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Helle Rydtröm. Foto.

Helle Rydström

Professor

Helle Rydtröm. Foto.

Disrupting ‘A Man’s World’: Gender, Technology, and Class in Vietnam’s Global Heavy Industry.

Author

  • Helle Rydström

Summary, in English

Only rarely is Vietnam's global heavy industry studied from an anthropological perspective in either its gender or its class dimensions. This article contributes new insights into the ways in which the interagential dynamics of gender and technology from shopfloor to engineer offices coproduce social orders in contesting and perpetuating essentializing notions of femininity and masculinity. Blue-collar and white-collar women working in heavy industrial workplaces represent a minority in ‘a man's world’, ambiguously both disidentifying and identifying with notions of a typical ‘female character’ vis-à-vis ‘male character’. Women working in heavy industry, the article shows, generate ‘disruption’ by reconfiguring conventions regarding gendered occupation, redefining gendered engagement with technology, and recalibrating images of femininity and masculinity. Doing so means carving out new opportunities and/or provoking crisis in a patrilineal universe. The article analyses the intricate ways in which women's engagement with technology is empowering while simultaneously reinforcing gender- and class-specific inequalities in socialist Vietnam's global market economy.

Department/s

  • Department of Gender Studies

Publishing year

2023

Language

English

Pages

163-182

Publication/Series

The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, JRAI

Volume

29

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Gender Studies

Keywords

  • Gender
  • Disruption
  • Global Capitalism
  • Industrialization
  • Technology
  • Vietnam

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1467-9655