Nicky Le Feuvre was born in the UK and is Professor in gender studies at the Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, France where she runs a postgraduate course in “Gender and Social Policy”. She is Director of the Simone-Sagesse Gender Research Centre that runs and coordinates a series of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in gender studies.
She is also a member of the board of the French National Women’s Studies Association (ANEF) and belongs to the Helsinki Group on “Women and Sciences”.
Professor Le Feuvre has published a number of books, chapters and articles on women’s employment patterns in Europe, the feminisation of the professions, the social policy aspects of gender relations and so on.
 
The feminisation of scientific and technical professions: an issue for the evolution of gender relations in contemporary societies? 

Abstract for the plenary session by Nicky Le Feuvre
Professor of Sociology, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail
Pôle SAGESSE du CERTOP-CNRS (UMR 5044)

Given the systematic under-representation of women in scientific and technical occupations across a wide range of national contexts, it is tempting to conclude that the mechanisms which produce this phenomenon must be identical over time and space. In this paper, I will argue that the feminisation of these occupational groups does not necessarily follow a universal model. This process can be achieved through several distinct mechanisms, which may have varying effects on the material and symbolic foundations of the gender relations as a whole.
 
I will unravel some of the issues at stake in the feminisation process of scientific and technical occupations on the basis of my joint contributions to two recent books on gendered careers in academia (Latour and Le Feuvre 2006; Le Feuvre and Latour 2007) and on research carried out previously on the feminisation of other higher level occupations, including medicine, pharmacy, banking and law (Crompton and Le Feuvre 2003; Lapeyre and Le Feuvre 2005; Le Feuvre 2001; Le Feuvre and Lapeyre 2005).
 
The paper will analyse the ways in which women’s under-representation in scientific
occupations has been analysed by sociologists from different theoretical perspectives. This literature review will then enable me to identify the mechanisms that determine women’s access to various echelons of scientific and technical occupations in different national contexts. Historical and cross-national variation in the rates of women’s access to the most prestigious professional positions within scientific occupations thus leads us to question the impact of societal level “gender arrangements” on women’s scientific careers and to analyse the reciprocal effects of the feminisation of scientific and technical occupations on macrolevel gender arrangements.
 
Is it possible to conclude that the field of science and technology is historically and crossnationally “gendered” in a universal way or do we need to work from the hypothesis that specific social mechanisms operate in different historical and/or national contexts?
 
In order to elaborate effective policies to attract more women into scientific and technical occupations, and/or to improve the effectiveness of existing measures, I would suggest that it is necessary to more fully understand the precise mechanisms that under-pin the feminisation process in specific national and professional contexts. It is also important to clearly define the model of feminisation that we want to promote, since each of the feminisation processes outlined in this paper has potentially contrasting effects on the degree to which existing gender relations are reproduced, reconfigured or transformed by an increase in women’s access to the production and dissemination of “science” in a global perspective.
 
Bibliographical references

Crompton, Rosemary, and Nicky Le Feuvre. 2003. "Continuity and Change in the Gender Segregation of the Medical Profession in Britain and France." International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 23: 36-58.
Lapeyre, Nathalie, and Nicky Le Feuvre. 2005. "Féminisation du corps médical et dynamiques professionnelles dans le champ de la santé." Revue française des affaires sociales 1: 59-81.
Latour, Emmanuelle, and Nicky Le Feuvre. 2006. "Les carrières universitaires françaises à l'épreuve du genre." Pp. 159-188 in Parcours de femmes à l'Université: Perspectives internationales, edited by Edmée Ollagnier and Claudie Solar. Paris: l'Harmattan.
Le Feuvre, Nicky. 2001. "La féminisation de la profession médicale en France et en Grande-Bretagne : voie de transformation ou de recomposition du 'genre'?" Pp. 197-228 in Femmes et hommes dans le champ de la santé : approches sociologiques, edited by Pierre Aïach, Dominique Cebe, Geneviève Cresson and Claudine Philippe. Rennes: Editions de l'ENSP.
Le Feuvre, Nicky, and Nathalie Lapeyre. 2005. "Les 'scripts sexués' de carrière dans les professions juridiques en France." Knowledge, Work and Society / Travail, savoir et société 3: 101-126.
Le Feuvre, Nicky, and Emmanuelle Latour. 2007. "Understanding Women's Academic Careers in France." Pp. 43-74 in Gendered Career Trajectories in Academia in Cross- National Perspective, edited by Renata Siemienska and Annette Zimmer. Warsaw: Scholar.

Retour