Kvinna i byggbranschen civilingenjörers erfarenheter ur genusperspektiv

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a gender analysis based on women's experiences of working as engineers in the construction industry. It focuses on the women's working conditions, and their possibilities to make a career in construction. The question is why many women engineers choose to leave construction after an expensive education. Furthermore, there is a question of their actual working situation as engineers to find some explanations to their decision to pursue a career in construction or not. A gender perspective makes it possible to reach some of the main obstacles and get close to some contributory factors. The overall purpose of this thesis is to understand and describe women's working conditions as engineers in the construction industry. My empiricism is based on eleven in-depth interviews with women's reflections on conditions, structure and culture in construction. They all have experiences from working as engineers and made different choices in their career. The woman's perspective is very important to illustratehow the construction industry today addresses women as co-workers in an industry with lack of labour. In spite of the industry's good will it is still difficult to increase and keep women in the industry. The construction industry has been open for women for more than thirty years but the average age for women is still low. Women's attempt to get into the construction has been going on much longer than that and the struggle for equal conditions is still ongoing. It is not an easy task, many interviewed women experience that the construction industry is constructed just for men by men. My study shows that the historical traditional male construction industry is almost unchanged. Women as engineers still tend to be pioneers with limited space for working as engineers. Statistics show that women are economically subordinated. The stories of the interviewed women tell that they are subordinated in the matter of career and social fellowship. Experiences of being a different minority in a visible position are returning themes in their stories. The predominating picture in the majority of the interviews described an impenetrable social fellowship and an engineering norm with a certain kind of manliness that make women's chance to advance more difficult. They have to face up to and manage resistance and are peripheral considering power, participation and position. My study shows that the essence in the problem is about the outdated picture of the engineer, as a symbol for manliness and hegemonic masculinity. The competent engineer, whom the woman engineer has to conform to, is defined as an efficient trouble shooter keeping cool. The outdated picture of the engineer does not correspond to the modern community and the engineering work that normally is about cooperation. The norm of the engineer has an impact on and sorts out many women working in the construction industry. It affects structure and culture and it forms working conditions and working relations. My study shows that the norm infects all levels in construction with a need to define the "real" engineer and makes the confirmation a hard effort of will for a woman working there. The choice seems to stand between two stereotype models; the female model and the male model. Both offer the woman limited freedom to create a future in the construction industry. They neither give a higher salary, increased influence or entrance to the essence of the social fellowship. The overriding gender order in the community facilitates for the norm to remain. The question of why many women leave the construction industry is complex and my study gives no simple answer. But the consequences of the norm, the structure and the culture in construction all together constitute interacting explanations. It is up to the construction industry to revise and update itself to adapt to modern times. Thereby the odds to successfully increase and keep the women engineers will be improved. A possible opportunity for change could be the male culture evident in the consultant sector.