Men and Gender Transformation in Care Work: Obstacles and Challenges

1. Mænd og daginstitutionsarbejdets modernisering Men in care work: Obstacles of gender transformation  Steen Baagøe Nielsen Forskerskolen for livslang læring PhD-forsvar - 21. dec. 2005 Steen Baagøe Nielsen Research consultant for MpowerMen2Men Assoc. Prof., PhD Department of Psychology and Educational Studies Roskilde University

2. Key themes: • Focus on the meaning of masculinities in the process of gender transformation • Understanding the general relations between gender and power • Understanding links between professional cultures and the meanings of gender

3. Theories on men and masculinities • Masculinities – and men as collective entities • Power hierarchies between men Hegemonic Masculinities (Connell, 1995) • Patriarchal structures (gender order) suppress (most) men (too). Masculinities as a construction that is at the same time powerful and fragile – men are objects of harassment, policing, bullying, intimidation, marginalisation, and violence especially aimed at marginalised men. (gay?, queer?) - masculinity as a constantly challenged achievement (through body-reflexive practices)

4. My approach to understanding men’s change: • To look at men’s situation in care work through looking at the context – and the general conditions of the field of social care work. Not (only) ‘counting’ men (male bodies), - and not studying caring males as peculiar incidents of (positive) masculinities, But seeing the production of gender in context: - studying the work and the organisations as a whole - seeing the professionals and the work as gendered - look for the particular consequences for men of central practices

5. Understanding gender at work: "As important social phenomena, gender relations (..) influence the fundamental functioning of organizations and our general way of thinking about aims, rationality, values, leadership and so on. [G]ender is not simply imported into the workplace: gender is itself constructed in part through work. Gender is (..) not something that is fixed and ready and the object for certain arrangements and mechanisms in organizations." (Alvesson & Billing, 1997:106)“

6. Understanding child care as ’Women’s work’? • Practice related to women’s traditional tasks and work-orientations – often under time-pressure, and ’invisible’, ’emotional’ labour, homely, sometimes almost private, work-practices: Emphasising, caring, safety, health - and close, comforting relations to parents (drawing on trad. female socialisation) • Defensive attitudes of semi-professions: Striving for legitimacy and recognition • Suited for part-time jobs, flexible working hours, leave-agreements etc. • Democratic, unhierarchical and collective organisation (women’s collective)

7. Segregation at work! ‘Tokenism’ – Kanter (1977) 'Boundary heightening‘ - Williams (1995): "Differences between males and females are highlighted in very stereotypical ways. Yet these effects of tokenism are not always negative for men.[!] Because qualities associated with masculinity are more highly regarded than qualities associated with femininity (...) men tend to excel in these contexts." (Ibid. p.182)

8. ‘Othering’ men in carework • Creating (doing) an understanding of that which is unlike ‘us’ (the ‘female’ senior staff). • Producing ‘men’ and the ‘manly’ through professional practices - Expecting men to take up particular tasks etc. • But sometimes marked by discriminatory practises, prejudice, and stereotypes (which generally in this context. To understand some of the gendered meanings which come into play here we must know more about the context and the particular practices which construct gender (and vice versa) - on a number of different levels..

9. Positive aspects of otherness? Men’s ‘other’ qualities seem to fit well with accepted representations of professionalism • Breaking the image of the bureaucratic, inefficient public sector (the feminized nanny state) • Connected to more updated understandings of user (childrens) needs – related to developments in family care • Indicates a change ’from welfare state to welfare society’ – developments of ‘quality for the users in the new ‘public service’

10. Practical consequences of ’othering’ Men are excluded and dismissed partly as an effect of gendered ‘othering’. • Preliminary drop out during education – or even during counselling • temporary commitment / short time appointments Experiences of discrimination outlines a centrifugal movement of distancing and dissociation

11. The dismissal of a care workerfrom research observations at a child care center • The experience of incompetence among male staff; • Men’s laziness ‑ i.e. lack of willingness to live up to common standards or norms of work, (‘Childlike’) • Men's evasion from the 'boring' routines or unpleasant parts of the work ‑ e.g. changing diapers, an evaporating lack of willingness to do the 'masculine caring' job they were employed to do. • The lack of integration of the male workers in the organisational structure and professional debates • Organizational problems around sexualised professional relationships

12. The discrimination of men • Seldom directed towards men who are ‘too masculine’ • Most often against men who are not masculine enough • Not being man ‘in the right way’ - rankings between ‘losers’ and successful men – glass ceiling against (and by) men Holter, Ø. G. (2003:159ff) Can men do it? Men and gender equality – the Nordic experience Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, TemaNord 2003:510

13. The discrimination of men • Works most often hidden through individual distantiations and a ‘sense of threat to stability’: fear of unmanliness as a pervasive cultural pattern! • But also through more direct cultural devaluation, marginalisation and barriers linked to direct protection and ‘policing’ of what is often understood as the cultural privilege of masculinity Holter, Ø. G. (2003:159ff) Can men do it? Men and gender equality – the Nordic experience Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers, TemaNord 2003:510

14. Consequences of ’othering’ in child care – making, negotiating and maintaining distance Men do to some extent gain from the othering - pulls and individual orientations • Favouritism through managerial careers (glass-escalator) • Instrumentation (working for money!) • Specialization • Hyper academic / hyper-professional orientations • Masculinist orientations – e.g. through focus on secondary or non-professional tasks.

15. Connell To understand gender (…) we must constantly go beyond gender. The same applies in reverse. We cannot understand class, race or global inequality without constantly moving towards gender. Gender relations are a major component of social structure as a whole, and gender politics are among the main determinants of our collective fate.”(Connell 1995: 76)

16. To understand the possibilities of gender-integration and the ‘call for men’ in relation to the transformations of patriarchy: 1) Paternate: Pre-industrial organisation: polarized spheres. Seclusion of women and knowledge attached to the home and ’motherhood’. 2) Maskulinate: 20. C. Industrialism. Hierarchical and wage labour centred organisations – with great gender polarisation and inequality. Vertical discrimination – and exploitation of the ’reproducers’.

17. The approaching androgynate patriarchy 3) The approaching androgynate of post industrialism / knowledge society. Less hierarchical economic and political order. Women’s growing participation at the labour market delimits the spatial base of the gender specific competences. Traditional ‘motherly’ knowledge looses its moral and of caring. As a consequence caring must be ’reinvented’ through education and academic discourses. Qualificationsof care become still more dependent on a knowledge base which tends to be still more distanced, professional and gender neutral. Theory by Øystein G. Holter, WRI, Oslo

18. Gender integration - a possibility? New research overviews in Denmark (Holt et al., 2005) states a rise in gender integrated occupations and jobs from around 7-8 % in 1995 to 15 % in 2003). But what happens on a smaller scale – within the professions.. Or at the workplace? A tendency towards reproduction of segregation is at work!?

19. Gender integration No easy roads – no one way streets. Gender research reminds us it…: • Demands a complex understanding of work and services, professionals and organisations - and their transformation • Demands a complex understanding of gender and power and its transformations macro and micro • Can possibly best be enhanced by relating to ongoing, active, participatory job-transformation