From sexual segregation to mixing at the workplace: a study of a process.

Field work in a civil service administration and a big nationalized firm is used to show that the 'feminization' of jobs in society as a whole is not necessarily synonymous with social mixing in offices and workshops. Men's a nd women's positions are still apparently unequal for several reasons. Firs t of all, the trend toward mixing has occurred at a time when women are bei ng 'over-recruited' into jobs and as a hold is being put on their careers. Secondly, mixing far from making the stereotypes associated with each sex d isappear sometimes reinforces them (with the help of men but also women). T hirdly, women - and especially those who hold white-collar jobs - seem less inclined than men to form a group and assert their sexual identity. Finall y, the degree of mixing at the local level may be used as a tool for managi ng human resources. Mixing turns out to be not so much a simple ratio as a process, the forms and meanings of which belong to the men involved in the process and, to a lesser degree, to the women. (C) 1999 Editions scientifiq ues et medicales Elsevier SAS.