Journal of Education and Work
ISSN: 1363-9080 (Print) 1469-9435 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjew20
Challenging gender inequalities in education and
in working life – a mission possible?
Kristiina Brunila & Hanna Ylöstalo
To cite this article: Kristiina Brunila & Hanna Ylöstalo (2015) Challenging gender inequalities
in education and in working life – a mission possible?, Journal of Education and Work, 28:5,
443-460, DOI: 10.1080/13639080.2013.806788
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2013.806788
Published online: 14 Jun 2013.
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Date: 04 November 2016, At: 03:11
Journal of Education and Work, 2015
Vol. 28, No. 5, 443–460, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2013.806788
Challenging gender inequalities in education and in working
life – a mission possible?
Kristiina Brunilaa* and Hanna Ylöstalob
Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; bWork
Research Centre, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
(Received 3 September 2012; final version received 10 May 2013)
a
This article deals with challenging the gender inequalities that exist in
education and working life. It contemplates the kinds of discursive
power relations that have led to gender equality work in Finland. In
today’s conditions where equality issues are being harnessed more
strongly to serve the aims of economic efficiency and productivity, it is
even more important to understand how people who actively seek
change have succeeded in negotiating equality issues. The article also
explores the current situation by conducting an analysis that makes clear
not only the discursive power relations that shape gender equality work,
but also how it has been possible for the work to continue successfully.
Keywords: gender equality work; education; working life; action
research; ethnography
Introduction
The present article looks at gender equality work in Finland, that is, the
educational and workplace activities that involve the promotion of gender
equality in Finland. It focuses on the recent period during which the public
sector has become more market-oriented not only in Finland but throughout
the Nordic countries (e.g. Kautto et al. 1999; Antikainen 2006; Brunila
2009; Ylöstalo 2012; Brunila and Edström, in press), and where businessoriented thinking has penetrated activities that have not traditionally emphasised profit-making.
Regardless of marketisation and the retrenchment of the Nordic welfare
state, Finland consistently views itself with pride as a model country of
gender equality. At the same time, equality is being presented as an export
commodity, and equality policies appear to be closely connected to the
interests of the labour market. Despite this, however, equality work seems to
be carried out very actively in kindergartens, schools and universities, as
well as in adult education and work settings. The key question the present
*Corresponding author. Email: kristiina.brunila@helsinki.fi
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
article poses concerns continuance: we ask how is it possible that equality
work has succeeded in remaining strong despite the challenges created by
marketisation. Using the concepts of projectisation and subjectification, we
analyse a form of new governance in project-based equality work. Projectisation represents a disciplinary and productive form of power related to
project-based activities, which we need to understand in order to better grasp
what is going on in the context of equality work. As a form of subjectification, promoting equality means continually learning to act in various kinds
of power relations, as well as utilising them. Since gender equality is mediated by projectisation, the progress is incremental, yet it is still being made.
Gender equality work in education and working life in Finland
Gender equality work means activities such as teaching, training, guidance,
development and research that involve the promotion of gender equality
(e.g. Holli 2003). In education, a great amount of equality work has been done
in co-operation with preschools, schools, universities, vocational training institutions, children, pupils, teachers, students, researchers, adult educators, governments and employers (Sunnari 1997; Brunila, Heikkinen and Hynninen
2005; Brunila 2009; Lahelma 2011). In education as well as in working life,
equality work has been carried out through publicly funded projects (e.g.
Berge and Ve 2000; Huhta et al. 2005; Brunila 2009).1 These have dealt with
equality in schools and in teaching, as well as in working life and occupational
safety and health. They have dealt with topics, such as diversity, women’s educational and work careers, comparable worth in work, reconciliation of work
and family life, and men’s educational and work careers, as well as ICT, all
familiar topics in many Western countries.
In Finland, the government programmes and action plans for gender
equality have incorporated ambitious objectives for the promotion of gender
equality in preschool, comprehensive school, higher education, teacher
education and in the field of science (Brunila 2010; Brunila and Edström, in
press). Since the 1980s, the objectives in the gender equality policy areas
have included reinforcing gender sensitivity, promoting women’s research
careers, reducing the wage gap and establishing the status of women’s studies. Gender equality policy has repeatedly focused on dismantling segregation in different fields and levels of education as well as reducing gender
segregation in educational choices and optional subjects. The programmes
and plans have emphasised the importance of developing gender-sensitive
teaching and guidance, implementing development and research projects
promoting gender equality, as well as eliminating stereotypes in learning
material (Brunila 2010). The importance of mainstreaming the gender
perspective into all education and into the relevant policy areas has been
underlined in the government programmes and actions plans for gender
equality.
Journal of Education and Work
445
Nevertheless, the policy areas of gender equality and education in
Finland have been two separate worlds. In numerous educational policy
statements, gender equality has been mentioned only once or twice. In
addition, the educational policy documents regarding teacher education give
no hints or practical guidance on how to act to promote equality. The
situation is very similar to that resulting from the education policies related
to preschool, comprehensive school, upper secondary school, higher
education and adult education (Brunila 2010). They have not taken into
account the objectives and activities related to gender equality in the gender
equality documents. Although public administration has committed itself to
mainstreaming the gender perspective, this obligation has not been applied
to education. Education policy has included relatively few concrete measures
that allow for the integration of gender equality into all activities concerning
education.
In Finland, equality policy is mainly targeted at working life. The
purpose of The Act on Equality between Women and Men (later referred to
as the Equality Act), for example, is to ‘prevent gender discrimination and
to promote women’s and men’s equality, and consequently to improve
women’s position especially in working life’. The Equality Act obligates
employers to promote gender equality systematically. To support the
development of gender equality, in both private and public sectors,
employers of at least 30 regular employees must draw up an equality plan
and list measures to foster equality and prevent discrimination. This has
raised a demand for gender equality work in workplaces. In addition to
research and other publicly funded projects, equality consultancy and
training companies doing equality work are also available. Some
workplaces, mainly in the public sector, also have an employee in charge of
equality issues and promoting equality in the workplace. Equality work in
working life takes varying forms depending on, for example, who is doing
it and how much financial resources it is given (e.g. Brunila 2009; Ylöstalo
2012).
In the Finnish Nordic welfare state, political and governmental
programmes have called for equality work, such as teaching, training and
research, as well as, exerting political influence in order to promote the
political interests of the welfare state. An alliance with the state has offered
some possibilities to accomplish professionalism and continuity concerning
gender issues. Nevertheless, over the past decades, Finland too has become
subject to restructuring (e.g. Kautto et al. 1999). Furthermore, Finland’s
accession to the European Union in 1995 brought significant changes to the
nature of equality work. Structural Funds, Community Initiatives and other
programmes increased the number of projects, influenced the forms of
implementation and shifted the focus towards an employment perspective of
equality (Brunila, Heikkinen, and Hynninen 2005). Equality work has
become caught up in market-oriented, project-based activities.
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
Project-based activities are the result of marketisation and decentralisation, and represent a form of new governance because they aim to bring
together individuals, groups, organisations, enterprises and state officials to
solve the problems of welfare politics through market-oriented interventions
(Rantala and Sulkunen 2006; Brunila 2009; Sjöblom 2009). Consequently,
the project has become a site for mixing public and private interests.
Projectisation and subjectification as analytical tools
Projectisation and subjectification were the main analytical concepts we used
in order to understand what was going on in equality work, which has
shifted to project-based activities. The concept of projectisation
(Brunila 2009) represents a disciplinary and productive form of power, and
is derived most of all from Foucault (1977), but also from neo-Foucauldian
researchers, Nikolas Rose, Mitchell Dean and Peter Miller (Rose 1999; Rose
and Miller 2008). Projectisation combines the ideas of new governance and
governmentality. As a form of new governance, it represents market-oriented, managerialist and self-organising networks and by incorporating, producing and positioning everyone involved with project-based work, it
represents a form of governmentality (Foucault 1998, 2000).
In order to understand why projectisation ‘works’ and why people
involved in equality work end up acting as they do, we have utilised the
concept of subjectification. According to Davies and her colleagues (2001,
see also Davies 1998), subjectification represents the processes to which we
are subjected and the terms of our subjection that we actively take up as our
own. In our joint analysis, subjectification means the ongoing process in
which one is placed and takes place in the discourses of projectisation.
Subjectification as a part of projectisation involves taking up those
discourses through which they and others speak/write, as if they were their
own. Through these discourses, individuals involved in equality work are
made speaking subjects at the same time as they are subjected to the
constitutive force of the discourses.
Heteronormativity, which is constantly present in equality work as well,
can be understood as a form of subjectification. By heteronormativity, we
mean the division of people into two categories, women and men, and the
hierarchical juxtaposition of these categories. Heteronormativity also
includes normative heterosexuality, meaning women’s and men’s complementary companionship (e.g. Butler 1990). Regarding gender equality work,
what we think gender means affects what is set as objectives and the ways
these objectives are pursued. A crucial obstacle to the advancement of
equality seems to be that this division into two categories results in assumptions about a fundamental dissimilarity between women and men – or vice
versa. This way of thinking also includes assumptions of the heterosexuality
of the two parties. What makes this problematic in the heteronormative
Journal of Education and Work
447
order and in terms of equality is that characteristics that are labelled as
masculine are seen as more valuable than feminine ones. In addition, the
assumption of differing characteristics necessarily leads into different treatment, which then produces a difference that strengthens the assumption of
gender-bound characteristics (e.g. Brunila, Heikkinen, and Hynninen 2005,
26). In gender equality work, through the heteronormative discourses that
projectisation has enforced (Brunila 2009), equality specialists and others
involved in equality work are made speaking subjects at the same time as
they are subjected to the forces of those discourses. Still, there is always a
chance, even if it is a small one, to resist these discourses and to produce
counter-discourses.
Here, we understand the concept of discourse to be not only speech and
writing, but also a productive and regulative practice with material effects
(Foucault 1977, 1980). We examine the politics and practices related to
gender equality in terms of discursive power, by acknowledging the relation
between knowledge, discourse and power as productive and regulative
(Foucault 1977, 1980; Davies 1998). We consider that discourses related to
equality work are always in process, always being constructed and never
fixed and finite. At any moment in time and space, a range of competing
discourses exist, of which some are given more space than others. Power is
thus exercised in and through discourses. The ideas about gender are
contained in these competing discourses. The more powerful of these at a
certain time and place are more able to claim the status of truth or reality
(Halford and Leonard 2001, 19, 21).
Working life and education are the central arenas in society where
discourses about gender are produced, reproduced and changed. Particular
discourses of organisation or education present ideas of what it is to be
human, or masculine or feminine, to which we, as individuals, are subjected.
However, what is defined as masculine or feminine is not constant, but
always in flux, open to reinterpretation and dispute – as any set of
discourses or practices. This allows for change, which is what equality work
aims for. Change is not seen to take the form of fundamental transformation,
such as class revolution; rather, the possibility to resist, reinterpret and
change is ever-present and is there for taking by individuals (Halford and
Leonard 2001, 21–23). By making visible the ways in which discourses are
constructed, these ‘self-evident truths’ can be challenged, which is a starting
point for change (see also Søndergaard 2002, 191).
These analytical concepts – projectisation, subjectification and discourse –
interact with each other, as well as with marketisation, which is the wider
frame of our analysis. The concepts are used to make visible both the negotiations that gender equality work involves and the processes that make these
negotiations somewhat ‘unfair’ to some. Still, when there is a negotiation,
there is always an opportunity for progress and change.
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
Equality work as data
We used documents from gender equality projects and their context,
including articles, project reports and project publications from the 1970s to
2010 that have been read by Brunila in her previous research, encompassing
nearly 300 more or less publicly funded projects (Brunila, Heikkinen, and
Hynninen 2005; Brunila 2009). They deal with respect to equality in schools
and teaching, as well as working life, diversity, equality policies in work
communities, women’s educational and work careers, comparable worth in
work, reconciliation of work and family life, men’s educational and work
careers, as well as ICT. Interviews with experienced specialists who have
promoted equality through teaching, training, guidance and research were
conducted. These specialists have promoted gender equality for decades and
have been involved in a number of public sector equality projects. The anonymity of the interviewees has been guaranteed by the use of pseudonyms
and change of context, whenever necessary.
Another data-set we use consists of material collected in the previous
research and development projects of Brunila and concern promoting gender
equality in working life (e.g. Huhta et al. 2005; Ylöstalo 2012). This material is comprised of interviews, group interviews, leaflets from equality work
projects, fieldwork diaries and equality plans from several workplaces in the
public and private sectors. The data collected in action research projects
reveal how equality issues are negotiated in workplaces when individuals
are involved in equality work and the gendered power relations within it.
According to Reason and Bradbury (2001, 1–2), action research seeks to
bring together action and reflection, as well as theory and practice, in the
pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people. In
equality work, action research can be applied in promoting equality in cooperation with the personnel of a workplace, and simultaneously studying
the process of promoting equality (Coleman and Rippin 2000; Ely and
Meyerson 2000; Meyerson and Kolb 2000; Meriläinen 2001).
At least to some extent, equality work derives from feminist theory that,
on the other hand, has many converging aims with action research. Action
research aims at having people participate and empowering them, and seeks
to hear as well as make use of their experiences concerning bringing about
change. It also focuses on problematising power relations not only between
people who participate in the research, but also power relations that are
present in the research process itself. Feminist studies share many of these
ideals (Gatenby and Humphries 2000, 90; Maguire 2001, 64–65). Feminist
methodology leans on theories about gender and power, and feminist
research is committed to making gendered oppression visible and changing
gendered power relations. Responsibility for the knowledge produced by
research is also a key element in feminist research (Ramazanoğlu and
Holland 2002). Making power relations visible in the research process is
Journal of Education and Work
449
also essential to feminist research, as well as voicing and empowering the
participants in studies. This also demands that researchers reflect on how to
carry out their research so that their choices support the objective of
promoting social justice (Madriz 2000, 836–842). Feminist theory does not
just theorise about gendered oppression, it also aims at practising emancipatory feminist politics. These converging aims make action research a
relevant approach to gender equality work.
This article combines on ethnographic approach and action research in the
sense that our data has been collected in an ethnographic and action research
field of study. By ethnography, we mean the generation and collection of
many kinds of data (e.g. interviews, project and policy documents, field notes
from projects, guidebooks, leaflets) and collaborative analytical discussion
(Gordon, Holland, and Lahelma 2000). As a consequence of sharing our
diverse data, we have been able to analyse the multi-layered politics and
practices regarding gender equality work in projects.
Due to our theoretical and methodological background in ethnography
and action research, we make use of our own experiences in the field of
promoting equality. Both authors have been engaged in equality work for
several years. We wanted to write together about our experiences in this
field because we noticed that even though we have been involved in
different equality projects, our experiences are surprisingly similar. We are
only too aware of the resistance to equality work, as well as of the demand
to talk about equality in ‘right’ way in order to be heard. At the same time,
we both have experienced the situational change that equality work has
enabled, even though the change has often been local and partial. The
results of our research are also similar, even though we have approached
equality work from slightly different perspectives. Therefore, we wanted to
write about equality work together: to combine our experiences and develop
a deeper understanding of the subject.
Projectised equality as a business- and market-oriented activity
In projectised equality work, equality is seldom introduced to the
organisations, workplaces or the financers of the project as a mere matter of
justice. Since the notions of equality or justice are usually not enough to catch
the attention of educational institutions or workplaces, equality workers often
approach workplaces with a dual agenda: gender equality is legitimated with
financial benefits that it is supposed to bring to the workplaces involved
(Coleman and Rippin 2000; Ely and Meyerson 2000; Meyerson and Kolb
2000; Brunila 2009). Previous experiences from equality projects have shown
that members of an organisation are more interested in, and find it easier to
justify, change efforts that they can link not only to equality outcomes (which
can be difficult to measure), but also to instrumental outcomes (Ely and
Meyerson 2000, 591; Brunila 2009, 2011).
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
This dual agenda can be seen in various project outcomes, for example,
in a leaflet which an equality project (2002–2005) prepared to attract
potential partner workplaces. The brochure described ‘the considerable
advantages’ the workplaces would achieve if they participated in equality
work and in their project, in particular. According to the leaflet, these
advantages were as follows:
• An equal and family-friendly image of a company attracts qualified
female and male workers.
• Understanding the differences between employees as a resource and
richness to the company will release creativity and innovation.
• The atmosphere at work will improve and the conflicts and experiences
caused by inequality will decrease when workplaces commit
themselves to promoting equality.
• Flexibility will increase and skilled labour can be utilised more
intensively when gender barriers are removed in the workplace.
• Promoting equality will improve productivity in the work organisation.
(Equality project’s leaflet, year 2002.)
The leaflet is written in a business-oriented language which, from the
perspective of subjectification, equality specialists have had to learn in order
to be heard by workplaces and financers. In equality projects like the one
we have used as an example, promoting equality is legitimised by the idea
of achieving a better image, as well as better innovations and productivity,
but not by the idea of justice or equality as such (see also Brunila and
Ikävalko 2011). This can be seen as a consequence of the changes that the
Finnish public sector has gone through since the 1990s: it has become more
market-oriented, and business-oriented thinking has penetrated activities that
have not traditionally emphasised profit-making (Brunila 2009). As a consequence, equality work, too, has become more and more business-oriented.
EU-financed equality work, in particular, strives for pragmatic measures to
promote equality in working life, as in the project report below reveals:
When equality and diversity are seen as measures of competitiveness, they get
more emphasis. From the company point of view, this means that all resources
are utilised well and that circumstances are developed to make this happen.
(Equality project’s final report, year 2000)
As the above extract describes, since Finland joined the EU, the equality
discourse in the country has begun to display more market-oriented traits,
such as an emphasis on competitiveness, but also effectiveness measures,
evaluations and the conceptualisation of equality as an export commodity.
Instead of valuing equality itself, it is being seen as valuable when
harnessed to serve the above-mentioned larger goals.
Journal of Education and Work
451
The aim of the equality projects is to increase well-being – both financial
and human – in education and in work. In the business-oriented equality
discourse, equality is introduced as a means to utilise a personnel’s skills
and know-how more effectively. Similar argumentation can also be found in
gender equality politics: gender equality is promoted because of its
usefulness. As an example of this, Skjeie and Teigen (2005, 191–192) argue
that equal rights to equal participation as well as public policies for gender
balance in different societal arenas in Norway are justified with utility
arguments about women’s contributions to public life. Women are supposed
to enrich the public sphere through equal participation, which is why
equality should be promoted. Accordingly, concern with gender equality is
often reduced to a question of what women can contribute. Skjeie and
Teigen remind us that there is a deeply problematic rhetorical trap in the
utility arguments. When gender equality is argued for as a means of improving competitiveness, the category of women becomes a representation of the
means that companies can use. This makes equality an objective that must
be defended through something other than its own value. It also raises
disturbing questions: ‘What if women’s equal participation does not change
priorities or enforce productivity? Should existing regulations for gender
balance then be abolished?’ (Ibid.).
In order to promote equality, equality specialists learn the ‘right’ way to
talk so that while becoming the objects of the disciplinary forms of power,
people also become active subjects.
I sell it as a cream cake, that’s what I do. (Equality specialist)
The above-quoted equality specialist, who has conducted equality work since
the 1990s particularly in the private sector and in equality projects, first hesitated to be interviewed because she felt she had to ‘serve a cream cake’ in
order to get into private companies to provide training in gender equality
matters. By ‘cream cake’, she meant highlighting the positive effects of gender equality. In a market-oriented order, the effects that gender equality
would produce would be better efficiency, competitiveness and productivity.
Utility arguments are used in equality work to legitimise equality because
it is a language that people in workplaces understand. Quite often they use
the same arguments themselves. A woman working in human resources said
that diversity is an important value in her workplace ‘because our clients are
quite diverse, so maybe we can through that [diversity] serve them better,
too’. Her workplace takes great pride in its recruitment policy, which is
supposed to be concerned with only the person’s skills, not her/his
background. As proof of this, the company employs a number of immigrant
workers, for example. But on closer inspection, it turned out that the
immigrants had the lowest positions and the lowest wages in the workplace,
despite their education or previous work experience. For many of them, the
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
company was their first workplace in Finland, and they were very grateful
for ‘the opportunity’ it gave them, as many of them said. Business-oriented
equality thinking gave them jobs, but not equal treatment in the workplace.
The equality discourse can indeed have exclusionary effects, and equality
can be used to justify very different means (see also Honkanen 2007). When
productivity and competitiveness are increased in the name of equality, the
means are difficult to oppose – who would want to oppose equality
(Brunila 2009, 166)? Therefore, flirting with a business-oriented language in
equality work is not just an innocent trick to make equality work more
appealing, it can also have critical and very concrete effects. Legitimising
equality with utility arguments may lead to equality, which is far from the
equality that, for example, many feminist researchers are striving for.
Equality may also be used to improve the image of a company, even if no
real effort is made to change the company’s gender system.
The paradox of equality work
It was very frustrating, especially at first, when my colleagues always came to
ask me (…) one man asked whether I had some personal problems because I
had to promote equality, don’t you have a nice husband he said (…). Another
man came to me and said why do you always have to shout and jabber about
equality. You have a good education, you have got a good job, you have a
man (…) You don’t have anything to complain about. (Equality specialist
especially in the public sector since the 1990s)
Even though equality is a widely accepted value in Finnish society,
promoting it in education and in working life as well as within the current
market-oriented and heteronormative order meets has met much resistance in
educational institutions as well as workplaces. All the interviewed equality
specialists gave examples similar to the one above. What these examples
reveal is that equality work is constantly being challenged and marginalised.
Resistance is often directed towards people in the workplace. In her
study of gendering processes among PhD candidates in a political science
department, Kantola (2008, 218) found that focusing on gender discrimination could have a damaging impact on the position of women in the
workplace. When resistance is directed towards equality workers coming
from outside a company, it can take different forms. The research results
concerning inequality can be trivialised and questioned, for example.
Resistance can also take a more passive form, such as non-attendance in
equality seminars, etc. (Pincus and van der Ros 2001).
You have to know how to read the organisation, you have to know how to
act, and you have to know the border that you cannot cross, to have a positive
influence on an organisation. (Equality specialist, who has conducted equality
work in the public and private sectors since the 1990s)
Journal of Education and Work
453
I was no novice in equality work. I had become used to the fact that things
need to ease. If I want to create something, I never say take the ‘final word’.
I always leave the door open, and I try to close sessions only after agreeing
on the next meeting. I always find a way to leave the door open. (Equality
specialist, who has conducted equality work especially in the public sector
since the 1970s)
Resistance can be hard to break, but it can also be prevented. From the
perspective of subjectification, promoting equality, more than anything,
requires constantly learning how to act in various kinds of power relations,
as well as learning to use them, as the equality specialists’ extracts
demonstrate. Our interviews provided many examples of this skill in taking
advantage of situations and the power relations involved in them. The
equality specialists described how they have learned to provide various
kinds of utility factors for equality work and to lobby gate-keepers to agree
on the aims of the equality work by highlighting the image factor or
economic resources that such equality projects are sometimes able to
provide. A well-used method was to invite decision-makers onto public
panels or to comment on certain publications that equality work had
produced. They have also invited public figures to seminars in order to
attract reporters to cover their events. To obtain funding for equality work,
discourses about labour shortages in male-dominated fields, boys’ underachievement, ability to utilise immigrants’ skills more effectively and
improbin the work–family particularly for fathers have been used.
In equality work, negotiation seems to be more useful than opposition,
especially the kind of negotiation that can be applied to unsettle power relations from within. The negotiations that the interviewees so vividly
described consist of skills and (tacit) knowledge that refer to ‘discourse virtuosity’ (Brunila 2009). This is a consequence of parallel but contradictory
aims and discourses in equality work, a complex form of competence that
one performs in order to be heard. Equality work demands flexibility,
patience and what are called the ‘small steps’ that many equality specialists
such as Sandra talked about:
I have never become cynical. I think proceeding in small steps, it’s always
better than nothing. (Equality specialist, who has conducted equality work in
the public and private sectors since the 1970s)
Talking about equality in a business-orientated language is one form of
discourse virtuosity, although a somewhat problematic one. Another equally
problematic form is discussing (gender) equality through a heteronormative
discourse, which can be seen in the way in which an equality project
(2002–2005) about gender equality planning in organisations defined
equality as follows:
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K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
By equality we mean women’s and men’s equal opportunities to make
choices, develop in their career and be rewarded for it without strict limitations caused by their gender. Women’s and men’s actions, aims and needs
should be equally valued, even if they are different. (Equality project, 2005)
As in the project referred to above, heteronormativity can be seen as
unproblematised discussion about women and men concerning their
positions, desires and activities in working life. The differences between
women and men are emphasised, but the differences among women or men
themselves are ignored. Although it is not phrased unreservedly that women
and men are different, no differences among women or men are introduced.
In recent years, the complexities of gender issues in organisations have
often been treated within the framework of intersectionality. The concept of
intersectionality refers to the interaction between multiple identities and the
experiences of exclusion and subordination (Davis 2008, 67). The concept
was originally introduced by Crenshaw (1989), who wanted to address
the fact that the experiences and struggles of women of colour fell between
the cracks of both feminist and anti-racist discourse. Crenshaw claimed that
theorists should take both gender and race on board and show how they
interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women’s experiences.
Since then, the concept and theory of intersectionality have come a long way,
and intersectionality has even been heralded as the ‘most important contribution that women’s studies has made so far’ (McCall 2005, 1771). Although
the complexity of categories such as gender has been widely recognised in
feminist studies, gender is defined as a dualist category in equality projects.
If you go to a very patriarchal, masculine and goal-oriented organisation,
those borders are very much narrower. If you start to cry during a meeting,
you are out. Or if you become emotional and say it is so wrong if I don’t get
this and that, if you mention the childcare not working, if you talk about
handicrafts or something feminine, you are out. (Equality specialist, who has
conducted equality work particularly in the private sector since the 1980s)
The reason why equality specialists decide to define equality and gender in
such a way is not that they are ignorant of the differences and power
relations among women and/or men, or that they have never heard of
intersectionality or, more generally, the dubious nature of the concept of
gender itself. Rather, talking about women and men so unproblematically is
yet another way to talk in a language that is understood in the workplace, as
the equality specialist’s case above shows, and to prevent resistance towards
equality work. The equality specialists, at least in the case of the equality
projects mentioned, knew that some previous gender equality projects have
failed to meet their objectives because the concept of gender was lost in the
actual change process taking place within the organisations (see Heiskanen
2006, 526). It is difficult to put gender issues on the agenda and it is even
Journal of Education and Work
455
more difficult to keep them there (ibid. 519). Therefore, the equality
specialists felt that their main goal was to keep gender on the agenda – even
if it meant that gender had to be sometimes defined in a simplified way.
Another reason why these previous projects have somewhat failed is the
researchers’ willingness to maintain good relationships with their partners,
meaning the workplaces and their management and employees. According to
Heiskanen (2006, 530), gender equality might be a sensitive topic in workplaces, and developing gender equality even more so, because gender is so
strongly related to power and different kinds of privileges that the development activities might be reproduced. It is therefore easier to postpone the
questions causing dispute, such as gendered asymmetrical power relations,
and begin equality work with something more neutral or shared, lowering the
risk of later returning to any contentious matters (ibid.). Heteronormativity
can be one such matter of dispute, to be left outside the focus of the project.
The constant need to talk about equality ‘right’, to legitimise equality
work and to break or prevent resistance, thus produces conceptualisations of
gender that can be simplistic and exclusive. Despite this, discourse virtuosity
enables gender equality work to continue. Gender equality work can
engender many changes in working life, at least locally. Although these
changes may be very small, they can greatly affect people’s lives. For example, Academy of Finland’s equality plan states that if a researcher takes
parental leave during a research project funded by the Academy, she or he
is guaranteed basically the same benefits as a person with a permanent job.
In Finland, researchers usually have mainly temporary jobs, at least in their
early research careers(which is also the most common age to have children).
Having a temporary job in Finland, can be a great disadvantage for those
taking parental leave, because they might not have a job to go back to and
they miss out on many financial benefits provided by the state. Therefore,
the gender equality plan of the Academy of Finland is having a positive
impact on some researchers’ career advancement and financial situations.
Still, the most important aspect of equality work may not be its
immediate outcome, but the process in itself. The process makes gender visible in working life, and only by being aware of how gender affects our
lives, we can make changes. In Finland, people often like to think that
gender equality has already been achieved, which is why promoting equality
or talking about equality problems can be seen as a threat to the ideals of
our ‘equal’ society. Discourse virtuosity makes it possible to talk about such
controversial issues as gender and gender inequality in the workplace, which
is a starting point for change.
Conclusion and discussion
Equality work is about constant negotiation between the interests of equality
promoters, educational institutions, workplaces and financers. Discourse
456
K. Brunila and H. Ylöstalo
virtuosity is a negotiation skill that equality workers have had to learn in
order to get equality work done and achieve at least some results. When
equality workers use business-oriented language, they may be able to find
financers and partners for a project, and when they talk about gender from a
dualistic perspective, they may be able to make at least some gendered
practices visible in working life – although some are left untouched, such as
those that intersect with class, ethnicity/race and sexuality. Equality work
might not be a success story, but it is not a complete failure either. It offers
possibilities to challenge inequalities in working life, even if these
possibilities are local and limited.
Developing equality in education and in working life is about taking
small steps. According to Meyerson and Fletcher (2000, 131–136), gender
equality in working life is rooted in our cultural patterns and organisational
systems, and therefore these can be reinvented by altering the process of
organising – altering the concrete, everyday practices in which inequalities
build up. In education, changes can be made through small steps that have a
way of snowballing: one small change begets another, and eventually, they
add up to a whole new system. The aim is to battle inequalities one by one,
little by little by changing organisations and the way they are organised.
This requires talking about the gendered practices of work that silently
support inequality.
Based on our research and from the perspective of subjectification,
instead of being dogmatic and repressive, equality work means ongoing
negotiations. The market-oriented power relations and projectisation related
to equality work have also been utilised, negotiated and challenged. Many
equality specialists have recognised and learned to utilise power relations
that shape gender equality work, and therefore become discourse experts
who know how to talk to the various actors. They keep on initiating new
activities although they rarely manage to achieve the objectives that they
have set for their particular projects. And, there are other problems. We also
acknowledge that the expertise in this domain has its limits. It seems that in
order to get further funding, one must speak the right way in the language
of money and the market. Marketisation and today’s business is done in
terms of financial quarters. A multitude of interests meet in work towards
making a change, and the topmost is not necessarily always the desire to
promote justice and equality. Further, there is always a possibility that after
enough repetition of market-oriented and heteronormative discourses in project-based activities, one will no longer necessarily recognise the difference.
Equality work seems to require many compromises. With that, small
steps may be taken, but not without sacrifices. Equality work is potentially a
radical way to lead society in a more gender-equal direction, but it has its
risks and shortcomings. If too many compromises are made, it might end up
reproducing inequalities rather than reducing them. Perhaps, we should stop
making compromises and allow space for disagreement, dissonance and
Journal of Education and Work
457
different interpretations. Rather than weak compromises, equality work
needs ongoing discussion of the meanings given to gender and equality – an
ongoing process of promoting equality. If the meanings given to gender and
equality were widened, there could also be room for class, ethnic/racial and
sexual inequalities. If such discussions took place, we would all be part of
the process, as well as responsible for its outcomes.
Note
1. The first author became interested in the domain of project work at the
beginning of 2004 by studying what had happened to the promotion of gender
equality, once the responsibility of the Finnish welfare state (Brunila 2009). She
soon realised that equality work and many other activities of the welfare state,
such as young adults’ training and guidance, had shifted to short-term publicly
funded projects. This happened in the 1980s when the public sector became
more market-oriented, and business-oriented thinking started to penetrate
activities that had not traditionally emphasised profit-making. The second author
began her career in equality work in 2003 in an EU-funded equality research
and development project. Following that project and many others, she found
that in the world of projects, gender equality has to be legitimised as a new
innovation that increases productivity. This has led to a vague use of the
concept of gender equality, and sometimes to situations, where equality is seen
as valuable only if it increases economic growth. It is the experiences in
publicly funded equality projects that the authors share which have led to the
writing of this article. ‘Publicly funded’ means here, a short-term publicly
funded project (by the EU, ministries, foundations, associations, etc.) which
usually operates within or outside of the formal educational system and has
certain pre-determined goals.
Notes on contributors
Kristiina Brunila works as a senior researcher at the Centre for Sociology of
Education at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include social justice
in education, marketisation, projectisation and therapisation of education, as well as
questions of governance, power and agency.
Hanna Ylöstalo works as a senior researcher at the Work Research Centre at the
University of Tampere. Her research interests include equality work, gender
mainstreaming, workplace diversity as well as feminist pedagogy.
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