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- Title
GENDERED CAREER PATHS IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY IN CROSS-NATIONAL AND WEST-EAST PERSPECTIVE.
- Authors
Šidlauskienė, Virginija
- Abstract
Science today, perhaps more than ever, is the site of multiple negotiations. Market values increasingly drive scientific research and higher education yet the traditional emphasis upon rational knowledge remains. The range of actors with a claim to 'have a say' in science has also grown to include a range of voices beyond academe, from industry , government and the public. These new actors may play different roles in different contexts and geopolitical spaces. All these processes also have a gender dimension - from recruitment and retention of scientists and employees career paths, to excellence, work-life balance and the gendering of knowledge production processes and practices. The historical rupture produced by state-socialism and the subsequent process of EU enlargement and the impending introduction of policy measures to promote gender equality in science in the new EU member states create an ideal vantage point to conduct a comparative study into knowledge-production processes, including possible exclusions, in East Central and Western Europe. Aiming to investigate the complex inter actions among national and regional contexts, hegemonic discourses, institutional practices with respect to gender the proposed research was guided both by a genealogical inquiry elaborated in the tradition of "hegemonic institution" of Michel Foucault and by a social epistemological framework. This publication is devoted to highlight the problems of women meet in their engineering and technologies research careers discovered in project "PROMETEA: Empowering Women Engineers in Industrial and Academic Research" and to share information aimed at promoting gender equality, for male and female careers in national science policy and West-East perspective context. In my analysis, I reject the rigid interpretation of current situation of post Communist democratization policy by postcolonial approach in women's engineering and technological research careers, applied to post Socialist countries as Lithuania - new ES accession country. Different women research groups from Eastern European are regularly constituted as others in periphery , minority, inadequate or undeveloped, less paid, but well working, who need help and acceptance from center, from dominant majority (Western) researchers' excellent groups. Democratization made space for new ideas, including gender equality and Western influence, with attendant democratization and debates about gender equality, might have made space for greater egalitarianism in post Communist democratization policy in Eastern Europe. The study indicate that women in E&T research are on average more egalitarian than are men, and that these differences are persistent across national contexts. All men directly or indirectly benefit from gender inequality, getting better access to power, prestige and material resources, and thus they are more likely to favor maintaining traditional family roles that increase women's dependence. Women are more likely to support egalitarian gender roles because it is in their interest to increase their own economic resources and gain career in research sector.…
- Subjects
WESTERN Europe; RESEARCH; WOMEN'S employment; GENDER identity in the workplace; MARKET value; CAREER development; GENDER inequality; GENDER role in the work environment; SEX discrimination in employment; FOUCAULT, Michel, 1926-1984
- Publication
Gender Studies & Research, 2009, Vol 6, p4
- ISSN
1822-6310
- Publication type
Article