Gender Identities in the Israeli Hi-tech Industry: Between Global Pressures and Local Institutions


 

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.