Kd. Henson et Jk. Rogers, "Why Marcia you've changed?" Male clerical temporary workers doing masculinity in a feminized occupation, GENDER SOC, 15(2), 2001, pp. 218-238
This research provides a look at men doing Render in the highly feminized c
ontext of temporary clerical employment Male clerical temporaries, as with
other men who cross over into "women's work" face institutionalized challen
ges to their sense of masculinity. In particular; male clerical temporary w
orkers face gender assessment-highlighting: their failure to live up to the
ideals of hegemonic masculinity. The resulting gender strategies these men
adopt reveal how male clerical temporary workers "do masculinity" -often i
n a collaborative performance shaped by the gendered expectations of their
agencies, their clients, and even themselves-to reassert the feminine ident
ification of the job while at the same rime rejecting its application to th
em. Paradoxically rather than disrupting the gender order, the gender strat
egies used by these mule clerical temporaries help to reproduce and natural
ize the gendered organization of work and reinvigorate hegemonic masculinit
y and its domination over women and subaltern men.