Just när det blev viktigt blev det manligt

Abstract

This article is about the dynamics of gender in workplaces that are undergoing changes in organization. More precisely it is about the instability in femininity and masculinity and the links between the construction of gender and the construction of the modern organizations. On a general level the traditional gender order is based on stability, that is to say that men and women are seen as very different, even as each other's antithesis, and with different values. This kind of gender stability works as a strong restorative mechanism in the organization of local workplaces since the resulting attempts to maintain segregation and hierarchy are directly contradictory to the modern organizational concepts that aim for integration and de-centralization. Gender order in such organizations does not only provide stability, at the same time we can also see dynamic processes at work whereby parts of the contents of the concepts masculinity and femininity are transformed. For example, social competence is often seen as a "female" characteristic or ability, but is more and more becoming a "male" competence, something that men should have as well. The construction of masculinity in local organizations is thus modified in accordance with what is important to modern organizational concepts. In other words, the dynamics of gender construction makes it possible to implement modern organization concepts without changing the gender order too much.