Through Masculinity: Positioning and Transgressing Gender in Operating Theatres

Abstract

Following ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the operating theatre of a North Italian hospital, the present paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, focusing on the ways in which everyday working practices assert and reproduce a kind of ‘heroic masculinity’; on the other, discussing the practices by which women inhabiting this same context resist masculinity and transgress gender boundaries.   The paper thus wishes to contribute to a wider literature on gender practices in organizations and workplaces, highlighting how masculinity sometimes becomes a ‘natural element’ of the working environment, assigning to men a competitive advantage and requiring of women additional work in order to position themselves as competent participants in a community of practices and/or in an organizational culture.

Keywords: Gender Practices, Masculinity, Workplace, Ethnography, Surgery.