A ‘feminised workplace’ doesn’t mean what you think it means | Letter

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As researchers working on the topic of feminised work, it is dismaying to see the anti-feminist definition of that term – advanced by conservative thinkers like Helen Andrews – gaining traction (Horror stories of a “feminised workplace” mask the real crisis in male identity, 24 November). If we understand “feminisation” to mean that contemporary workplaces are overwhelmed by women and their allegedly excessive emotions and touchy-feely refusal to compete, then it is easy to see why it might not seem to merit much thought. But there is an alternative, critical and feminist definition of the term.

“Feminisation” in this sense describes the central role played by gender in the transformations of work over the past decades, from the decline of conventionally masculine forms of work in heavy industry to the rise of the service economy and the problematic idea that women’s participation in paid labour is a measure of gender equality. This critical use of “feminisation” makes visible the ways that contemporary capitalism exploits our ideas about gender. The point is not to reiterate gender stereotypes (the fallacy that women are more naturally caring than men, for example), or to suggest that feminisation is something to be either entirely celebrated or entirely critiqued.

It is certainly not to suggest that any field in which women predominate is likely to be weakened (an assumption behind much of the rightwing use of the term). In critiquing the “great feminisation” thesis, we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater: a feminist approach to the topic reveals that pay, working hours and working conditions are inseparably connected with the ways we define femininity and masculinity. Accurately describing gendered working conditions is the first step in making them more equitable for all.
Dr Emily J Hogg, Dr Charlotte J Fabricius (editors of Feminized Work and the Labor of Literature) and Dr Ida Aaskov Dolmer University of Southern Denmark, Odense