Submitted by tomski on 20 May, 2020 - 07:58.
WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, staff, or PhD students. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). We welcome all to a talk ONLINE (MS Teams: WA Staff) "You don’t really notice it in the moment, but … The persistence of gender’s salience in an ostensibly meritocratic institution" by prof. Joanna Pawelczyk & prof. Judith E. Rosenstein (Friday, May 22, 13:15-14:15).
prof. Joanna Pawelczyk
Dean of the Faculty of English
Department of Sociolinguistics and Discourse Studies
&
prof. Judith E. Rosenstein
Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law
United States Naval Academy
You don’t really notice it in the moment, but …
The persistence of gender’s salience in an ostensibly meritocratic institution
In this presentation we answer Britton’s call to better understand the extent to which women in predominantly masculine occupations and institutions experience a chilly climate. In many organizations that ostensibly welcome women and promote equality, we expect that women experience a climate that is humid rather than chilly -- they are simultaneously welcomed, yet frequently made to feel uncomfortable or that they do not truly/fully belong. Drawing on qualitative interviews and applying discourse analytic methods, we find that women students at a United States military service academy have a general feeling of inclusion, yet describe “little things happening here and there.” However, these women often have a difficult time articulating these experiences as gendered and are often unable or unwilling to label them as harassment. We contend that humidity is a more accurate description than chilly for the discomfort and symbolic oppression that these women may experience. We anticipate that this humidity is felt by many women in similarly male dominated occupations, particularly as nowadays organizations strive to become more inclusive and boast being merit-based. While humidity may be hard to quantify, its implications may be widely felt and likely contribute to women’s sense of exclusion, “voluntary” exit, and, at an extreme, experiences of violence.
By unpacking gender harassment in interview interactions, we show how macro-level phenomena (social problems) can be captured and studied by analyzing micro-level details of discourse and interaction.
References
Britton, Dana. M. 2017. Beyond the chilly climate: The salience of gender in women’s academic careers. Gender & Society 31(1): 5-27.
You can join the talk via MS Teams (WA Staff) or contact prof. Bogusława Whyatt at bwhyatt@wa.amu.edu.pl
