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Publication Date: January 2006
Publisher: Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
Author(s): Michal Frenkel
Research Area: Labor; Population and demographics; Science and technology
Keywords: Workplace; Israeli Jews; Gender; Technology
Type: Other
Coverage: Israel
Abstract:
Based on the study of gender performance in the Israeli hi-tech sector, this paper sets out to explore the doing of gender in a bicultural context, a context that is comprised of two cultural repertoires characterized by divergent and contradictory fundamental assumptions: on the one hand, the new masculine transnational economy, and on the other, Israeli society, with its strong family orientation. The paper demonstrates how by maneuvering and moving between these global and local cultural repertoires, privileged Israeli hi-tech women enact and construct a "new femininity" that simultaneously challenges both the discourse of the 'ideal hi-tech worker' as well as that of traditional Israeli femininity. This new femininity, I argue, is grounded in a local translation of the "family friendly organization" discourse.