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<p>In this study, I examine how organizational logics, cultural norms, and gendered worker ideals intersect to shape women engineers’ experiences and reproduce gender inequality in Pakistan’s engineering sector. Drawing on Acker’s theory of gendered organizations, Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, and the theorization of purdah as an organizational logic, I show three mutually reinforcing patterns: hypermasculinized ideals, task and spatial segregation, and gendered visibility. A hypermasculine image of an ideal engineer (hands-on, physically strong, mobile, and available round-the-clock) combines with purdah-infused protection logics to set expectations about where and when women may be present, and what counts as legitimate commitment. These expectations are enacted through task assignments and spatial arrangements. Site-work is valorized as “real engineering”, while women are restricted or conditionally admitted to sites and routed to devalued office-based design, managerial, and administrative roles. At the same time, purdah’s moral regulation of cross-gender sociability renders women’s networking reputationally risky and men’s legible and legitimate, channeling training nominations, client work, and promotions through male-coded ties. Building on these findings, I theorize purdah as an organizational logic that spatializes legitimacy, in terms of governing visibility, mobility, and presence, as well as restricting women from both technical and social roles, thereby contextualizing the sociotechnical divide. I also conceptualize gendered elasticity of hypermasculinity, whereby the hypermasculine expectations bend for men (whose deviation is read as preference), but remain rigid for women (whose deviation is read as incompetence or lack of commitment), preserving male privilege under an illusion of neutrality. The study argues for structural reforms that go beyond surface-level diversity initiatives and offers a culturally grounded theorization of how masculine dominance is sustained within engineering organizations in the Global South.</p>

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Intersecting logics of inequality: purdah, gendered elasticity, and engineering work in Pakistan

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年12月9日

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  • Zainab Amir

摘要

In this study, I examine how organizational logics, cultural norms, and gendered worker ideals intersect to shape women engineers’ experiences and reproduce gender inequality in Pakistan’s engineering sector. Drawing on Acker’s theory of gendered organizations, Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, and the theorization of purdah as an organizational logic, I show three mutually reinforcing patterns: hypermasculinized ideals, task and spatial segregation, and gendered visibility. A hypermasculine image of an ideal engineer (hands-on, physically strong, mobile, and available round-the-clock) combines with purdah-infused protection logics to set expectations about where and when women may be present, and what counts as legitimate commitment. These expectations are enacted through task assignments and spatial arrangements. Site-work is valorized as “real engineering”, while women are restricted or conditionally admitted to sites and routed to devalued office-based design, managerial, and administrative roles. At the same time, purdah’s moral regulation of cross-gender sociability renders women’s networking reputationally risky and men’s legible and legitimate, channeling training nominations, client work, and promotions through male-coded ties. Building on these findings, I theorize purdah as an organizational logic that spatializes legitimacy, in terms of governing visibility, mobility, and presence, as well as restricting women from both technical and social roles, thereby contextualizing the sociotechnical divide. I also conceptualize gendered elasticity of hypermasculinity, whereby the hypermasculine expectations bend for men (whose deviation is read as preference), but remain rigid for women (whose deviation is read as incompetence or lack of commitment), preserving male privilege under an illusion of neutrality. The study argues for structural reforms that go beyond surface-level diversity initiatives and offers a culturally grounded theorization of how masculine dominance is sustained within engineering organizations in the Global South.