ABSTRACT
Female construction workers in Bangladesh pose important challenges to normative gender roles and expectations. Their bodies and their labour conflict with patriarchal codes of women’s place in society in three key ways: they constitute an invasion of female bodies into male space; they perform masculinised labour in the public arena, on construction sites; and they are frequently the main source of household income and as such subvert the stereotype of male as breadwinner. In this chapter we explore these challenges to normative patriarchal gender codes through the eyes and experiences of Bangladeshi female construction workers, their male family members (husbands) and male co-workers. We argue that while these women do indeed queer the margins of male space through posing a radical challenge to patriarchal gender norms, they continue to be simultaneously constrained by those norms. The radical potential of these ‘border bodies’ has not, as yet at least, been wholly realised and we found that there have been only marginal shifts in patriarchal control in the home. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge their incorporation into the labour market and not least the specifically located challenge these women pose being ‘bodies out of place’ as female labourers on male-dominated building sites. These women are also contributing to the erosion of men’s role as primary breadwinners and the subsequent reduced dependence of women on men for economic protection. For these reasons we argue that female construction workers stand at a front line of patriarchy, ‘queering the margins’ of male space, and the radical potential of these ‘border bodies’ must be recognised.
