ABSTRACT
Gender matters. From birth, if not before, we are all gendered. But how does this affect work and relations in the workplace? This chapter starts with what might seem unnecessary – a consideration of what we mean by gender, before moving on to consider gender inequality at work and then the doing and undoing of gender in the workplace. But what is gender? One answer is a biological one. At birth we are labelled
‘male’ or ‘female’, depending on certain (usually) obvious physiological differences that we are culturally disposed to attend to. This suggests ‘gender’ is a binary system, consisting of male and female, although this can be challenged with reference to a third sex, or a wider range of possibilities (see for example Herdt 1994). Gender, though, is not reducible to biological differences and can be seen as socially constructed (e.g. see Marshall 2003). The way this is done is through particular social processes and identifications. An apparently trivial example of this is the way we might come to associate pink with girls and blue with boys. This is an arbitrary assignment (and culturally specific) but it might lead girls and boys to identify strongly, in some cases, with ‘their’ colour. It becomes an expression of ‘their’ self-identity, as well as a marker of collective identity – ‘girls’ or ‘boys’. In a binary gender system there is a strong emphasis on difference which creates
tensions with equality. Under the UK Equality Act (2010) it is illegal to discriminate on grounds of sex and there is, as in many cultures, a formal commitment to gender equality. This sits uneasily with the recognition and persistence of gender difference, however.
