Gender regimes

According to the seminal paper of Cornell (2006), gender regimes are defined as overall patterns of gender relations within an organization. This continuing pattern provides the context for particular events, relationships and individual practices. A local gender regime may reproduce, but in specific ways may also depart from, the wider gender order (i.e. the whole societal pattern of gender relations). A gender regime involves all the dimensions of gender relationships. According to Connel (2006), four dimensions should be distinguished:

1) Gender division of labor: the way in which production and consumption are arranged along gender lines, including the gendering of occupations and the division between paid work and domestic labor.

2) Gender relations of power: the way in which control, authority and force are exercised along gender lines, including organizational hierarchy, legal power, and collective and individual violence.

3) Emotion and human relations: the way in which attachment and antagonism among people and groups are organized along gender lines, including feelings of solidarity, prejudice and disdain, and sexual attraction and repulsion.

4) Gender culture and symbolism: the way in which gender identities are defined in culture, the language and symbols of gender difference, and the prevailing beliefs and attitudes about gender.

Such gender regimes play out in the macro, meso and micro-levels, each level featuring specific (but nevertheless complementary) social processes: historical construction and institutionalization of women's and men's relationship to the labour market and the family in various societal contexts (macro); conformity and divergence from the historical legacy in specific institutional/occupational settings (meso) and individual management of normative environments by individuals (micro).

Selected references

Bataille, P., Le Feuvre, N., Kradolfer, S. (2017) “Should I Stay or Should I Go? The effects of precariousness on the gendered career aspirations of postdocs in Switzerland”, European Educational Research Journal, 16(2-3): 313-331.

Connell, R. (2006). Glass ceilings or gendered institutions? Mapping the gender regimes of public sector worksites. Public administration review, 66(6), 837-849.

Crompton, R. & Le Feuvre, N. (2000) “The Realities and Representations of Equal Opportunities in Britain and France”, European Journal of Social Policy, 10 (4): 334-348.