In the world of women: Men working in female
dominated organizations
Steinunn Hrafnsdóttir
Assistant professor in social work
University of Iceland
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Research topics
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Occupational segregation
Work roles
Management styles
Career patterns
Work pressures
Job satisfaction
Relation between work and family life
How female domination at work affected the
culture and atmosphere of the organizations
Research on the working environment of social
service managers in Iceland
Quantitative survey
• 125 managers in
local authorities
• 19 men
• 106 women
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Qualitative interviews
• 16 interviews
• 7 men
• 9 women
Men in female dominated occupations
• are proportionally many in management
positions
• tend to choose special roles within the
occupations
• are usually welcomed by their women
colleagues
• are often considered different from other men
and sometimes stereotyped as gay
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Themes from the interviews
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Soft men with special social
relations skills
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Acceptance vs. ambivalence
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Informal discussions and
social relations
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The reasons for few men
working in the social
services
Soft men
• There are of course some males here, they
are actually all rather soft males (Senior male
manager).
• It is not a question about it, men who work in
the social services are different from other
men. There are some genes in us, that are
different from other men´s (laughs) It is some
caring need and a certain perfectionism (Male
social service manager).
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Soft men
• Probably people think that we are feminine, because
we like to work in female dominated workplaces. I
really don´t know. I think although that we are a bit
feminine (Male middle manager).
• Males in the system are a bit differently tuned, than
other males. Males in general are used to blow the
whistle and it starts like that in the family. Boys and
girls are brought up differently (Female middle
manager).
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Reluctancy to attribute differences totally
to gender
• I don´t think that men in the social
services are different. I don´t know. Of
course they have some characteristics,
some social interest in people and
human relations (Male senior manager).
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Acceptance
• Both female and male managers welcomed
men in the social services and thought it was
a necessity to have more gender balance in
the work organizations.
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How are the men accepted?
• I think that males are very well accepted here.
It changes the perspectives and the
conversations become different (Female
middle manager).
• I think males are well accepted here, they are
neither made a lot of nor regarded as special
phenomena because they are males (Female
middle manager).
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How are the men accepted?
• There are of course some males here. Actually they
are all rather soft males, but their interests are
somewhat different from the women´s. However, I
don´t think we are outsiders here (Senior male
manager)
• It is not as much fun as they think (that is to be a man
among the females). However, I have blended so
much into the group and I feel very well here. I´m not
complaining (Male middle manager).
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Why is it important to get more men into
the organizations?
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I think male´s perspectives are
different from women's´. If you´re
working in some field, just with one
perspective, then it is not equilibrium.
I don´t think that the other perspective
is better, just different. It is better to
have a mixture of both sexes (Female
middle manager).
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I think it is more normal if the workgroup is gender-mixed (Male social
service director).
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I´m bit worried about this. I think it
matters for the male service users
(Female senior manager).
Ambivalence towards men
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It is difficult to recruit males who have
abilities and a maturity to deal with
work such as this. When this service
started, I wanted to have more gender
balance. However, the males who
applied were not qualified (Female
middle manager).
•
I have always said that I´m weird, in
the meaning that a person who sticks
out of the group is weird. If you´re
alone in a large female group, then
you´re of course odd. The women
sometimes tell me that they have
never seen a normal man in these
caring jobs, and I think there is some
point in this (Male middle manager).
Ambivalent attitudes
• When I was studying, a female friend of mine told me
that my fellow women students thought I was gay.
This told me a bit about how women think about men
who want to work in this field. They must be different
and they must be gay. That was the next a man could
come to being feminine in their minds. So for two
years people thought I was gay (Male middle
manager).
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Irritation
• Sometimes, I have heard that it is more difficult for
women to get management positions, but not here in
this organization. However, there have not been so
many men here. Anyway, I have sometimes heard
that I have advanced to a management position
because I´m a man. I don´t think it is right actually
(Male senior manger).
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Discussions and social relations at the
organizations
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Men participate in informal
discussion, although they
sometimes become tired of
them
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Withdrawal
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Changing of subject
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Look for relations with other
men at the work-place
Informal discussions
• Female manager: Recently they were discussing that
they felt a bit lonely in the group because there was
so much female discussions.
• Steinunn: Do they participate in the discussions?
• Female manager: One of them, although not directly.
He cuts the discussion off and changes the
discussion subject. The other one is more passive
and reads the papers.
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Informal discussions
• It is very much female talk. I sometimes just walk away.
However, it doesn´t always disturb me, but it is not very
exciting. I often have lunch with male staff in other
departments and then we discuss sport (Male middle
manager).
• We have managed (the male managers) to discuss manly
things, such as racing. Then there are the discussions at
my department, where all the women are. They discuss
the family, children and grand-children. I think it´s fine. I
like to talk about my children (Male senior manager).
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Exclusion?
• Now I´m just one of the girls, however not completely.
There are some things that they don´t discuss when I´m in
the group. It´s not that I miss to be involved in these
female discussions, but I feel that I´m not allowed to
participate in them (Male manager).
• Just recently they went (the women) and did some
handicraft together outside work. They didn´t invite me. So
I started to tease them and asked why they didn´t invite
me. Then they said, we knew that you wouldn´t attend. Its
just, of course they know me, but they assume things you
see (The same)
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The reasons for few men in the social
services
• Low status of care
services
• Wages
• Women´s job
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Reasons why few men work in the social
services
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We need to make a new definition of social services. We have still this
Florence Nightingale ideology in a society that you cannot compare
with the society she lived in (Male senior manager).
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I think it is just because there are few men in caring jobs and I think it is
also the status of social services (Female social service director).
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It is clear that it is not emphasized when you´re growing up that you
should go into the caring sector. It was never mentioned in my
upbringing. I think that the expectations of parents and your social
environment influence your educational choice. And then it is the
wages, they are ridiculous (Male middle manager).
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Conclusion
• The findings from this study certainly seemed to
indicate that men and women both reproduced and
renegotiated gender relations. Therefore it was quite
evident that gender relations in the working
environment in social services were complex and
changing. In some way they were traditional and in
other ways they were not. However, what was certain
was that gender had several implications for the
working environment of the social services.
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