Doing Gender, Doing Networks: Exploring Individual Networking Strategies in High-tech

• In Event: 3459 - Women’s STEM Underrepresentation: Roles of Employees, Organizations, and Institutions

Abstract

In the high-tech industry, networking is the most commonly and enthusiastically endorsed method for individuals to locate opportunities, and women especially are encouraged to network to overcome “old boys’ clubs” and advance their careers. Despite the emphasis on networking as means to improve women’s labor market status, networking as a gendered process remains elusive for social network researchers. In this study, I explore the simultaneous doing of networks and gender, or the agentic component of networking, incorporating a feminist conceptualization of gender as a social practice. I draw upon qualitative interviews with high-tech workers from a single company, plus observations in the firm, to explore how gender inequalities in networks are reproduced at the individual level. Men strategically socialize, mobilizing masculinity to build professional ties through informal activities like sports and video games. Women invest much time and energy into formal professional networking, often putting themselves in potentially uncomfortable settings to advance their careers. I find that these gendered networking strategies reproduce gender-homophilous networks, create differential career opportunities for men and women, and further alienate marginalized groups of workers in the company. Examining gender and networking as intertwining social practices reveals the potential exclusionary nature of networking, as networking serves to reinforce the gender order in high-tech.

Author

• Ethel L. Mickey, Northeastern University