Drawing on ethnographic data collected on the trading floor of a large, Midwestern commodities exchange, I show how attention to variations in the pace of work within an overwhelmingly male-dominated workplace reveals different repertoires of gender. During periods of market activity, gender is constituted within a language of competence. Seemingly gender-neutral categories such as handling pressure, being aggressive, and being physical mask a gendered logic. By contrast, during downtime in the market, gender reemerges as a more overtly sexualized form of difference. Jokes and references to women's bodies make gender a more overtly salient characteristic of the trading floor. More careful attention to the meanings of gender draws attention to both overt and covert gendered logics in the construction of a gendered workplace.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Acker, J.
(1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organization. Gender and Society, 4, 139-158.
2.
Baker, W. E.
(1984). The social structure of a national securities market. American Journal of Sociology, 89, 775-811.
3.
Braverman, H.
(1974). Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
4.
Britton, D. M.
(1997). Gendered organizational logic: Policy and practice in men's and women's prisons. Gender and Society, 11, 796-818.
5.
Burawoy, M.
(1979). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
6.
Carruthers, B. G.
(1996). City of capital: Politics and markets in the English financial revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
Cockburn, C.
(1985). Machinery of dominance: Women, men, and technical know-how. London: Pluto.
8.
Cockburn, C.
(1991). In the way of women: Men's resistance to sex equality in organizations. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
9.
Connell, R. W.
(1987). Gender and power. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
10.
Connell, R. W.
(1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11.
Epstein, C. F.
(1970). Woman's place: Options and limits in professional careers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
Ferguson, K.
(1984). The feminist case against bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
13.
Fine, G. A.
(1990). Organizational time: Temporal demands and the experience of work in restaurant kitchens. Social Forces, 69, 95-114.
14.
Fine, G. A.
(1996). Kitchens: The culture of restaurant work. Berkeley: University of California Press.
15.
Gray, S.
(1987). Sharing the shop floor. In M. Kaufman (Ed.), Beyond patriarchy: Essays by men on pleasure, power, and change (pp. 216-234). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
16.
Haas, J.
(1972). Binging: Educational control among high steel ironworkers. American Behavioral Scientist, 16, 27-34.
17.
Hall, E. J.
(1993). Waitering/waitressing: Engendering the work of table servers. Gender and Society, 7, 329-346.
18.
Hartmann, H.
(1976). Capitalism, patriarchy, and job segregation by sex. In M. Blaxall & B. Reagan (Eds.), Women and the workplace: The implications of occupational segregation (pp. 137-169). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
Hassard, J.
(1996). Images of time in work and organization. In S. Clegg, C. Hardy, & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organization studies (pp. 581-598). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
Hearn, J.
, & Parkin, P. W. (1987). Gender and organizations: A selective review and critique of a neglected area. Organization Studies, 4, 219-242.
21.
Hirschman, A. O.
(1977). The passions and the interests: Political arguments for capitalism before its triumph. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
22.
Hochschild, A. R.
(1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
23.
Hossfeld, K.
(1990). Their logic against them: Contradictions in sex, race, and class in Silicon Valley. In K. Ward (Ed.), Women workers and global restructuring (pp. 149-178). Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
24.
Hughes, E.
(1958). Men and their work. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
25.
Kanter, R. M.
(1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.
26.
Lee, C. K.
(1995). Engendering the worlds of labor: Women workers, labor markets, and production politics in the South China economic miracle. American Sociological Review, 60, 378-397.
27.
Leidner, R.
(1991). Serving hamburgers and selling insurance: Gender, work, and identity in interactive service jobs. Gender and Society, 5, 154-177.
28.
Leidner, R.
(1994). Fast food, fast talk: Service work and the routinization of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
29.
Lewis, M.
(1989). Liar's poker: Two cities, true greed. New York: Norton.
30.
Lyman, P.
(1987). The fraternal bond as a joking relationship: A case study of the role of sexist jokes in male group bonding. In M. Kimmel (Ed.), Changing men: New directions in research on men and masculinity (pp. 148-163). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
31.
Maines, D. R.
(1987). The significance of temporality for the development of sociological theory. Sociological Quarterly, 28, 303-311.
32.
Manning, P. K.
, & Van Maanen, J. (1978). Policing: A view from the street. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear Publishing.
33.
Martin, S. E.
(1980). Breaking and entering: Policewomen on patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press.
34.
McDowell, L.
(1995). Body work: Heterosexual gender performances in city workplaces. In D. Bell & G. Valentine (Eds.), Mapping desire: Geographies of sexualities (pp. 75-95). New York: Routledge.
35.
McDowell, L.
, & Court, G. (1994). Missing subjects: Gender, power, and sexuality in merchant banking. Economic Geography, 70, 229-251.
36.
Messner, M. A.
(1992). Power at play: Sports and the problem of masculinity. Boston, MA: Beacon.
37.
Milkman, R.
(1987). Gender at work: The dynamics of job segregation by sex during World War II. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
38.
Norman, K.
(1994). The ironic body: Obscene joking among Swedish working-class women. Ethnos, 59, 187-211.
39.
Pringle, R.
(1989). Secretaries talk: Sexuality, power, and work. London: Verso.
40.
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R.
(1965). Structure and function in primitive society. New York: Free Press.
41.
Roy, D.
(1960). Banana time: Job satisfaction and informal interaction. Human Organization, 18, 156-168.
42.
Salzinger, L.
(1997). From high heels to swathed bodies: Gendered meanings under production in Mexico's export-processing industry. Feminist Studies, 28, 549-574.
43.
Smith, D. E.
(1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
44.
Stacey, J.
, & Thorne, B. (1985). The missing feminist revolution in sociology. Social Problems, 32, 301-316.
45.
West, C.
, & Zimmerman, D. (1987). Doing gender. Gender and Society, 1, 125-151.
46.
Williams, C. L.
1989. Gender differences at work: Women and men in nontraditional occupations. Berkeley: University of California Press.
47.
Wilson, C.
(1979). Jokes: Form, content, use and function. New York: Academic Press.
48.
Zerubavel, E.
(1979). Patterns of time in hospital life: A sociological perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
49.
Zerubavel, E.
(1981). Hidden rhythms: Schedules and calendars in social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
