“Women and “Ideal” Women”: The Representation of Women in the Construction Industry

Abstract

Increased female participation has been highlighted as necessary to fill a labor shortage in the construction industry, but also to promote equality and efficiency. Despite initiatives to recruit women, the industry remains one of the most gender-segregated industries in the world. Increased knowledge about gender has been identified as needed to change the status quo. The aim of this study is to contribute with new insights into gender in construction by exploring how women in the industry are discursively represented, and how they talk about their workplace. It is based on analyses of texts from the web. The search engine WebCorpLive was used to retrieve and sort the material to enable linguistic analysis. The study shows that although the overarching message in the material is that there are many opportunities for women in the industry, closer analysis of it shows that women entering the industry are met with gender-biased attitudes, discrimination and unrealistic demands.

Analysing Gender Issues in the Australian Construction Industry through the Lens of Empowerment

“…This conclusion is drawn in conjunction with the relational and environmental dimension discussed below, which indicates that the construction industry is becoming increasingly accepting and supportive of women [18]. Most of the international studies also reported that although the culture in construction is persistently male, a positive shift in attitudes and a supportive environment is taking place [58,[61][62][63]. As such, women's empowerment can be achieved by taking personal initiative to fully utilise the positive and supportive environment around them, while overcoming other long-standing relational and environmental barriers.…”

“…An international study [59] also pointed out the importance of running self-esteem workshops for women to learn to face and handle conflicts in predominantly male workspaces, so an overall work enjoyment can be better achieved. In fact, a study in Sweden reported that women in construction have learnt that they need to "be able to either laugh at or ignore some of the jokes that men may tell at work" [61] (p. 5) and they become "less sensitive to male dominance and discrimination" [61] (p. 5).…”

Crossing Social Boundaries in an Immigration Context: Exogamy and Gendered Employment Patterns in Unions in Germany

“…For example, women, older people, and migrants are especially likely to face barriers in employment [ 48 ]. In industrial sectors of the labor market, women are underrepresented, and may be confronted with negative stereotypes toward women in industry [ 81 ]. One-third of the unemployed population of working age in Germany are migrants or descendants of migrants [ 13 ].…”

The institution of medicine and transgender identity construction: Between a doc and a hard place

“…294). White, cisgender, able‐bodied men are considered “ideal workers,” because it is assumed that they are more committed to work because giving birth or child‐rearing responsibilities are not expected of them (Williams, 2000) and they are considered physically stronger than their women counterparts (Norberg & Johansson, 2021). Similar to the concept of the “ideal worker,” the institution of medicine expects transgender individuals to adopt cisnormative behaviors and punishes those who do not conform to gender‐normative expectations by denying them healthcare services related to gender‐affirming services.…”