2001/03/01 by Melanie Walker · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Adult and Continuing Education Topics #Aesthetics #Ambiguity #Anthropology #Epistemology #Ethnography #Femininity #Gender Diversity and Inequality #Gender studies #Human sexuality #Identification (biology) #Identity (music) #Linguistics #Masculinity #Narrative #Power (physics) #Power structure #Psychology #Resistance (ecology) #Rural development and sustainability #Sexual identity #Social group #Social identity theory #Social psychology #Social science #Sociology #Visibility
paper · doi:10.1080/01425690020030792
openalex publication_date 2001/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This paper considers the construction by students of feminine and masculine identities in an engineering department in an old Scottish university. It utilises theories of identity that emphasise fragility, contradictions and ambiguity in multiple processes of identity formation, which might involve identification with the dominant gender order, counter identification and resistance, or disidentification and transformation. The paper shows how, while things have changed significantly for young professional women, they and their male peers still reinscribe dominant notions of femininity and masculinity. Gender remains an issue even as the visibility and confidence of women works to destabilise traditional patterns. A narrative approach seeks to represent the voices of these students, and the social lines of power that criss-cross the webs of identity construction.