informed statement of these questions was not a linear, neat
or logical progression through the issues, but that a move in
one direction generated an abundance of questions and
alternate, competing directions. Coupled with this, I found
the proliferation of literature on gender and femininity and
how it is enacted was contrasted with the scarcity on how
that enactment may operate with women in traditionally
male-gendered vocations – specifically addressing how the
female body ‘moves’ and is ‘located’ in this site. This
apparent gap in the literature eventually led to the research
questions; not only to address the gap in some way but also
to ask questions about the silence.
There is no denial that much has been written about women
and work in non-traditional vocations, however the focus has
been inclined towards structural issues such as adaptation
(by the women) to a ‘male’ environment, harassment, child
care, the breaking down of legislative and cultural barriers,

access and equity and participation rates in educational
programs – all tending to emphasise women as a collective,
unified category and essentially different from men (for
example Pocock, 1988; Pocock, 1992; Saunders & Evans,
1992; Summers, 2002; Summers, 2003). This project
however, was premised on the construction of the female
body as a site for the imposition of gender norms. Questions
of identity, performativity and positioning within discourses
of femininity were explored among women who are in effect
subverting and resisting gender norms. Accordingly, gender,
identity and the body were explored within a particular site –
that of hegemonically masculine and male-dominated
workplaces.
My research involved dialogue with women in these ‘non-
traditional’, male-dominated work areas – investigating the
women’s practices and experiences within those areas,
based on, and deriving from, the social imperative to comply
with popular notions of femininity and ways of being in a

woman’s body. A starting place for the research was the
tentatively proposed assumption that these women made a
‘decision’ to move into these vocations in at least a partial
knowledge of the conflicts and restraints imposed by
hegemonic discourses of femininity – albeit that knowledge
may not derive from a personal experience or perception of
constraints. The research then centred on exploring the ways
in which these women position (and are positioned)
themselves within dominant discourses of femininity, how
(or if) gender as a performance (Butler, 1999a) has impacted
on the way these women perform ‘men’s work’ and how they
experienced being in a ‘woman’s body’ whilst performing
that work. In essence, the project is a narration of the
multiple ways that gender is ‘played out’ and ‘played with’
within male-dominated ‘blue-collar’ workplaces and how the
women made sense of their involvement and presence in this
arena.

It is my argument that the epistemological stance of the
researcher informs the most fundamental assumptions that
the research will be constructed upon. In relation to this
project, my acceptance of knowledge as constructed through
discourses and my acquiescence of the multifarious nature
of ‘truth’ (or more appropriately – truths) is a foundational
element of this research. This view of the slipperiness of
knowledge and its status was an undercurrent in both the
formulation of the research questions and how the research
would fit together, namely the methodological approach.
Indeed, it could be suggested that a ‘symbiotic’ relationship
exists between the research problem and the approach to the
research outcomes, in that a close and mutually beneficial
association connects the two. Both were constituted out of a
feminist poststructural analysis. The crafting of the research
problem within a poststructuralist framework that both
spawns the research questions and frames the ‘answers’
arguably allows the possibility of interrogating and troubling
the dominant discourses of femininity that presently persist,

to allow new meanings and ‘ways of knowing’ to be
construed.
CHAPTER 2: - Literature ReviewLITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter locates the research problem within its contemporary social context by exploring
current notions of binary sex/gender, subjectivity, positioning and femininity. I discuss these
concepts under four broad themes: the categories of sex and gender in relation to the body; the
persistence of the binary; the poststructuralist subject, positioning and relations of power; and
hegemonic femininity.
2.1 The Categories of Sex and Gender in Relation to the Body
Davies (2003) presents a position on the relationship between sex and gender that will be
employed in the context of this project. In considering Davies’ and similar feminist standpoints I
will avoid disaggregating sex from gender, for the strategic purpose of evading a reification of
the notion that ‘sex’ is natural and unconnected to social construction. The traditional, popular
division and categorisation of sex as natural, biological, fixed, destiny, ‘real’ and objective, and
gender as the social overlay, culture, roles and a process (Hawkesworth, 1997; Nicholson, 1994)
only serves to maintain and reify discourses on essential sex differences. The perspective that sex
and gender are ‘at one and the same time elements of the social structure … created by … and
within individuals as they learn the discursive practices through which that social structure is
created and maintained’ (Davies, 2003, p.13) suggests a more complex liaison between the sex
and gender. Butler (1999a) similarly questions the category of ‘sex’ as one that is stable and
‘given’, suggesting that sex and gender are one and the same:

Are the ostensibly natural facts of sex discursively produced by various scientific discourses in
the service of other political and social interests? If the immutable character of sex is contested,
perhaps this construct called “sex” is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was
always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns
out to be no distinction at all (pp.10-11).
It is important to locate the body within a discussion of sex and gender. Indeed, Butler argues
that by understanding the normalising effect and regulatory force of sex that ‘materialises the
body’, sex can be seen as not simply an attribute one has or is but as ‘one of the norms by which
the “one” becomes viable at all, that which qualifies a body for life within the domain of cultural
intelligibility’ (Butler, 1999b, p.236 – italics mine). Furthermore, Butler (1999a) disassociates
and problematises the gender/sex binary in relation to the body by suggesting:
[w]hen the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes
a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female
body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one (Butler, 1999a, p.10).
According to Butler (1993) then sex is not ‘a bodily given on which the construct of gender is
artificially imposed, but ... a cultural norm which governs the materialization of bodies’ (pp. 2-
3). Hence, working from this standpoint, when a body performs gender inappropriately, it
troubles the notion that gender performances derive from an innate sex.
Moore (1994), drawing on Giroux (1991) describes the body as an ‘interface’ or ‘threshold’,
between the ‘material and symbolic’, the ‘biological and cultural’ (p.18). Women and men may
have different bodily experiences such as having a hysterectomy or growing a beard – but
likewise, they may not. These are politically-loaded experiences which, more than shaping
physical bodies, map-out or give meaning to bodies through various sex and gender discourses
(Butler, 1999). For this reason the categorisation of bodies according to their sexual organs,
potential capacity for certain tasks and the like, is not a neutral or disinterested observation, but a
political choice to give precedence to particular aspects and differences over others (Butler,
1999). Therefore, in considering the category ‘female’ and its nexus with femininity, it is

important to recognise the presupposed attitudes and beliefs about gender not as a secondary or
disconnected phenomenon to sex, but as integral to the production of the sex/gender system, and
even the body itself. This is an important consideration in the analysis I undertake of the
participant’s talk.
2.2 The Persistence of the Binary
An underlying supposition A concept that I was interested in highlighting, exploring and
deconstructing in this research in this research is succinctly captured in the notionnotion of the
persistence of the ‘binary’ in Western modernist thinking., as This way of thinking about and
organising the world has been scrutinised and expounded by a number of commentators. For
example, McWilliam, Lather & Morgan with McCoy, Pillow & St Pierre McWilliams et al
(1997), for example, relate the power of the gender dichotomy binary specifically to how it
operates inequitably in gender construction; the defining of woman in relation to her ‘difference
from all that the man stands for by her deficiency in reasoning, and by being located – fixed – in
the realm of sensation and emotion’ (p.7). This example of woman as ‘other’ highlights the
Derridean notion that implicitly written into the binary is a power relation that assigns
dominance of one term over the other.
Lee (1992) also, also drawing on the work of Derrida, discusses the power of the binary and
further identifies the ways in which a poststructuralism poststructuralist analysis may work to
disrupt or deconstruct binaries (pp. 3-9). A poststructuralist reading of gender, according to Lee
(1992), locates ‘‘masculine’ as the primary term and ‘feminine’ as defined by the first, in terms
of ‘not being’, that is, ‘different’ by virtue of ‘lacking’ (p.9). Theis stance of overtly positioning
difference as the ‘other of the dominant term within the binary’ allows, paradoxically, the

possibility of a simultaneous identification and rejection of difference (Lee, 1992, p.9, emphasis
italics mine). So it could be said that men and women are ‘the same’ in terms of their humanity,
yet women are positioned as different on the grounds ofPut something in here that links the
notion of binaries to the research – disruption of, for example?
‘lacking’ – hence the structures of power at work in the binary are uncovered by adopting this
position.
Weedon (1999) utilises a similar strategy to Lee (1999) discussesin a deconstruction of the
gender binary based on Derridean theory of language, textuality and reading, which essentially
highlights the need, not for a rejection of binaries but an elucidation of their ‘cultural and
therefore changeable status’ – that meaning is never fixedalways deferred (p.23). Weedon (1999)
maintains that poststructuralist theory has ‘challenged all theories of sexual and gender
difference that appeal to the fixed meanings of bodies’ (p.102) and that language, rather than
reflecting reality gives it meaning. Further, Weedon (1999) addresses at length the category
‘woman’, calling into question an essential femininity and emphasising that any meaning
ascribed to the term ‘‘woman’’ is neither constant nor unitary (pp. 99-107).
This debdebate and tension over essentialism versus construction (another arguably persistent
binary) in feminist thought has been going on for some timeis an , marked in particular by the
intervention ofissue Fuss (1989). Drawing on the work of Spivak (1988), Fuss (1989) attempts to
reconcileresolve this tension withwith the the notion of ‘strategic essentialism’. Fuss (1989), in
that she arguesbuilds an argument for the deploying or activating of essentialism, but only as a
conceptual tool, and as a particularly useful strategy in some contexts to talk about the category
of ‘women’ in relation to ‘men’ (pp. 23-37). Fuss (1989) argues that the ‘deconstruction of
essentialism’, (rather than its disavowal,) ‘simply raises the discussionbasically lifts dialogue to a

more complex level and ‘ to a more sophisticated level …kkeeps the signs of essence in play,
even if (indeed because) it is continually held under erasure’ (p.21). So rather than simply
making a statement that essentialism is flawed and therefore useless to any analysis, the political
act of positing a common identity for the research participants (through their non-traditional
vocations), allows the possibility of uncovering and deconstructing particular humanist
discourses that reduce identity to an essential, fixed and gendered core (Weedon, 1997, p.32).
Not only are poststructuralist thinkers interested in exposing the ways in which language creates
simplistic, ‘commonsense’ binary opposites, but also in the hidden imbrications within the
binaries. These ‘overlapping, interlocking relationships’ (McWilliam et al, 1997, p.9) reveal the
complexities within categories that have been taken for granted in humanist thinking as being
unequivocal polar opposites. Feminist biologist Fausto-Sterling (1992 & 2000), writing from the
perspective of biology, draws attention to the similarities and overlapping of characteristics
among females and males. Fausto-Sterling (1992 & 2000) maintains that these
similar/overlapping characteristics are largely ignored for social and political reasons, in favour
of supporting a male/female dichotomy. Similarly, Weedon (1997) muses over the efforts of
society to emphasise supposed ‘natural’ gender differences whilst simultaneously disregarding or
de-emphasising the similarities between women and men. The resistance of these discourses to
change, within the everyday, is demonstrated in the analysis of the women participant’s talk. The
embedded nature of difference in sex/gender discourses makes it difficult for the participants to
respond - other than from the point of view of difference.

The search and examination of the literature in relation to gender antithetical binaries
necessitated a simultaneous engagement with a number of other central poststructuralist ideas on
identity/ subjectivity, positioning, performativity and power, power, discourse and the use of
deconstruction as a tool. For instance, Davies (2003) analyses the the ‘taking up’adoption and
acceptance by individuals of traditional forms of masculinity and femininity in her studies of
children, recognising that this ‘‘taking up’’ does not result in a ‘fixed end product’, but rather is
an ongoing process where individuals are ‘constituted and reconstituted through a variety of
discursive practices’ (p. xii) . The requirement that individuals, from early childhood, must
position themselves as identifiably male or female, and the discovery and
understanding‘learning’ of the ‘discursive practices’ which enable children to constitute and
position themselves as male or female is central to Davies’ critique of dominant sociological
discourses (2003, pp. 2-8). Davies identifies the dominant, traditional gender discourses as
powerful in that people persist in ‘positioning themselves as if opposition and difference were
not only natural but a morally binding obligation’ (2003, p. 12). The persistence of the
male/female dualism, declares Davies, ‘and its construction as a central element of human
identity’ is a framework that requires deconstruction, in order to illuminate its power in
sustaining hegemonic sex/gender roles (2003, p. xi). As will be highlighted in Chapter 5, the
power of the gender binary is apparent in the talk of some of the research participants and for the
reasons discussed above this is not surprising.
The male/female binary is arguably the only means the participants have to talk about
themselves and others – it is the only way to come into being socially or relationally (as was
discussed in section 2.1). Hence, the task is not about discarding the binary, but deconstructing
how the binary is used in the participant’s talk. This research work is concerned with not only
uncovering how the binary works to shape the way the women understand themselves, but also

more significantly, how it can open up other possibilities in terms of analysis of the participant’s
talk. As was discussed in the introductory chapter (section 1.2.1), the participants are women,
identify themselves as women, and do not want to appear to say otherwise.
The Categories of Sex and Gender
Davies (2003) presents a position on the relationship between sex and gender that will be
utilised in the context of this project. In considering Davies’ and other feminist standpoints
I will avoid disaggregating sex from gender, for the strategic purpose of evading a
reification of the notion that ‘sex’ is natural and not socially constructed. The perspective
that sex and gender are ‘at one and the same time elements of the social structure …
created by … and within individuals as they learn the discursive practices through which
that social structure is created and maintained’ (Davies, 2003, p.13) suggests a more
complex liaison between the two than the popular division and categorisation of sex as
natural, biological, fixed, destiny, ‘real’ and objective, and gender as the social overlay,
culture, roles and a process (Hawkesworth, 1997; Nicholson, 1994).
Butler (1999a) similarly questions the category of ‘sex’ as one that is stable and ‘given’:
Are the ostensibly natural facts of sex discursively produced by various scientific discourses in the
service of other political and social interests? If the immutable character of sex is contested,
perhaps this construct called “sex” is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was
always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out
to be no distinction at all. (pp.10-11)

Indeed, Butler argues that by comprehending the normalising effect and
regulatory force of sex that ‘materialises the body’, sex can be seen as ‘not simply
what one has’ or ‘what one is’ but as ‘one of the norms by which the “one”
becomes viable at all, that which qualifies a body for life within the domain of
cultural intelligibility’ (Butler, 1999b, p.236).
Furthermore, Butler (1999a) disassociates and problematises the gender/sex binary by
suggesting ‘(w)hen the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of
sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and
masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and
feminine a male body as easily as a female one’ (Butler, 1999a, p.10). Likewise, declares
Butler (1993) sex is not ‘a bodily given on which the construct of gender is artificially
imposed, but ... a cultural norm which governs the materialization of bodies’ (pp. 2-3).
Hence, working from this standpoint, when a body ‘performs’ gender inappropriately, it
troubles the notion that gender performances derive from an innate gender. Therefore, it is
arguably fundamental to study the presupposed attitudes and beliefs about gender not as a
secondary phenomenon to sex, but as integral to the production of the sex/gender system
itself.
Talk about the requirement to present one’s gender correctly – Betsy Lucal article?
2.3 The Poststructuralist Subject, and Positioning and Relations of Power
One aim of this project, as has been mentioned previously, is to investigate ways in which
women in non-traditional vocations position themselves within various discourses of femininity
and gender/sex. Davies further suggests that poststructuralist theory allows an understanding of

the multiple positionings of the subjectindividual and the multiple discourses available to the
subject in relations of power which are constantly shifting (2003, p. xii-xiii & p.4). Weedon
(1997) however, in an exposé of the patriarchal structure of society, nevertheless points out
thatwhilst conceding that although multiple ways of being an individual exist, maintains there
are often incongruent and oppositional values inherent in various subject positions. Weedon
suggests that in theory almost every avenue of life is open to western women, yet these avenues
are often in competition with the ostensible ‘primary role’ of child-bearing and rearing (1997, p.
22). So for many women, there may be internal conflict generated by perceived societal
expectations that the fulfillment of certain gender roles will take precedence over other
opportunities presented to them. Nevertheless Davies (1999), in a discussion on positioning,
points out that there is significant potential for agency in environments where a person may
choose among paradoxical or competing requirements (p.102) – a point that is tempered also by
her recognition, similar to Weedon (1997), that power relations delimit certain people-group’s
agency or choice (p.106).
Similarly, Sawicki (1991), espouses Foucault’s ideas on subjectivity and agency by suggesting
that an analytical person is able to choose, reflect on and creatively utilise a variety of discourses
within a ‘hierarchical network of power relations’ – that is, the subject is neither utterly trapped
or confined nor wholly independent and sovereign, neither the creator and instigator of
discourses and practices nor controlled or decided by them (pp. 103-104). Hence, when
considering the subject and positioning, agency and choice are terms that should be used warily
and with awareness. Sceptical engagement with any conferral of agency and choice to the subject
may work to avoid a reification of the tenets of the humanist, autonomous individual. This view
of the indeterminate and fluid positioning and agency of the subject will be carefully considered

in the analysis of the participant’s talk, in order to locate ways in which the participants may be
cleaving from, or indeed cleaving to, dominant discourses.
Additionally, in connection with the subject, Butler (1999a) posits identity in terms of
‘performativity’ - as a critique of certain feminist’s adherence to the stable and collective
category of ‘woman’. Butler (1999a) argues that in the act of performing the conventions of our
social reality repeatedly, the conventions come to appear natural and necessary, so a body grows
to be its gender through performance of certain actions which are ‘renewed, revised, and
consolidated through time’ (p.274). Therefore, in reconceptualising identity, the subversion of
gender norms through alternative performative acts, suggests Butler (1999a), is a strategy for
action and resistance where those norms can be challenged and changed (p.187).
InAlso of interest taking up the to this project, notions of question of feminineity and identity are
raised by, Sawicki (1991) who presents a critique of theories that define identity in terms of a
‘gendered deep self’, established at an early age, which is ‘continuesmaintained through
adulthood life and cleaves through cuts across divisionsclassifications of race, class, and
ethnicity’ (1991, (p.62). In contrast Sawicki (1991) suggests a Foucauldian or poststructuralist
analysis of identity based on the premise of ‘cultural and historical specificity’ (1991, (p.62), a
rejection of humanism’s ‘centering’ of the subject in preference to a ‘decentered’, ‘fragmented’
subject within the social, and the multiple relationships that work to constitute, and indeed
reconstitute, an individual (p.63). Nevertheless, despite the theoretical perspective that
challenges essentialist notions of identity, it is acknowledged that theory and actual lived
experience often diverge – the participants may conceptualise their identity as an inner,
unchanging and gendered core.

Sawicki (1991), espouses Foucault’s discourses on subjectivity and agency by suggesting that a
‘critical subject’ is able to choose, reflect on and creatively utilise a variety of discourses within
a ‘hierarchical network of power relations’ – that is, the subject is ‘neither entirely autonomous
nor enslaved, neither the originator of discourses and practices … nor determined by them’ (pp.
103-104).
In connection with ‘the subject’ Butler (1999a) posits identity in terms of ‘performativity’, as a
critique of certain feminist’s adherence to the stable and collective category of ‘woman’. Butler
(1999a) argues that in the act of performing the conventions of our social reality repeatedly, the
conventions come to appear natural and necessary, ‘so that the body becomes its gender through
a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time’ (p.274). The
subversion of gender norms through alternative performative acts, suggests Butler (1999a) is a
strategy for action and resistance where those norms can be challenged and changed (p.187).
From a poststructuralist perspective none of this discussion and analysis of gender/sex and
identity exists outside of relations of power. The Foucauldian concept of power encompasses a
broader description than simply the negative, repressive definition often ascribed. Foucault
(1984) envisages power as something productive – that constitutes and stimulates discourse
(p.61). Poststructural feminists utilising a Foucauldian definition of power may not necessarily
espouse a definition that portrays the productive character of power in a positive sense. For
instance, Bartky (1988) applies Foucault’s concept notion of that power producesing the
individual is taken up by Bartky (2003), who relates the notion specifically to the disciplinary
technologies that produce feminine forms of embodiment (p.2764). In particular Bartky
(1988)2003) expounds aexpands on dominant discourses of femininity that imposes restrictive
disciplines on the body in terms of correct size and shape (pp. 28-2964-66), postures, gestures
and movements (pp. 29-3166-68), grooming and decoration (pp. 31-3368-71). The effects of

these disciplines on women in relation to their identity and subjectivity are also examined (pp.
71-83), encompassing an analysis of the ‘disciplinarians’ Bartky also acknowledgesand an
avowal of Foucault’s notionopinion that the transition from traditional to modern societies ‘has
been characterized by a profound transformation in the exercise of power’ – the ‘emergencein
the form of ever- of increasingngly invasive intrusive apparatuses mechanisms of power’ that
exercise ‘far moreincredibly restrictive social and psychological control than was heretofore
possible’ (Bartky, 20031988, p.4079). This view of power will be examined among the research
participants, in connection to experiences or perceptions of pressure to adhere to current notions
of femininity or gender expectations.
2.4 Defining Hegemonic Femininity
In relation to peoplethe human body, gender and its constitutive categories of ‘masculine’ and
‘feminine’ is realised within discourses that vary historically and culturally, yet is persistently
defined in terms of dichotomy and difference (Connell, 2002, pp. 1-10). These discourses have
the ability to create and sustain a hegemonic femininity that has the potential to impose or
regulates ways of being in a woman’s body – a certain mobility, size, shape and the notion of the
female body as a decorative surface - constructing a definitive femaleness/femininity which is
‘natural’ and yet at the same time upheld as aa seemingly moral obligation (Bartky, 20031988;
Brownmiller, 1984; Connell, 2002; Davies, 2003; Greer, 1999). Brownmiller (1984) describes
the phenomenon of femininity as a ‘romantic sentiment’ (p.14), a ‘contrivance’ (p.16), a
‘powerful esthetic’, a ‘manner’ and a ‘strategy’ (p.19). Without constraining herself to one
categorisation Brownmiller (1984) also conveys femininity as system that is ‘used’ (p. 235) and
presents a fundamental challenge to females in that it must be continually worked at (p.14).
These ideas are taken up in the analysis of the participants’ talk, especially in relation to the
importance of these ideas of femininity in their own lives.

In connection with this, Connell (1995), in exploring and theorising types of masculinities,
suggests h‘(h)egemonic masculinity is not a fixed character type, always and everywhere the
same’is not immutable, but merely the dominant conception of masculinity in a given historical
period… but is instead … ‘the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given
pattern of gender relations, a position always contestable’ – deriving from and privileging the
white, heterosexual and middle-class male experience (p.76). In an analogous way, and as a
foundation for this research project, it could be suggested that hegemonic (or emphasised)
femininity is likewise locatable and challengeable, notwithstanding that it exists currently
inalbeit always in subordinated relation to hegemonic masculinity. Hence, hegemonic femininity
pertains to the most privileged forms of femininity that vary historically but only in
correspondence with changes in hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995).
This is not to suggest that there are forms of femininity that are fixed or pre-discursively
determined, nor to propose therefore that certain practices, manners or characteristics are
irrevocably and universally considered to be feminine. Nevertheless, the notion of femininity and
its practice produce some persistent constructs, which have been suggested above, and will be
further explored in this project. In the context of this study then, the utilisation of the words
‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ to label behaviours or characteristics of a person is for the strategic
purpose of highlighting the potentially oppressive and disempowering tenue of the binary. I
employ the terms as they are currently understood and socially and culturally mediated. In
adopting this strategy I am not suggesting that certain behaviours are essentially feminine or
masculine, or that the current, dominant acceptations prevalent in the Australian workplace
context are universally acknowledged or self-evident.

More on defining hegemonic femininity – say I’m being careful to not ‘universalise’ or fix one
meaning to femininity and therefore what is considered to be feminine practices. (use femininity
as discourse article, betsy lucal article)

CHAPTER 3: - Methodological Approach and
RationaleMETHODOLOGY
This chapter will define and expound the methodology utilised as the basis for this research.
Notably, it will clarify my view of methodology as a philosophical framework that irrevocably
underpins and accounts for the chosen methods of data collection and analysis. Firstly, I present
a rationale for my chosen methodological approach – feminist poststructuralism. I then discuss
my understanding of the two separate terms ‘poststructuralism’ and ‘feminism’ and finally
explore the implications for feminist research of the union of the terms.
3.1 Methodological Approach and Rationale
The journey leading to an articulation of the thesis research question or problem proved to be
challenging, frustrating and yet simultaneously shaped and bolstered my epistemological stance,
in relation to research. It is arguably important to clarify my methodological approach at this
stage for a number of reasons. Firstly, since it manifestly informed the conceptualisation and
underpinning assumptions of the project itself. My chosen approach also seeks to present a
justificationexplicate for the range and form type of literature that was reviewed and utilised.
Moreover, the chosen methodology explicatesmakes clear my relationship to the research and the
‘researched’. HenceI acknowledge that even before beginning this research, as well as during the
research, I was implicated in it; in complex intersections of woman, teacher, electrician,
researcher and feminist. Principally then, in embracing the ontological assumption that there is
no true or fixed ‘reality’ outside of text or discourse and an epistemology that questions the
frameworks that define what can be known, and concomitantly espousing a union with feminist
projects, I believe that I am acknowledging utilising a feminist poststructuralist approach to

research. The benefit of adopting a feminist poststructuralist perspective in my research is
arguably linked to the nature of the ‘answers’ that are sought to the research ‘questions’. More
about epistemology and questions of ontology?
3.2 Feminist Poststructuralism as a Methodology
For the sake of clarity in this study, it is also arguably vitalimportant to present my
understanding of a feminist poststructural methodology ism since, not only does it provide the
theoretical framework for this project, but additionally the premises of this methodology will be
utilised to analyse and conceptualise the data gathered from the research participants. The
discussion will begin with a – including a short treatise of the discrete terms in the union and
then move to an examination of feminist poststructuralism.
3.2.1 Poststructuralism
The capture, for the sake of intelligibility, of a succinct singular definition of poststructuralism is
a temptation I avoided – and in considering poststructuralism’s key premises, this should be so.
Firstly, poststructuralism suggests the possibility of working creatively with the complexity of
the social by offering a ‘radical framework’ for grappling with the relationship between the
individual and the social world, thereby proposing new ways for ‘conceptualising social change’
(Davies, 2003, p. xii). Of particular interest to this project therefore, and as has been previously
discussed in Cchapter 2two, is the poststructuralist notion of disrupting and moving beyond
binary logic or binary oppositions (especially not only in relation to gender), as proposed by a
number of feminist poststructuralist thinkers.

Furthermore, Lye (1997) proposes that poststructuralism is ‘a group of approaches motivated by
some common understandings, not all of which will necessarily be shared by every practitioner’
(p.1).
Indeed, it has been suggested that ‘once you get beyond [poststructuralists’] debt to structuralism
and the fact that they nevertheless are not structuralists, there is nothing else to define them as a
group’ (Wikipedia, 2004, p.1). Nevertheless, and allowing for the previously mentioned caveat,
it could be suggested that commentators acknowledge a number of broad common
understandings of poststructuralism. Again, Lye (1997, p.1) points out the plurality and diversity
of poststructuralism, and emphasises the need to reject a conceptualisation of the term as a
singular theory but rather to acknowledge it as a ‘set of theoretical positions’.
Allowing for the previously mentioned caveat, poststructuralism neverthelessPoststructuralist
thought is commonly marked by scepticism or rejection of totalising, essentialist, universalising
and foundationalist concepts and beliefs (Anderson, 2004; Lye, 1997), which is of significance
for this project in deconstructing essentialist notions of women’s ‘nature’. St Pierre and Pillow
(2000) suggest that poststructuralism continues to ‘trouble’ enlightenment concepts that were
considered immutable and fixed; concepts such as knowledge, truth, reality, reason and the
individual (p.1). Further, it conceptualises ‘truth as multiple, historical, contextual, contingent,
political, and bound up in power relations’ (St. Pierre, 2000b, p.26).
Despite variation in poststructural viewpoints, it is recognised that language is the site where
forms of social organisation are defined and contested (Weedon, 1999; Lye, 1997).
Despite variation in poststructural viewpoints, it is recognised that language is the site where
forms of social organisation are defined and contested (Weedon, 1999; Lye, 1997). Furthermore
language, rather than reflecting the world, constitutes social reality or discursively constructs the
world, and the choice of one of innumerable ways of classifying or categorising the world cannot

be ‘justified by appeal to “objective” truth or reality’ (Anderson, 2004, p.13). These
poststructuralist views of the tenuous nature of truth and the centrality of language (discourse)
are instrumental in the analysis I undertake of the participants’ talk and how they construct
meaning.
Jacques Derrida, a key theorist in shaping poststructuralist thought, argued that Western
philosophy has been characterised by the ‘logic of presence that represents transcendental order
and permanence’, and argued that one result of such absolutism is that meaning tends to be
structured in hierarchical binary oppositions (St Pierre, 2000a, p.482). Derrida introduced the
concept of différance, a ‘process of difference and deferral which ensures that any fixing [of
meaning] is a temporary retrospective effect’ (Weedon, 1999, p.102), and then embarked on a
critique of structures that are sustained by ‘presence’, utilising a method he called
‘deconstruction’ (St. Pierre, 2000a, p.482). The aim of deconstruction is to ‘dismantle
[déconstruire] the metaphysical and rhetorical structures which are at work, not in order to reject
or discard them, but to reinscribe them in another way’ (Derrida, 1974 cited in St Pierre, 2000a,
p.482).
Extending the centrality of social discourse, Foucault supposed that ‘human beings understand
themselves and others and acquire knowledge’ … ‘through relations of power, not relations of
meanings’ (Braye, 2000, p.3). Moreover, Foucault claimed that ‘meaning is not fixed nor can it
be reduced simply to a calm form of language and dialogue’ (Foucault, 1980; cited in Braye,
2000, p.3). Hence the examination of the participant’s talk through a poststructuralist lens should
endeavour to place under scrutiny the relations of power that work to constitute identity and to
position the women in hegemonically masculine work environments.

3.2.2 Feminism
Just as the term ‘poststructuralism’ invokes multifarious definitions and meanings, so the term
‘feminism’ has encountered a proliferation of definitionsdefinitions with similar efforts to secure
meaning. Many commentators agree that feminism’s main concerns centre on the political and
social effects of unequal power relations between men and women (Weedon, 1997; Johnson,
1997). Historically, feminism as a politics has sought to analyse, question and make meaning of
gender inequality, with the goal of instigating social change. Hence, contemporary feminism has
developed as a rich and diverse body of theory approaches and branches – albeit the various
‘versions’ highlight and take as their starting point the problematic nature of gender (Tong, 1989;
Johnson, 1997; Weedon; 1997).
Baxter (2003) suggests that dividing feminist history into chronological stages (first, second and
third wave) may not be helpful and argues for the conceptualisation of ‘third wave’ feminism as
‘one of several linked but competing strands within feminist history’, rather than as a
chronological ‘stage’ (p.5). This concept of ‘third wave’ feminism and its association with
diversity and performativity over essentialism, among other aspects, will be adopted in this
project as a ‘definition’ of feminism appropriate to link to the element ‘poststructuralism’.
The work of Judith Butler has arguably produced some of the most vigorous critique of widely
acknowledged feminist theories that appeal to an essentialist concept of woman or femininity
that resides outside of discourse. The problem that feminist poststructuralists have with certain
feminist politics (such as separatist, socialist and liberal feminism) is that the presupposed unity
in the category woman ‘convert[s] discursively constructed facts into norms, difference into

deviance’ (Anderson, 2004, p.13). Judith Butler adds to this argument by declaring that women
exist in relation to such varying intersections of differences that ‘it would be wrong to assume in
advance that there is a category of "women" that simply needs to be filled in with various
components of race, class, age, ethnicity, and sexuality in order to become complete’ (1999, pp.
20-21). It is important to recognise Butler’s point in this research work; that although the
participants have their non-traditional vocations as a commonality, nevertheless the women’s
subjectivities are not solely constituted in relation to this aspect.
3.2.3 The Union of Feminism and Poststructuralism
St Pierre and Pillow (2000) refer to the abatement of the initial ‘uneasy tension’ that was
apparent in the linking of the terms poststructuralism and feminism, and the ensuing increase in
projects that ‘illustrate how the two theories/movements work similarly and differently to trouble
foundational ontologies, methodologies and epistemologies’ (p.2). Feminists who employ
poststructuralist analyses and critiques, indeed argue that the contiguity of the two terms can be
productive and fruitful in working to ‘critique, interrupt, and reinscribe normative, hegemonic,
and exclusionary ideologies and practices’ (St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000, p.3). Weedon (1997) adds
that feminist poststructuralism addresses issues beyond the poststructuralist focus on language,
to the social meanings produced within societal structures, and to individual subjectivity as
existing not just within language, but also being shaped by these structures (p.25).
Broadly defined therefore, feminist poststructuralism describes the approach of feminist theorists
and practitioners who draw upon the discourses principles of poststructuralism., A number of
these feminists take the work of Foucault as a starting pointand in particular the work of
Foucault, in their theory, research and practice -, especially focusing on the relationship between
gender and, languagediscourse and power. Feminist theorists have also appealed to

poststructuralist theories in order to comprehend existing power relations, to identify dominant
hegemonic discourses and build strategies for change or reconstitution - a work that is always in
progress, and never ‘finished’.
The perspectives of these feminists vary considerably, but Elam (1997) suggests that ‘[t]his
feminist work takes as its starting point the premise that gender difference dwells in language
rather than in the referent, that there is nothing "natural" about gender itself’ (p.1). Indeed,
feminists use poststructural analyses to trouble the categoriesy ‘woman’, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’;
pointing out these signifiers haves no fixed meaning but areis socially and discursively produced,
and the possibilities for identity are multiple and historically contingent (Sawicki, 1991;
Weedon, 1999). Consequently, the utility of adopting a feminist poststructuralist methodology
lies in the ability to elucidate and scrutinise the authority and variety of discourses available to
the women participants, while simultaneously probing the mutable ‘categories’ of woman,
female and feminine.
The work of Judith Butler has arguably produced some of the most vigorous critique of widely
acknowledged feminist theories that appeal to an essentialist concept of woman or femininity
that resides outside of discourse. The problem that feminist poststructuralists have with leading
feminist theories (such as radical feminism) is that the presupposed unity in the category woman
‘convert[s] discursively constructed facts into norms, difference into deviance’ (Anderson, 2004,
p.13). Judith Butler adds to this argument by declaring that ‘women’ exist in relation to such
varying intersections of differences that ‘it would be wrong to assume in advance that there is a
category of “women” that simply needs to be filled in with various components of race, class,
age, ethnicity, and sexuality in order to become complete’ (1990, pp.20-21).
Feminist poststructuralist projects do not profess to embody the panacea for gender inequities
and social injustices, nor do they herald in an alternative, overarching discourse to humanist,

positivist discourses or patriarchal society. Their continual work should be, as Spivak (1993)
states, to ‘persistently … critique a structure that one cannot not (wish to) inhabit’ (cited in St
Pierre, 2000, p.479) – the ‘subversive repetition’ or ‘double move’ that Lather (1997) describes
as ‘“doing it” and “troubling it” simultaneously’ (p.26). But perhaps the most promising
possibilities of the union of feminism with poststructuralism are best captured in St Pierre’s
reflexive comment, ‘[f]eminism’s slogan that everything is political must be joined with the
poststructural idea that "“everything is dangerous"”’ (St Pierre, 2000a, p.484) - a challenge and
caveat to practitioners and researchers whome as I seek to work with/within a feminist
poststructuralist frameworkm.
The scholars and theorists cited above represent, and indeed have been ‘categorised’ as either
poststructuralists or feminist poststructuralists – although as St Pierre points out, they ‘might
refuse the category’ (2000a, p.507). Clearly, the theorists cited do not denote an exhaustive list
of feminists and scholars working with a poststructuralist perspective, but their writings
characterise the type and scope of perspectives that were utilised in this thesis. These key
perspectives include the poststructural reinscription, through discourse analysis and
deconstruction, of humanist understandings of the subject and identity, power and knowledge,
and language.

CHAPTER 4: – RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
This chapter will present a detailed breakdown of the research design and methods that were
utilised in collecting and analysing the data for this project. Initially, I propose a rationale for my
chosen method – focus group interviews. Next I discuss my understanding of the focus group
interview, including its limitations for this research. The participant selection method and focus
group composition is then presented, followed by an account of my data analysis methods.
4.1 Rationale
As has been discussed in both Chapter 1 and Chapter 3,, the methodological approach of the
researcher, it could be suggested, will both precede the methods chosen and constantly underpin
the methods as they are used to collect the data. Hence the centrality of methodology could be
understood as it not only points back todraws attention to epistemological assumptions but
pointsin the to the researcher’s utilisation of particular methods utilised.
; ultimately proposing, in this project, a provisional and uneasy ‘justification’ for their utilisation.
This research project, as has been earlier discussed, investigatesd and asksed questions of the
ways in which women disrupt common gendered practices in the arena of non-traditional work,
and the ways in which they make meaning of these disruptions. Do Indeed, do these women
understand conceptualise their presence in ‘non-traditional’ vocations as a disruption? Are there
new or different stories being narrated? What new meanings or discourses are being generated?
How are these women describing the ways in which they move in their bodies in such
hegemonically male environments?

4.2 Data Collection Method Method
4.2.1 The Focus Group Interview
In adopting and implementing a feminist poststructuralist methodology to investigate the
operation of socially-produced discourses of femininity in the worlds of tradeswomen, it seemed
befitting to utilise group techniques to access these socially-produced discourses. Indeed,
Montell (1999, p.50) maintains that ‘because knowledge and meaning are collective rather than
individual productions, focus groups can be an effective method for getting at this socially
produced knowledge’. For these reasons I used focus To facilitate the generation of answers to
the research questions, I utilised the technique of ggroup interviews (focus groups, focused
interviews) as my primary data source, employing a number of focus questions to guide the
discussion (Cohen & Manion, 1996, pp. 287-292). The focus group discussion was recorded onto
audio tape, with the participants’ consent, and transcribed verbatim.
Krueger defines a focus group as a ‘carefully planned discussion designed to obtain perceptions
in a defined area of interest in a permissive, non-threatening environment’ (1994, p.18). This
method was chosen, for not for the alleged advantage that a large amount of data can be collected
in a relatively short time (Krueger, 1994), but for the possibility of generating information and
new knowledge that individual interviews would not yieldproduce, arising from the interactions
that take place within the focus group (Morgan, 1997). Merton et al (1990) likewise suggests that
the focused interview with a group of people ‘will yield a more diversified array of responses’
than individual interviews and afford a more extended basis both for designing systematic
research on the situation in hand’ (p.135). Hence the focus group method was chosen for the
unique particular kind of data it produces, as well as the for the unique processes of negotiation
among participants that produce the data.

I intended to capitiliseMy intention was to utilise on group dynamic processes to augment and
broaden discussion and responses. Montell (1999, p.51) claims that ‘group interviews disrupt the
rigid dichotomy between interviewer and subject’. Indeed, the dynamics of group
discussion,discussion it is argued, allowscan create the environment for participants to challenge,
contradict and proffer personal opinions in relation to other participants’ responses, in ways
which would be inappropriate for the researcher. Equally, suggests Montell, (1999, p.48)
‘participants can build on the responses of others so that a short or obvious comment does not
have to be a dead end … but can serve as a spark for another participant's contribution’.
Of particular significance and relevance to this research ‘problem’, therefore, is the notion that
‘focus group narratives are the product of a particular context of group interaction just as
individual interview narratives are products of a different particular context of individual
interaction’ (Rose, 2001, Ch IIp.17). In this way, Morgan quite boldly, and perhaps I would
argue uncritically, suggests that focus groups ‘excel at uncovering why participants think as they
do’ (1997, p.25). Nonetheless, in comparing the individual interview to the focus group
interview Montell suggests, ‘[t]he point is not whether the data are likely to be more objective
and accurate … but rather that the goals and kinds of data obtained are very different in each’
(1999, p.66).
4.2.2 Identified Limitations
There are a number ofAn identified disadvantages of the group interview technique. Perhaps
most obvious is that some members of the group may be reticent, while others may tend to
dominate the discussion. Commentators have identified a number of techniques that can be used
to facilitate dialogue in an environment that allows space for all voices, and as the moderator I

anticipated utilising approaches that would provide this room possibility (Wadsworth, 199784,
pp 29-30, 33; Greenbaum, 1999). Even so, I recognised that the nature of the participation
ultimately rested with the participants and what they wished to contribute within the particular
context of the group dynamics.
The potential for groupthink is another limitation in using focus groups. Groupthink refers to the
dynamics of a group that give rise to an uncritical acceptance of or agreement to a dominant or
popular point of view within the group. It was originally identified in relation to group decision-
making (Janis, 1972). The impediment produced by groupthink within this research project could
lead to the masking of an individual’s perspective, as it becomes subsumed in the group
consensus. Also, there may be a tendency towards the norm – a conflation of variant experiences
of participants into the same meaning. The quandary is that the variant, albeit similar,
experiences may develop into different stories, with different interpretations, under individual
interview conditions. Likewise, the stories may develop in a different way under different
dynamics within the group, or with a different group arrangement.
A further limitation for this project was reflected in the group composition, imposed by the time
constraints of an honours thesis, resulting in the unavoidable narrow sampling of what is actually
a broad and diverse, albeit small population of women and their respective vocations. This
limitation of the sample size and range necessarily and inevitably confined the data produced and
also the opportunity to gather potentially richer data by an inclusion of women from a broader
demographic in terms of occupational grouping, geographic location, age range and vocational
experience.

I conducted four focus groups of eight participants, over-recruiting by one or two women to
allow for attrition (Morgan, 1997). The duration of the discussion, it is anticipated, will be
between one to two hours per group. (Can’t write about what I did until after I’ve actually done
it)
At a practical level it is intended to electronically voice record and perhaps video record
(depending on consensus) the focus group interviews. I will also make notes and utilise the
service of an additional person to augment my own notes. The voice recordings will be
transcribed verbatim, analysed and examined for narratives, anecdotes, meanings and
explanations. As a researcher espousing a faith in feminist poststructuralist as a research
methodology, I acknowledge my relationship with the ‘researched’ as a social being; that I will
engage with the discourse as a social subject - embodied and implicated, not as a disinterested
and neutral party. (change this when I have actually done the fieldwork)
4.3 ParticipantsParticipant Selection
I conducted three focus groups of between five and ten participants. In considering the
constraints of an honours thesis, rRecruitment of the participants was based on the essential
criterion that they were studying and/or working in a non-traditional, ‘blue-collar’ vocation.
Acknowledging also that issues and intersections of social class, ethnicity, age and other markers
of difference do not stand outside of the research, the target group nevertheless did not represent
any particular social demographic. Hence the sampling method was intentional and purposeful
only to the extent that it is centred on the strategically essentialising ‘homogeneity’ of non-
traditional vocation involvement. To this end, Minichiello’s purposive sampling method was

utilised. Purposive sampling is commonly used when it is recognised that only certain
individuals will generate the information or knowledge required, or when the population of
interest is particularly small (Minichiello, 1999, p. 159). Crap on here with some stuff about
purposive sampling methods (Minichiello, 1999, p.159).
Since the number of women in ‘blue-collar’, non-traditional vocations is comparatively low
(compared to the male population), planning and organising a distinctively diverse mix of
participants to meet at a mutually convenient time and place proved problematic. After a great
deal of enquiry with Trades Associations, TAFE and group training companies I determined that
the only feasible way of securing several group interviews was to focus on selecting women who
had only recently entered into training. These women tended to work and/or study together in
groups, therefore making it less complicated to convene the focus groups within the timeframe
required for the thesis completion (as discussed in 4.2.2).
4.4 Focus Group Composition
The first focus group consisted of four apprentice electricians and one of their trainers, employed
with a large public utility in the Sydney metropolitan area. The second group was a TAFE
Automotive Training for Women group of light and heavy vehicle mechanics from a regional
area south of Wollongong. The third group consisted of women from various trades studying at
TAFE colleges in south-western Sydney. An outline of each focus group event and a more
detailed profile of the participants are presented in Appendix A.
Limitations

In adopting and implementing a feminist poststructuralist methodology to investigate socially-
produced discourses on femininity, and how they operate in the worlds of women in traditionally
male occupations, the concept of the focus group as a method presented as the most appropriate
to this research project. Indeed, Montell (1999, p.50) maintains that ‘because knowledge and
meaning are collective rather than individual productions, focus groups can be an effective
method for getting at this socially produced knowledge’. And this is what I found?
HOWEVER…. Talk about recognising the limitations of this research – including the narrow
sampling of what is actually a broad and diverse group of women. The limitation of the sampling
necessarily and inevitably limits the type and quality of data produced. Limitations imposed by
the time constraints of an honours thesis restricted the opportunity to gather perhaps richer data
by endeavouring to include women from diverse occupational groups, varying geographical
location and a range of age-groups.
4.5 Data Analysis
In utilising a focus group method for data collection Goss & Leinbach (1996) suggest that:
‘focus groups give participants an opportunity to narrate their personal experiences and to test their
interpretations of events and processes with others, and whether confirmed or disputed, the result is a
polyvocal production, a multiplicity of voices speaking from a variety of subject positions’ (cited in
Montell, 1999).
Hence the challenge following the collection of this rich, multifarious data was its analysis and
presentation.
Feminist poststructuralist methodology has relied largely on discourse analysis as a technique to
uncover relations of power; the ways in which talk and meanings are both produced and

constrained within broad social discourses (Montell, p.62). Potter and Wetherell (1987)
suggestpropose that:
‘[t]he research questions of discourse analysis are not about how accurately descriptions fit reality, but
rather about discourse itself; not the individual beliefs and experiences, but the talk itself is the subject of
interest’ (cited in Montell, 1999, p.62 ).
Drawing from these constructsideas, I anticipated documenting various discourses of femininity
circulating within these groups and how they permeated and constructed these women’s
subjectivities in relation to their participation in stereotypically male work roles. I envisaged that
an analysis of the discourses would reveal ways in which these women work (perhaps struggle)
to socially construct constitute and perhaps reconstitute themselves within hegemonically male
and strongly gendered work environments; how they used their understandings of gender norms
to discursively constitute themselves. Simultaneously, I anticipated examining the discourses for
breaks from in, and disruptions of dominant, hegemonic discourses – looking for new meanings
and understandings constructed by the women.
4.6 The Question of Empowerment
Finally, as Cook and Fonow (1986) assert, ‘feminist research is . . . not research about women
but research for women’ (cited in Montell, 1999, p.65). Commentators have recognised the
potential for empowerment and consciousness-raising of feminist poststructuralist
methodologies, though simultaneously acknowledging that even with the best intentions and
planning ‘empowerment’ is never guaranteed. Paradoxically, emancipatory efforts of researchers
may lealead to discomfort or even paralysis of thought or action.

Considering these comments, I had to ask; what is in it for these women? WWhy will they
participate? Indeed, will they participate? I acknowledged the necessity to posit these questions -
albeit having no expectation of answering them - yet the answers would unavoidably impact on
what was generated in the focus groups. I settled, for the above-mentioned reasons, on the
utilisation of focused group discussions as a method within a feminist poststructuralist
framework. I concluded that this method may better identify ‘local theories and popular
knowledge’ (Cancian, 1992, cited in Montell, 1999, p.65). Group discussion arguably had the
potential to foster an environment where unexamined assumptions of individuals may be
recognised and questioned, and group members may generate new knowledge as they attempted
to understand their situation. And this is what I found?

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION/FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the ways in which the women, in the context of a focus group interviews,
utilised and deployed various discourses to position themselves and to describe their lived bodily
experiences in a hegemonically male work environment. I also make an analysis of the data,
suggesting certain interpretations of the ways the women are constructing meaning and making
sense of their presence in such an environment. In concluding the chapter I locate myself in the
analysis and pose the question about the possibility for change.
The organisation of the data and analysis below follows on from the open-ended focus questions
that were utilised to initiate discussion in the focus groups. These in turn were derived from the
research questions and literature search topics. As would be expected, the talk of the participants
did not fall neatly into the categories that I had created in the literature search. In conducting the
group interviews my aim was to allow the group to direct the dialogue, within the broad
parameters set by the open-ended focus questions. I avoided disrupting or influencing the
dialogue, except on the odd occasion, in order to allow the participants room to create their own
meaning-making within the group context. Nevertheless I have maintained the themes derived
from the research questions and literature search as the organisational impetus in the following
discussion and analysis. These themes are: The Female Body within a Hegemonically Male
Work Environment, The Female Body and Manual ‘Heavy’ Work, Markers of Femininity,
Gender/Sex Attribution by Others and Feminine Identity, Positioning and Relations of Power.
5.1 The Female Body within a Hegemonically Male Work Environment

In conducting the focus group interviews, one concept that I was interested in exploring among
the women was the ostensible paradoxes that may be identified in women’s feminine bodies,
performing what may be considered men’s work – suited to the male body. For instance, were
there particular discourses circulating in the women’s work environments that marked their
bodies as different and/or constituted their bodies as unsuitable for the work they performed? I
began with asking the women how they felt about being in a woman’s body and working and
studying in a hegemonicalprevalely male environment.
The Automotive Focus Group
In the Automotive focus group Rita responds almost immediately to my enquiry and states that
she has had no problem with it. Rita goes on to explain:
Rita: ‘But I’ve always ... I’ve never been girly-girly ever. Probably that’s why. I don’t carry myself like a
girly-girl…’
Elaine: [Agreeing with Rita] ‘No, I’ve always had more male friends than female friends…’
Rita: ‘Yeah me too. That’s it - not scared of getting your hands dirty. Yeah I’ve been more comfortable
around guys, as friends, because sometimes ….. [unclear]…. can be …
Rita and Elaine: ‘Bitchy’ [laughter]
Rita: ‘… and then I don’t go in there.’
Elaine: ‘We don’t touch that. You start bitchin’, we start walkin’. I can’t listen to it.’
[Group laughter]
Rita and Elaine recognised and highlighted aspects of hegemonic femininity and stereotypes that
they did not wish to be identified with - girly-girls, fear of getting dirty and ‘bitchiness’. Rita’s
point that she does not ‘carry herself like a girly-girl’ implies she understands that in order to
succeed in being perceived as feminine, there are certain disciplines required of the female body
– actions and markers that allow others to unambiguously identify a body as feminine and
ultimately female (Bartky, 2003). Rita also identifies that she does not meet those expectations
or perhaps has decided to actively resist the expectation that she will discipline her body in order
to ‘carry herself’ in a way that is considered feminine.

Because Rita and Elaine have taken up an ‘unconventional’ way of being and interacting it also
seems that they identify more with their male friends. They appear to perceive these ways of
being as masculine and generally associated with males. So in a way Rita and Elaine are actively
participating in the discourse that constructs women as ‘other’ to men (McWilliam et al, 1997;
Lee, 1992). The ‘other’ women of Rita and Elaine’s discussion exhibited behaviours that they
expected of women but which they personally disliked and shunned.
So in the above discussion Rita and Elaine began by isolating aspects of the gendered body – the
carriage of the body in a feminine manner, for example. They then worked to construct
themselves as different from this feminine body. By evoking a discourse that constituted women
who could not/chose not to do the things they could do as ‘other’, it appeared that Rita and
Elaine were positioning themselves simultaneously as powerful and different, in comparison to
these (non-trades) women.
The Electrical Focus Group
I also asked the Electrical group about their awareness of being a female; being in a female’s
body amongst all the men? Were there any ‘in’ jokes that mark them as different, which get
circulated around? Ellie responds first by relating an experience she had in the apprentice
training workshop where she is employed.
Ellie: Depends if your shirt button is undone and you’re walking around the workshop for an hour and a
half and you’re the one who [finally] notices but no-one has said anything to you. [laughter]
Lucy: I’ve had very few [comments] personally and the ones who have said something they’ve…
Brianna: …been dealt with accordingly.
[Group laughter]
Ellie’s response to the question is interesting since her immediate awareness of being in a
woman’s body in a workshop environment was related to her breach of an assumed norm of
feminine modesty. It is possible that nobody in the workshop noticed that her shirt button was

undone, but she has constructed a story around the apparent awkwardness or collective silence of
the male workers to her ‘condition’.
The Composite Focus Group
Paralleling Ellie’s narrative that focused on bodyof body difference, two interesting stories
emerged from the Composite focus group interview. Anita, an apprentice sheet metal worker
explains how she was sent from work to pick up some materials from a particular wholesaler. It
was a very hot day, and she had rolled down her overalls to waist-level and had the sleeves tied
around her waist (to hold them up). Anita describes that she was dirty and sweaty and was
wearing a tee-shirt (under the overalls), steel-capped boots and a baseball cap (over her fairly
short hair). As she approached the counter, a man talking to the salesperson said, ‘Serve this
young bloke first, while I make up my mind’. Anita recalls her thoughts and reactions:
Anita: I was gonna say something like ‘Hey I’m not a bloke! What do ya think these are?’ [Anita grabs and
pulls out her shirt to emphasise her breasts] … you know, say something smart-arse like I usually do. But I
… I stopped myself ‘cos all of a sudden I felt … I like got really self-conscious, like if I said that they’d
stare at my chest … and I wasn’t wearing a bra or nothing … not that I need to [laughs]… I mean I’m not
usually like that, I shit-stir all the time at work with the blokes ….
In this interaction, outside of the now familiar environment of her workplace, Anita becomes
acutely aware of being in a female body, due to gender misattribution by the male customer. She
identifies her awareness of a ‘breasted’ difference from the men (Young, 2003), and that had she
corrected the men, their gaze would have focused onto her chest – as if searching for
confirmation of her womanhood - confirmation that would probably have been unnecessary had
she presented with other identifiable inscriptions of femininity. Young (2003), in discussing
conceptions of the female breast within a patriarchal culture, suggests that a woman’s breasts are
a fundamental aspect of her bodily self-image. The breasts are the ‘daily visible and tangible

signifier of … womanliness’ and are continually under scrutiny – being evaluated and measured
up against the ‘normalised breast’ - a patriarchal ideal (p.152-153).
Anita clearly avoided the patriarchal gaze in this interaction perhaps to evade a judgment by the
men that further called into question her womanliness – that her breasts were of ‘inadequate’ size
(Anita mentioned in the dialogue that she did not ‘need’ to wear a bra). However, another
possible reading of Anita’s reaction could relate to social discourses surrounding the display of
the female breast. Perhaps Anita is aware that her breasts, minus the confines of a bra represent
an inappropriate display of the female body, even under the covering of a tee-shirt.
Young (2003) proposes that Western male-dominated culture delineates the appropriate display
of the breast. This culture promotes the flaunting of cleavage but constructs the display of
nipples as ‘indecent’; that they must be ‘carefully obscured’ (Young, 2003, p.156). Nipples are
generally taboo in patriarchal society, according to Young (2003), because ‘they show the
breasts to be active and independent zones of sensitivity and eroticism’ (p.156). Taking Young’s
(2003) point into consideration, a paradox exists between culturally-mediated images in the mass
media in which women’s bodies are objectified, and existing standards of propriety to which
‘respectable’ women may be expected to adhere.
Melanie, following on from Anita’s story, joins the discussion by stating that her main
frustration and limitation in being in a woman’s body was the large size of her breasts – ‘my
38Ds’ - as she describes them. Melanie, an electrical trades apprentice, explains the restrictions
she encounters because of her breast size:
Melanie: If I’m trying to get into a duct or through some small place like that, they always seem to get in
the way and no matter what I do – trying to flatten them out or shift them this way or that – I just can’t get
through sometimes. And I sometimes don’t push it in case I can’t get back out. You could imagine me with

my legs hanging down out of the duct and the blokes asking, ‘What’s the matter?’ and me like going, ‘My
boobs are stuck’ – how embarrassing would that be?
So for Melanie, her breasts are a potential source of ridicule and embarrassment, by virtue of the
‘limits’ they place on her mobility and ability to perform certain requisite tasks. Later in the
discussion, however, Melanie compares her own ‘limitation’ to that of the male ‘beer gut’ in
terms of restricting access to small spaces and to the possibility of ‘getting stuck’. It is interesting
that Melanie identifies the very fluid nature of her breasts, that she can ‘flatten them out’ and
‘shift them this way or that’, but fails to see this fluidity as potentially less restrictive than the
‘beer gut’.
In the three stories presented and discussed above the women identified a specific aspect of
sex/gender difference; an aspect that has certain implications for the women’s presence in a
hegemonically masculine domain and in the performance of their work. Ellie perceived that her
unbuttoned shirt created a sense of unease for her co-workers. Anita voiced a consciousness that
her bra-less body could be constituted ‘out of place’, deviant or inappropriate, while Melanie
invoked a discourse of biological difference that produces her female body as ‘limited’ in the
performance of her work; even at times unsuitable.
5.2 The Female Body and Manual ‘Heavy’ Work
Intending to build on the notion of ostensible paradoxes that may be identified in the female
body performing what may be considered masculine (and hence unfeminine) work I planned to
investigate the participant’s talk on female bodily capacity. One issue I wished to explore with
the women was the idea of a socially-mediated ‘glass ceiling’ (Dworkin, 2003) on women’s
physical musculature; since the work they perform involves using their bodies in ways that
require varying degrees of muscular strength and endurance.

Doing a Man sized job_Women in Trades Thesis

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