Engineering Identities

Abstract

This paper considers the construction by students of feminine and masculine identities in an engineering department in an old Scottish university. It utilises theories of identity that emphasise fragility, contradictions and ambiguity in multiple processes of identity formation, which might involve identification with the dominant gender order, counter identification and resistance, or disidentification and transformation. The paper shows how, while things have changed significantly for young professional women, they and their male peers still reinscribe dominant notions of femininity and masculinity. Gender remains an issue even as the visibility and confidence of women works to destabilise traditional patterns. A narrative approach seeks to represent the voices of these students, and the social lines of power that criss-cross the webs of identity construction.