Butchers, Florists and the Workplace: When and how does Gender matter?

In order to understand the phenomenon of 'doing and undoing gender' and the discursive accounts of gendered occupations, it appears fruitful to diversify the contexts chosen for analysis. My contribution will focus on the issues raised by doing research on occupational settings characterized by radically different statistical gender compositions. I have personally chosen to focus on florists and butchers. To generally associate 'masculinity' with features of the workplace such as heavy, dirty or mechanical work would be too simplistic and, in fact, only reproduce stereotypical assumptions about men's experiences at work. It is hence important to question exactly how 'masculinity' is displayed through ordinary and professional discourse and through situated practices. The analysis of various professional documents, ethnographical observation and interviews should allow me to look into these two aspects and to question whether and how workplaces and occupations define a range of masculinities and femininities that are legitimate within a specific context. I am thus investigating exactly how these occupations are 'gendered' in such a way that being a male florist may pose 'problems,' while male butchers fit perfectly into our conception of what is 'normal.' Furthermore, I am interested in exploring the extent to which slaughtering an animal, cutting up meat or selling it in the shop are gendered activities, and if and how gender matters when the florist is giving a client advice about wedding flowers or when he/she is preparing floral arrangements. My research seeks to i) investigate how gendered an occupation is ii) explore the situated relevance of gender affiliation in interactional patterns and discuss how and when the participants orient to gender categories and finally iii) identify the potentially variable ways in which men and women mobilize their gender affiliation in their daily work lives