Avmaskulinisering. Ett alternativ till omkodning av kön?

Abstract

At the turn of the 19th century, the PhysicalTherapy profession in Sweden saw the beginning of a complete gender transformation. In 1934 itchanged from having been a highly esteemed, scientifically ambitious profession, practiced by male upper-class and nobleman-officers, into a low-paid semiprofession on the "backyard" of the medical sciences dominated by a female workforce. In trying to explain this gender recoding of the Physical Therapy profession, the article departs from those currents of gender- and professionalization theory which aim to explain the "sex changes" of a profession in terms of feminization and masculinization, in that it calls for a supplementary terminology. In order to adequately explain the gendered history ofthe PhysicalTherapy profession, it is argued that a new term is needed - demasculinization. To renderthe increased inclination of women to embark on a Physical Therapy career more understandable, the article suggests a sidestep from theories of genderand power that trust an analytical focus on the battle between the sexes to deliver exhaustive explications on why and how women are able to enter and act in environments controlled by men and male institutions. Claiming that such theories may lead the analysis of how gender transformations are initiated in the labour märket into a deadend, the article guides the discussion through an alternative route. The analysis proceeds by way ofthe battles for power between men and male hierarchies, rather than through those between men and women. In the case of Physical Therapy, the homosocial conflict between physicians and physical therapists becomes central. The strategies employed by the two sides in this battle are identified as demasculinizing, and this process becomes a necessary precondition for the process of feminization, which does not take place until låter.