Conditions, Process and Identity Consequences for Men in “Female” Occupations

Far from an ideal male-female mixity, contemporary research underlines the perpetuation of sexual attributions in many social practices – cultural, vestimentary, athletic and familial, for example. Professional practices are no exception: horizontally gendered segregations – respectively distributing men and women around “male” jobs and “female” jobs – remain quite significant in western societies.

If works aimed at a better grasp of the conditions of entry, maintenance and promotion of women in “male” professional worlds have multiplied, the reverse situation still remains too little explored in the academic literature. How can we explain that so few men are found in “female” domains? How do things go for men who take the risk of doing “female” jobs/exercising “female” professions? What are the resources and limits of their gender transgression? Further, what are the consequences for the individuals involved – their remunerations, their career-paths and their relationship to work?

Based on a systematic review of the litterature, we will try to systematically grasp the social modalities of the insertion, professionalization, promotion and legitimization of men in “female” professional spaces as the ways in which men develop a “male” identity, both for themselves and others, that suits them.