Revisiting Engineering, Masculinity and Technology Studies: Old Structures with New Openings

Abstract

In this article we draw broadly on two different research traditions, Gender and Technology Studies (GTS) and studies of gender equality policies in the welfare state, to explain gendered change and stability in the engineering work force in Sweden. Our results draw on a series of qualitative investigations of the engineering workforce over a period of twenty years, and verify change as well as stability. In particular, we locate change in relation to new parenting and fathering discourses. We argue that these discursive changes have profound consequences for work-life balance, and career and life preferences for a new generation of men in the engineering workforce. By revisiting some of the formative assumptions of GTS in regard to the conceptual triad of engineering, masculinity and technology, we also identify the slowness of change in the strong material and symbolic relationship between technology and masculinity.

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