They treat me like a lady: a symbolic interactionist analysis of challenges and opportunities in cross-gender research interactions

In qualitative research, the interaction between informant and researcher is the key to success of the project. This interaction does not take place in a vacuum, but in a specific social context in which both parties act out their role as researcher and informant, but also other – perhaps more latent – roles related to gender, ethnicity, class and educational background. How these roles are displayed in the interactions can influence the data and the field relationship, sometimes even whole lives of the people concerned. Existing research on the relevance of gender for ethnographic fieldwork has primarily focused on problems of cross-gender interaction. A first possible challenge – both for male and female researchers – is limited access to spheres dominated by the other gender. For female researchers, access to male dominated spheres in society can be limited, due to a strong connection between gender, power and knowledge. A second difficulty that might arise is what Gurney calls ‘sexual hustling’, ranging from flirtatious behavior and sexually suggestive remarks to overt sexual propositioning or even harassment. Despite a vast and growing body of research on qualitative/ethnographic methods, few studies thoroughly problematized challenges and possibilities of cross-gender interaction between researcher and informant. Our study contributes to the existing debate by examining in detail fieldwork-based experiences in intersectional perspective. Based on a review of existing literature and a reflexive analysis of our own fieldwork experiences we give an analytical account of how gender is constructed in interview and fieldwork settings and how it shapes fieldwork experiences and relationships. We pay particular attention to how different contexts and interaction styles lead to different outcomes in terms of challenges and opportunities. Based on our own experiences as female researchers who study men, we examine the role of gender in the fieldwork process while taking into account other important aspects such as age, class, educational background, sexual orientation and ethnicity. The purpose of this article is (1) to give a systematic overview of gender-related opportunities and challenges women experience while doing research with men, (2) to relate these challenges and opportunities to different gendered interactional styles and contexts and (3) to develop strategies to deal with difficulties related to cross-gender research interactions