Abstract
Women make up less than 12% of the construction industry and 16% of the mining industry in Australia. Percentages are reduced further when women working in administration and other feminised occupations are removed from the tally. In the skilled trades (the crafts) gender diversity is an enduring problem despite persistent skills shortages in these occupations in both industries. Whilst there are identified barriers in the skilled trades and the construction and mining industries, for women, there are few studies that provide insights into how these uniquely manifest in rural areas. Rurality presents additional barriers to women’s employment in the Australian context. Young women have a significantly higher rates of outmigration from rural areas than young men and report fewer career opportunities. Furthermore, rural areas are known for having a macho culture and for failing to be inclusive of diversity. Therefore, the well cited barriers that women experience in the skilled trades (social exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of social closure) are heightened when women seek employment in rural areas. We apply a Bourdieusian analysis to the barriers women face in the construction and mining industries in rural Australia. We investigate women’s capital in the skilled-trades and consider gender capital in relation to social, cultural and symbolic capitals. Our analysis broadly explores Bourdieu’s symbolic power and symbolic violence in rural cultural environments where masculinity is ‘normative’ and women are defined as ‘other’. Our study uses empirical evidence, and reports on the literature in the field, to examine the subtle and invisible forms of violence that women experience in the skilled trades, in rural areas, in both the mining and construction industries.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 101 |
| Number of pages | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Jun 2023 |
| Event | International Sociological Association XX World Congress of Sociology: Resurgent Authoritarianism - Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne, Australia Duration: 25 Jun 2023 → 01 Jul 2023 Conference number: XX https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/world-congress/melbourne-2023 https://www.isa-sociology.org/uploads/imgen/1579-isa-wcs2023-book-of-abstracts.pdf (Abstracts book) |
Conference
| Conference | International Sociological Association XX World Congress of Sociology |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title | Sociology of New Entanglements of Religions, Politics and Economies |
| Country/Territory | Australia |
| City | Melbourne |
| Period | 25/06/23 → 01/07/23 |
| Other | The global rise of authoritarianism, as well as populism, xenophobia, and racism, makes our task as sociologists more crucial than ever. This dilemma is assisted by the gradual symbolic thickening of public culture through combinations of extreme nationalist and religious fervor. What is the best way to analyze global resurgent authoritarianism? In addition to dealing with the scars of the colonial era, a postcolonial approach should be supplemented with another approach; we need to find ways to diagnose and resist this resurgence. This approach should take into account how authoritarianism affects not only our societies, but also our knowledge production. The self-centered and unspoken have become more important than the told and argued. We are concerned not only with the hard authoritarianism that heralds the brutalization of society and politics, but also the soft authoritarianism that often thrives in the shadow of neoliberalism, as the state moves deftly in the open or in secret to devise modes of governance that shore up its power against popular discontent. A special interest of our Congress is how to disaggregate the Western, but also sociological, assumption of secularism as inherent in modern society and at the same time analytically dissociate the state from religion. While this separation is still a crucial pathway toward democracy and citizenship, the process needs to be problematized. We particularly look forward to discussing the promising avenues of inquiry within sociology and related disciplines about what have been termed ‘post-secular societies’ and ‘multiple secularities’. Thus the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology will focus on how sociologists worldwide can (and do) contribute to the understanding of the resurgent authoritarianism and analyze the new entanglements of religions, politics, and economies. It will also focus on how sociologists engage (physically and critically) in the formidable social movements we are witnessing today in different parts of the world and in a renascent civil society. The XX ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne, Australia, June 25-July 1, 2023 will be in a hybrid format. While we strongly advise and encourage everyone to come to Melbourne and enjoy in-person participation in the Congress, on-line presentations will also be possible. Oral sessions will be a mix of in-person and virtual presenters, based on the presenters preference. For further details see: https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/world-congress/melbourne-2023/deadlines-2023 |
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