512713

research-article2014
WES0010.1177/0950017013512713Work, employment and societyWright

Article

Work, employment and society

Gender, sexuality and

2014, Vol. 28(6) 9851002
The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0950017013512713
intersection of long-hours wes.sagepub.com

working and domestic life

Tessa Wright
Queen Mary University of London, UK

Abstract
The UK construction and transport sectors remain the most heavily male-dominated industries,
showing minimal progress in womens participation. Long and inflexible working hours presume
a male model of the worker unconstrained by caring responsibilities. Yet the experiences of the
minority of women who work in these sectors are of interest to those concerned with reducing
occupational gender segregation. Sexuality is often overlooked in differentiating womens
experience of male-dominated work, and gender conflated with heterosexuality. Through
examining the interaction of domestic circumstances and work arrangements of heterosexual
women and lesbians, this article finds that atypical domestic circumstances may be required to
support male-dominated work. Heterosexual breadwinner norms were challenged by womens
capacity for higher earnings from male-dominated work, but often required strategies to
manage associated emotions. Evidence from lesbian relationships indicates a possible shift from
prioritization of financial self-sufficiency in the context of legal status for same-sex partnerships.

Keywords
construction sector, gender division of labour, heterosexuality, lesbians, long-hours work, male-
dominated work, non-traditional work, sexuality, transport sector

Introduction
The UK construction and transport industries remain heavily male-dominated, in con-
trast to other sectors that have seen a greater shift in gender balance in recent decades.
These industries are also characterized by long working hours and inflexible work pat-
terns, resisting trends towards more flexible working arrangements observed in British
workplaces (Dex and Smith, 2002; Walsh, 2007). Family-unfriendly working practices

Corresponding author:
Tessa Wright, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road,
London E1 4NS, UK.
Email: t.wright@qmul.ac.uk
986 Work, employment and society 28(6)

are one of the explanations for womens low participation, together with gender stereo-
typing, employer prejudice, hostile work environments and structural barriers (Bagilhole,
2002; Dainty and Bagilhole, 2006; Fielden etal., 2000). Furthermore, a clear negative
association exists between womens participation and long work hours; occupations with
the lowest proportions of women also feature the longest work hours (Cha, 2013).
Expectations of excessive work hours contribute to exit from male-dominated work for
women with children, perpetuating patterns of occupational gender segregation (Cha,
2013).
Given these obstacles, the experiences of the atypicial minority of women who enter
and remain in highly male-dominated work are of interest to those concerned with under-
standing and challenging persistent occupational gender segregation.
While attention is paid to sexuality as a way in which women are marginalized or
controlled in traditionally-male work, studies largely neglect the sexual orientation of
women undertaking these roles. Indeed women in some male occupations may be pre-
sumed to be lesbians (Denissen and Saguy, 2010; Paap, 2006; Wright, 2011). Further,
lesbians may be more attracted to male-dominated work, tending to demonstrate more
non-traditional, androgynous gender roles than heterosexual women and being more
likely to reject pressure to pursue gender traditional interests and occupations (Fassinger,
1996; Morgan and Brown, 1991). Additionally it may be expected that lesbians will
encounter fewer obstacles to the working patterns within male-dominated work as they
are less likely to have childcare responsibilities than heterosexual women, and face dif-
ferent external expectations of motherhood.
Consideration of sexuality is not only relevant to illuminating overlooked minority
experience, however. Heterosexuality is an institution that orders not only sexual life but
also domestic divisions of labour and the ways in which womens labour is controlled
(Adkins, 1995; Jackson, 2006). It was noted that the impact of heterosexuality as an
institution had been little explored in the literature on work and family life (Dunne,
1998). While there is a growing interest in examining the workplace experience of sexual
minorities, research in this area remains thin on the ground (Colgan and McKearney,
2011: 625). Even more scarce is research that incorporates an explicit examination of
sexuality into accounts of gender in the workplace. While gender and heterosexuality are
closely interwoven, the evidence presented in this article supports Jacksons (2006: 50)
contention that it is necessary to make an analytical distinction between gender, as the
hierarchical relation between women and men, and heterosexuality, as the institutional-
ized form of that relation, in order to illuminate the experience of all women and the
interrelationship between work and domestic spheres. This approach can counter the
theoretical heterosexism of many mainstream feminist studies of gender, work and
family (Dunne, 2000).
This article therefore examines the experiences of both heterosexual women and les-
bians working in male-dominated occupations within the construction and transport sec-
tors, typified by long hours and inflexible working arrangements. It seeks to unravel the
impacts of gendered and heterosexualized processes on working lives. It takes as its
focus the interrelationship between womens work and domestic lives to consider
whether atypical domestic arrangements are required to support gender atypical work
Wright 987

lives (it does not examine the impacts of gender and (hetero)sexuality within the work-
place, for which see Wright, 2011, 2013).
The article first provides evidence of gender segregation, long working hours and
inflexible working practices within the UK construction and transport sectors, drawing
links between the gendered culture of the sectors and working practices. It then identifies
key themes from the literature on the gender division of labour and its relationship to
earnings, and considers how studies of lesbians domestic lives can contribute to this
discussion. The research methods and participants are outlined, followed by discussion
of the findings in three parts. Evidence is presented of the long hours and inflexible pat-
terns worked by many interviewees, and of the gendered cultures that make these diffi-
cult to challenge. As little flexibility is afforded within employment, the domestic sphere
becomes the site for negotiation over divisions of labour. Reflecting womens atypically
gendered work choices, the article illustrates the to some extent untypical domestic
arrangements arrived at by heterosexual women to accommodate demanding work pat-
terns, and examines the impact of relative earnings on such decisions. It also examines
the significance of earnings for lesbians. Finally, it considers an unusual division of
labour established by a lesbian couple that reveals further pressures within the construc-
tion sector, before drawing some conclusions and suggesting further avenues for inte-
grating sexuality into gender research.

The UK construction and transport sectors

Construction and transport are the two most heavily male-dominated industrial sectors in
the UK 90 per cent of construction workers are male and 76 per cent of those in trans-
port, storage and communication are men (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2006: 21).
Additionally within these sectors, women are more likely to be found in administrative
or clerical than technical or skilled manual roles. While the degree of horizontal job seg-
regation by gender in Britain has fallen (Walsh, 2007: 314), these sectors are resisting the
trend. Construction has seen no improvement in the proportions of women in employ-
ment since 1972 (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2006). Women account for only one
per cent of craft and trades occupations, nine per cent of technical occupations and 11 per
cent of construction design and management occupations.1 Patterns are similar in trans-
port, where women represent only four per cent of drivers and operatives and 11 per cent
of managers (Hamilton etal., 2005: Table 4.1).
Both construction and transport are known for long working hours: in 2008 construc-
tion had the second highest proportion of those working more than 48 hours a week at 22
per cent (after mining and quarrying) and in transport, storage and communication the
proportion was 19.5 per cent (Trades Union Congress, 2008). This compares to 12.9 per
cent of UK employees working over 48 hours. While long working hours predominantly
affect male employees, more than a fifth (22.2 per cent) of long-hours workers are female
(Trades Union Congress, 2008). It may be hard for women to resist such long-hours
cultures; Watts (2009a: 48) found that women engineers commonly work an average
50-hour week and women managers in the transport and logistics sector also gave evi-
dence of long working hours (Simpson etal., 2003).
988 Work, employment and society 28(6)

Flexible working has become increasingly widespread in UK workplaces (Walsh,

2007), although recent evidence indicates that the trend towards greater provision of
flexible work practices may have stabilized (Van Wanrooy etal., 2013). However, fam-
ily-friendly policies and flexible working are less likely to be available in the construc-
tion and manufacturing sectors (Dex and Smith, 2002) and the rail and bus industries
remain largely made up of full-time male workers with few opportunities for part-time
work (Hamilton etal., 2005: 51).
Nonetheless, since the 1990s the construction industry has been subject to a plethora
of government initiatives for change (Rhys Jones, 2006: 262) to address the low repre-
sentation of female employees, including measures to address the macho and adversarial
culture. While there has been some questioning of the necessity of 60- to 70-hour weeks
for civil engineers, there has been little change in practice, with the culture of long work
hours in construction remaining part of its mythology (Langford etal., 1995, cited in
Watts, 2009a: 53). Thus the culture of presenteeism exacerbates long-hours working
(Watts, 2009a).
There is extensive evidence of the gendered and sexualized cultures of male-
dominated workplaces, including sexual harassment (Bagilhole, 2002; Watts, 2007;
Wright, 2013), while construction sites continue to be frequently hostile and intimidating
places both for women in professional occupations (Watts, 2009b) and for tradeswomen
(Paap, 2006). Survival strategies commonly involve attempting to minimize differences
from the male majority, making it difficult to raise issues of work-hours flexibility where
men are resistant to change in the industrys culture and practices (Dainty etal., 2001).
Conforming to male working patterns may be the price of acceptance for women in highly
masculinized work cultures (Watts, 2009a). These sectors continue to support an implic-
itly male model of the worker unencumbered by caring responsibilities (Acker, 2006: 69).

Gender, sexuality and the division of labour

While work hours and conditions, gendered cultures and occupational gender stereotyp-
ing all inhibit womens participation in male-dominated sectors, such factors interact
with the gendered division of domestic labour that constrains womens participation in
paid employment. The relationship between earnings, work hours and the division of
domestic labour among heterosexual couples has been the subject of extensive analysis,
particularly with the decline of the male breadwinner model and the growth in various
forms of dual-earner families (Crompton, 1999). The impact of earnings is significant for
a discussion of women in male-dominated work, as encouraging women to enter typi-
cally male occupations associated with higher earnings has been one strategy for reduc-
ing the persistent gender pay gap (Women and Work Commission, 2006).
It is argued that the patriarchal division of labour, including share of childcare, may
be challenged as womens contribution to household earnings increases (Arber and Ginn,
1995), with higher earnings leading to a reduction in share of domestic tasks. However
there is contradictory evidence (Kan, 2008): on the one hand, resource bargaining theory
suggests that participation in housework is determined by economic resources, so that
higher earning partners will undertake less housework. On the other hand, gender-role
attitudes outweigh economic rationales, so higher-earning women undertake more
Wright 989

housework to compensate for the challenge to traditional gender norms, engaging in a

process of gender deviance neutralization (Bittman etal., 2003: 193). Kan (2008) con-
cluded that while both economic resources and gendered attitudes are significant, ine-
quality in the division of domestic labour may be reduced as wives earnings increase
relative to their partners. The presence of children typically results in more traditional
domestic arrangements (Crompton etal., 2005), with gendered moral rationalities
about parenting often outweighing economic rationales (Duncan etal., 2003). Duncan
etal.s (2003) research is unusual in including lesbian mothers in its examination of val-
ues that define parenting and work decisions, although it finds that conventional values
may be common across sexualities.
Examining the division of labour in non-heterosexual households may provide alter-
native models for the organization of work and domestic lives (Dunne, 1998). Among
same-sex couples, gender-role attitudes do not predict a particular division of paid and
household labour, an effect of which is that gay and lesbian couples tend to have greater
norms of equity that result in a more equal division of paid labour (Jaspers and Verbakel,
2013). Furthermore, lesbians are less likely to have childcare responsibilities to constrain
participation in paid work than heterosexual women, although significant numbers do
live in a household with children: 22 per cent of partnered lesbians in the US (Peplau and
Fingerhut, 2004) and an estimated 10 per cent of British lesbians live in households with
children (Aspinall, 2009). Supporting claims of greater egalitarianism, it has been found
that lesbian couples parenting together share domestic work and childcare more equally,
and are less likely to specialize long-term into primary carer or wage-earner roles, than
heterosexual couples (Dunne, 1998, 2000; Reimann, 1997).
Work takes a central place in the lives of most lesbians who seek self-sufficiency,
aware that they are unlikely to be financially dependent on either a male or female part-
ner (Dunne, 1997). Furthermore, within couples lesbians tend to maintain a degree of
financial independence, with emphasis on equal sharing of financial responsibilities and
economic self-sufficiency (Morgan and Brown, 1991; Peplau and Fingerhut, 2004).
However, Taylor (2007) warns that many such accounts of equality and reciprocity,
including studies of lesbian parenting, are based on middle-class samples that omit the
experiences of working-class lesbians, and, in concentrating on sameness on the basis of
gender, pay little attention to how class differences affect relationships.
In focusing on lesbians domestic lives, these studies also offer only a partial picture
of the context in which negotiations over the division of labour are undertaken, as the
possibility of flexible or reduced-hours working varies widely according to occupational
position and employer. Additionally, whether a lesbian parent feels able to disclose her
sexuality at work determines her capacity to benefit from family-friendly work arrange-
ments (Tuten and August, 2006). Thus exploring the interrelation between workplace
practices and domestic circumstances is necessary for understanding the experiences of
both heterosexual women and lesbians in male-dominated work.

Research methods and participants

The article draws on qualitative research in the construction and transport sectors that
employed several methods of data collection: interviews with women in male-dominated
990 Work, employment and society 28(6)

occupations; focus groups with women in construction trades; interviews with key indus-
try experts; and observation of events for women in non-traditional work. Fieldwork was
conducted between October 2008 and September 2010. The article analyses the 38 semi-
structured interviews with women working in male-dominated occupations, which cov-
ered womens reasons for entering traditionally male occupations, their experiences of
working in these sectors, their use of support networks and the interrelationship between
domestic circumstances and employment. This last theme is the focus for discussion
here.
Table 1 provides a breakdown of the sectoral, occupational and key demographic
characteristics of the sample of women workers. Only two interviewees worked part-
time, two were looking for work, and the large majority worked full-time. Interviewees
were asked to identify their sexual orientation, and all chose either heterosexual or les-
bian, none identified as bisexual or any other term. Only just over a quarter of interview-
ees (10) had full-time responsibility for dependent children, although a further two
heterosexual women had stepchildren who lived with them part-time. None of the lesbi-
ans had dependent children. The sample is consistent with other evidence that women in
senior positions and professions dominated by men are less likely to have partners or be
married than male colleagues (Bagilhole, 2002; Wajcman, 1998) and to have higher than
average levels of childlessness (Wood and Newton, 2006).
Although women were asked to indicate their own earnings, the question of earnings
relative to their partner only emerged as an issue during interviews, and was discussed in
the majority of cases, but not all.
In order to reach both heterosexual and lesbian participants, and to ensure confidenti-
ality, which is particularly important when researching minority sexuality, a variety of
routes were used including professional and industry networks, and trade union and
employer networks for women and lesbian and gay workers. To ensure anonymity of
interviewees, pseudonyms are used throughout. All interviews were recorded and tran-
scribed in full. Analysis was carried out with the assistance of NVivo qualitative analysis
software as a means of organizing the data and identifying emerging themes from the
data. Emergent themes discussed in this article are: long and inflexible work patterns and
their relationship to negotiations within the household; the impact of earnings on such
negotiations and personal relations; and the effect of gender and heterosexuality on these
processes.

Working patterns and domestic circumstances

Womens working hours were consistent with the prevalence of long hours in the con-
struction and transport sectors, with two-fifths of full-timers (14 interviewees) working
more than a 40-hour week, and of these, six regularly worked longer than the 48-hours a
week permitted under the Working Time Regulations without opting out. Shiftwork pat-
terns that offered little flexibility were also a feature of working time for the seven inter-
viewees who worked in transport as bus and train operators, two of whom worked over
40 hours a week. While bus drivers reported that part-time hours were not available in
their companies, one train manager/driver had become part-time since having children,
Wright 991

Table 1. Interviewees occupational and demographic characteristics.

Heterosexual Lesbian All

Sector
Construction 15 7 22 (58%)
Transport 8 8 16 (42%)
Occupational group*
Professional/managerial: 11 8 19 (50%)
Non-professional: 12 7 19 (50%)
Ethnicity
White: 14 13 27 (71%)
Mixed heritage: 1 0 1 (3%)
Indian: 4 0 4 (11%)
Black Caribbean: 2 2 4 (11%)
Black African: 1 0 1 (3%)
Did not answer: 1 0 1 (3%)
Age
2130: 2 3 5 (13%)
3140: 11 4 15 (39%)
4150: 8 6 14 (37%)
5160: 1 1 2 (5%)
Over 60: 1 1 2 (5%)
Family/relationship status
Single, no children:
Single, dependent 5 2 7 (18%)
children: 3 0 3 (8%)
Partner, no children:
Partner, dependent 8 13 21 (55%)
children: 7 0 7 (18%)
Total 23 15 38
(61%) (39%) (100%)
*Based on the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) (Office for National Statistics) (2000) Standard
Occupational Classification 2000: Volume 1 Structure and descriptions of unit groups. London: Office for
National Statistics. Professional/managerial is used to define those with occupations in SOC major groups
1 and 2 (primarily engineers, surveyors and project managers), and non-professional is used for all other
occupations, which includes major groups 3 5, 6 and 8 (the manual trades, including carpenters, plumbers,
gas fitters, electricians and painters and decorators, and bus and train operators).

working three fixed days a week, instead of the full-time rolling roster in which days off
change each week.
Having children did not preclude very long hours of work; two of the six inter-
viewees who worked over 48-hours a week had young children. Ritu had a six-year
old son:

I work around 12 hours a day and I come on Saturday as well, and if Im a man, I probably
should not have done that much to establish, but Im a woman so I have to establish myself that
I can achieve what they can achieve. [] This is the other thing, because Im from an Asian
992 Work, employment and society 28(6)

background and I came from India 11 years back, so coming from India and working in the
construction industry in the UK is not very easy, you have to really establish to get there, you
have to work really. I think I totally understand, without working hard youre never going to get
anywhere. (Ritu, heterosexual, surveyor)

Ritus comments illustrate the persistence of the male full-time worker model within
the construction industry. With or without children, women in male-dominated work
commonly adopt a strategy of downplaying their femaleness and difference from the
male majority in order to fit in, alongside having to work harder to prove themselves to
be as good as, or better than, male workers (Bagilhole, 2002; Watts, 2009a). This rein-
forces the pressure to work long hours rather than seek working arrangements to suit
them, which would further emphasize their difference from the male majority.
Additionally Ritu highlights that the gendered pressure to prove oneself against the male
norm is exacerbated for non-white women in an industry where there are also few ethnic
minority workers. She is thus highly visible as a minority both on account of her gender
and her ethnicity, and feels additional pressure to prove herself against the standard of the
dominant majority.
Transport professional Judith had approached a male colleague about the possibility
of job-sharing after having a baby:

He said Oh no you wont be able to do a job-share at our level and that was the end of it. I
thought OK that was his view and I thought I could pursue it doing a job-share or part-time or
something like that, but I just couldnt see how it would work. I have always been the sort of
person that works 506070 hours a week and I thought if I am doing a job-share I am still
going to be doing 304050 hours a week and I would be paid part-time. (Judith, heterosexual,
senior engineer)

Thus with minimal flexibility in work patterns available, women with children had
to seek flexibility within the domestic sphere. Shiftworkers stressed that it was impor-
tant that their partners had work flexibility to be able to pick up children in emergen-
cies, as their shift patterns did not easily allow for this. All partnered women with
children reported that their partners took on a significant share of childcare. In three
cases, the father took the primary childcare role. Having decided not to pursue the part-
time or job-share option, Judiths discussions with her husband included a range of
considerations:

Id always loved my job and been thrilled by it and he totted along with his job and it was
alright but he wasnt bothered by it, so wed agreed that when we had children hed go part-
time and I could be full-time. [] of course when I had a baby then I wanted to be part-time as
well, because I enjoyed being with her so much. [] but in the end I decided I would go back.
I have free rail travel with my job, first class for the whole family and that was a big benefit to
us as a family because we use it a lot, and so that was the thing that took me back to work,
really, the fact that I didnt want to lose the free rail travel. [] and actually I love it so thats
fine and then he does the part-time work and it works out OK. (Judith, heterosexual, senior
engineer)
Wright 993

Thus economic considerations and personal preferences intertwined with the full-
time demands of Judiths senior position in making their decision, and outweighed gen-
der expectations on the mother to be the main carer. The significance of relative earnings
within couples is explored further below.
Although the data showed little difference between the work hours and patterns of
lesbians compared to heterosexual women, the gendered expectations in male-dominated
work may be different for openly lesbian workers compared to women who are, or are
perceived to be, heterosexual. While Cockburn has argued that all female workers pay
the penalty for being one of the maternal sex (Cockburn, 1991: 76), the evidence here
suggests that lesbian workers may be exempt from this effect. Surveyor Anna reported
the views of her former manager:

He said I wish I could employ just lesbians, he says, because you work harder than the men
and youre not going to get fucking pregnant. So I said Well I might get pregnant but he says
Yes well its highly unlikely [] He genuinely thought that having an office full of lesbians
would be fantastic for him. (Anna, lesbian, surveyor)

This suggests that presumptions often unfounded about lesbians domestic lives
feed into employer prejudice about womens reproductive capacity; heteronormative
assumptions establish a false distinction between non-reproductive lesbians and hetero-
sexual women who are all considered to be at risk of pregnancy. While none of the les-
bians interviewed had dependent children, train driver Lesley, together with her partner,
had made a regular weekly commitment to care for the baby daughter of some friends, a
lesbian couple. She commented that this involved some sacrifice as she had to organize
her shifts so that she worked on Saturday in order to have Mondays off to care for the
baby. Lesleys situation is an example of childrearing arrangements adopted by some gay
couples that afford an alternative to the model of the nuclear family (Weeks etal., 2001).
This has implications for the working patterns required by non-heterosexual workers,
and challenges the perceptions held by Annas manager and others of lesbians as ideal
type workers free from caring responsibilities.

The significance of earnings

Among heterosexual interviewees with partners, over half (eight out of 15) were cur-
rently or had in the past been the main earners in the household, and another provided the
regular household income (and anticipated pension) alongside her self-employed part-
ners fluctuating earnings. Indeed, the number with greater earnings may be even higher,
as partners earnings were not discussed in all interviews. These women breadwinners
are untypical, despite increasing numbers of women having a breadwinner role in the
household, estimated to be 19 per cent of wives in 2010 (Ford and Collinson, 2011: 271).
Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of coupled mothers with dependent children earned the
greater share of family earnings in 2010/11, an increase from 13 per cent in 1996/97
(Ben-Galim and Thompson, 2013: 18).
This raises the question of the potential for womens greater earnings to challenge the
traditional division of paid and domestic labour. For three interviewees with children, the
994 Work, employment and society 28(6)

father undertook greater childcare hours. These decisions were enabled by womens
earnings capacity. For plumber Meeta, financial considerations had determined that her
husband would take primary responsibility for childcare, as her earnings were higher
than his. Senior construction professional Jasminder also had higher earnings than her
husband, whose career had been put on the back burner while she progressed in hers.
He was able to work at home to be available for childcare. In Judiths case, discussed
above, their earnings were at a similar level, and her generous travel perks were an
important consideration in their division of labour. So while such decisions were not
taken on economic grounds alone and were shaped by the expectations and constraints
of work environments the female partners earnings capacity facilitated an untypical
gender arrangement. Thus the higher earnings available from some male-dominated
occupations may be significant in improving not only womens individual financial posi-
tion, but also contribute to a shift in the household division of labour.
Nevertheless, accounts from higher-earning women also reveal that normative gender
conceptions persist in which financial dominance in the family is equated with masculin-
ity. Construction professional Ritu noted that when she earned more than her husband, he
expressed jealousy due to a belief that he should always be on top in terms of earnings.
She relates this to the Indian background they share: In the Indian culture [] the man
should always be in the higher position than the woman. However practical concerns
prevailed over gendered cultural norms which were perhaps easier to resist in a differ-
ent national setting and she continued to work full-time to bring in the money they
needed, while also establishing her career in Britain.
Interviewees accounts revealed that gendered and heteronormative conceptions per-
sist across cultural contexts, with others also having to manage their male partners
feelings about earning less:

I earn more than him, which initially was, it wasnt a problem, but you know what men are like,
it was an ego thing. But as a woman I think Ive been able to manage that [] so as long as he
feels that hes in control I just let him get on with it. [] what I do is I pay money into his
account, so that gives him more control. So even if I need to spend money, Im like Can I have
100 please? and that kind of makes him feel Im the man. (Femi, heterosexual, train
operator)

When we go to dinner most of the time I am paying, but he pays for it all on a joint credit card
and then when the bill comes in I pay it. [] I think from his perspective he would feel a bit
embarrassed if I was always the one getting the card out. I have to be sensitive to that sort of
thing. (Suzie, heterosexual, director, construction)

When women earn more than their husbands, this violation of gender norms can
lead men and women to engage in more traditional behaviour in relation to housework
(with women undertaking more hours when earning more than her partner) in order to
neutralize this gender deviance (Bittman etal., 2003). While the present study does
not examine time spent on housework, the notion of compensating for gender devi-
ance may apply to womens concern to minimize the challenge to their husbands
masculinity posed by her breadwinner role. Breadwinning has not only an objective,
material dimension as the provision of financial support, but also a subjective
Wright 995

dimension as a source of masculine values and identity, with studies finding that when
the male breadwinning role is diminished by unemployment, redundancy or greater
female earnings, masculine identity is threatened (Charles and James, 2005; Warren,
2007). When this is challenged from within the heterosexual relationship by womens
greater earnings, some women express a need to take compensatory measures. Some
women in Charles and Jamess study (2005) were reluctant to claim the breadwinner
identity, even when they were the primary earner, out of a concern for mens self-
esteem. Thus when traditional gender roles are upset, heterosexual norms persist. It
may be said that women engage in negotiating labour (Wajcman, 1998) to take care
of their partners feelings. Indeed this parallels the emotion management strategies that
women often employ in male-dominated workplaces to overcome mens resistance to
womens entry. Womens performance of previously male-dominated occupations also
poses a challenge to ideologies of masculinity associated with such work (Reskin and
Padavic, 1988). Heterosexual women in male-dominated occupations may undertake
negotiating labour both at home and at work in order to placate the threatened mascu-
linities of husbands and coworkers.
Outside of heterosexual relationships, where gender hierarchies are absent, the article
now considers the significance of earnings to those in lesbian relationships. Earnings did
not play a significant role in how paid work was divided within a couple, primarily
because none of the partnered lesbians had children which would have required negotia-
tion over work and caring responsibilities. Although there was no gender hierarchy, une-
qual earnings can establish power imbalances that some were eager to resist. Floor and
wall tiler Hannahs partner earned twice as much as her, and they had acknowledged the
potential for difficulties by discussing the earnings difference early in the relationship to
avoid dramas. Hannah felt that talking about it openly had successfully avoided prob-
lems. In another case, Lesleys former high-earning partner had wanted to support her as
a housewife, however Lesley rejected this, preferring to maintain her financial inde-
pendence. This theme recurred among other interviewees. Carpenter/furniture-maker
Kath, for example, was in a committed relationship with a woman from whom she lived
separately, saying she would find it very hard to be financially dependent on someone
else, a view which stemmed in part from her feminist beliefs. She had never cohabited
with a partner, despite having had long-term relationships.
Previous research has highlighted the centrality of work in the lives of lesbians due to
the economic necessity to support themselves in the absence of a male partner (Dunne,
1997). Although a lesbian could be financially supported by a female partner, as Lesleys
case shows above, the reality of womens lower average earnings than mens, together
with unequal access to capital resources, means that this will not often be the case. Nadia
was conscious of this in her choice of occupation:

The ability to earn a decent wage has always been in the back of my mind somewhere. I dont
know if thats because I just assumed, maybe, yeah, I just had that kind of mentality that I
needed to be able to take care of myself. [] I mean its always said that women earn less than
men, so if youre a lesbian and even if you do meet somebody, youre probably going to be on
less as a household than a straight counterpart, so I think Im a bit more driven in that sense.
(Nadia, lesbian, transport engineer)
996 Work, employment and society 28(6)

Indeed Nadias comments indicate that minority sexuality may prompt non-traditional
career choices based on economic considerations. Dunnes study (1997: 1412) found
that male work appealed to some lesbians, in particular those with lower educational
qualifications, due to the higher pay levels than traditional womens work. Occupational
choice involves a complex interplay of rational, identity-based and circumstantial factors
that there is not space to explore here. Nevertheless becoming aware of lesbian sexuality
can be important in career choice (Wright, 2011).
Some interviewees, therefore, followed previous findings that, within couples, lesbi-
ans tend to emphasize equal sharing of financial responsibilities and economic self-
sufficiency. Significantly though, the data also point to a shift away from the prioritization
of financial independence within lesbian couples, at least in legal terms. Two-fifths
(6) of interviewees were in civil partnerships a higher proportion than the national
figure of 19 per cent of lesbians who have registered a civil partnership (Ellison and
Gunstone, 2009: 27). Many interviewees, therefore, were willing to engage in a legally
financially interdependent relationship, perhaps attracted by the security this accrues,
although motivations for civil partnership are varied, including commitment and public
recognition (Mitchell etal., 2009). While the data presented here are from too small a
sample to draw conclusions about trends in lesbian partnerships, the findings suggest that
it will be important for future research to examine the impact of legal changes affecting
same-sex relationships on lesbian and gay workplace experience. Additionally, while
gender hierarchies may be absent from lesbian relationships, other power imbalances
may occur, for example based on earnings differences, as well as class or ethnic differ-
ences, which are not explored here.

An alternative division of labour?

As a further counter to findings of financial self-sufficiency within lesbian relationships,
this section examines a partnership of financial, employment and domestic interdepend-
ence enjoyed by lesbian couple, Anna and Pauline (each of whom was interviewed). The
couple, now civil partners, started a business together in the male-dominated world of
surveying. While both were experienced surveyors, the business was established on the
basis of one full-time primary wage-earner and one part-time worker with primary
responsibility for the home:

The idea was that Anna would only work part-time and basically facilitate me in doing the
work. Cook me my lunch, have a nice dinner ready, clean the house, all lovely, lovely and that
only lasted about a week and then she started getting really busy. (Pauline, lesbian, surveyor)

With the unexpectedly rapid success of the business, Annas working hours became
full-time, but she retained primary responsibility for running the house in addition:

I am the housewife, I do all the cleaning, shopping. Literally I will see foundations in the
morning, Ill nip to Waitrose, and Ill see a roof, come home, do the washing. So if at all
possible I like to leave here about 3 oclock, so I joke that Im a part-time surveyor, but I do
work most of the time 8 till 5. If Im passing the shops, Ill do the shopping and I do the logistics
Wright 997

of living, Pauline is the surveyor, she just surveys, thats all she does. So it works alright, I
enjoy it. (Anna, lesbian, surveyor)

In one way, then, this couple has chosen a division of labour that mirrors the common
heterosexual pattern in which the female partner undertakes the greater share of domestic
work on top of a full-time job (Kan and Gershuny, 2010), although they had intended to
replicate the full-time/part-time earner model. They are, however, free from the predeter-
mined gendered arrangement of domestic labour, and so negotiate worklife according
to preference in the context of work requirements of their industry. This context should
not be underestimated however. Pauline is clear that she could not be successful in her
profession without Anna facilitating her career by managing the logistics of living,
drawing parallels with male colleagues with wives at home doing the domestic side.
Thus the requirements of surveying work in the construction sector, including long hours
and travel away from home, mean that Pauline conforms to the traditional male full-time
worker model (Acker, 2006) and her career has been prioritized within the couple. This
pattern prevails even though the couple are their own employers, and, in theory, have
some capacity to determine their working arrangements. Yet the demands of the industry
are accommodated with a traditional domestic arrangement, albeit within a same-sex
relationship.
This suggests that while lesbians may not be constrained by heterosexual, gender
norms in the allocation of paid and domestic labour, similar considerations in relation to
personal preference and sectoral work requirements come into play as for heterosexual
women in male-dominated occupations.

Conclusion
The evidence from this small sample of women working in construction and transport
occupations does not provide grounds for optimism about prospects for change to work-
ing patterns that perpetuate the unencumbered male worker norm (Acker, 2006).
Modification of dominant working patterns is frustrated by gender normative cultures in
which women feel obliged to downplay their difference in order to fit in. Combined
with other aspects of the gendered and heterosexualized cultures that marginalize women,
women who remain in these occupations are few in number, and may additionally be
untypical in the organization of their domestic lives, which need to accommodate
demanding work patterns. Only a small number of interviewees had dependent children,
and they largely continued working full-time and relied on partners for either the greater
or equal share of childcare. Furthermore the study included higher than average propor-
tions of breadwinning women among heterosexual interviewees with partners. In some
cases, the womans higher earnings had enabled a decision for the male partner to reduce
work hours in order to take primary childcare responsibility, although such decisions also
took account of preferences and gender norms. This suggests that increasing the numbers
of women in typically male occupations, which has been supported as a strategy for
reducing the gender pay gap (Women and Work Commission, 2006), could have further
implications not only for improving womens individual incomes, but also for increasing
their relative share within households. This has the potential to effect changes in the
998 Work, employment and society 28(6)

domestic division of labour (Arber and Ginn, 1995). Thus the glacially slow progress in
adaptation of working patterns in these male-dominated sectors may provide an impetus
for small shifts in domestic arrangements, where practical or economic rationales over-
come gender normative divisions of labour.
However, womens greater share of household earnings can upset heterosexual gen-
dered dynamics that associate masculinity with breadwinning status. Higher-earning
women employ emotion management strategies to keep the domestic peace in efforts to
neutralize the effects of their gender deviance (Bittman etal., 2003). However this
requires emotion work by women, and probably also from male partners. Thus while
typical gender roles may be reversed or undermined, heteronormative expectations
remain powerful. The emphasis in this article on foregrounding sexuality in particular
how processes of heterosexuality affect the organization of both heterosexual womens
and lesbians work and domestic lives supports Jacksons (2006) argument for main-
taining an analytical distinction between gender and heterosexuality, a distinction that is
often conflated, as I have suggested.
The higher earnings available from typically male occupations are also significant for
lesbian workers. An awareness of the need for financial self-sufficiency may be part of
the attraction of such occupations. However this article has questioned whether previous
findings of economic self-sufficiency among lesbian couples still prevail in the light of
the changing legal status of same-sex couples, a status embraced by two-fifths of lesbian
interviewees who had committed to civil partnerships, thus entering a legally financially
interdependent relationship. An unusual case of financial, employment and domestic
interdependence was discussed in lesbian couple Anna and Paulines division of labour.
In order to support the surveying business they established together, the couple had emu-
lated the typical heterosexual dual-earner household of one full-time and one part-time
earner/homecarer, although in reality Anna worked full-time paid hours, on top of her
housewife role. Despite freedom from heterosexual gendered norms in their division of
labour, the full-time male norm of a professional construction career appeared to require
the labour of a wife.
This article has foregrounded how the institution of heterosexuality, and not only
gender, differentiates womens experience of managing the interaction of the demands
of male-dominated work and domestic lives. The findings, based on a small and hetero-
geneous sample, however, suggest three implications for future research on gender
atypical work. The first is the need for continued attention to the interaction of work
practices and domestic situations. While a variety of economic, gendered, heteronorma-
tive and moral rationalities (i.e. Duncan etal., 2003; Dunne, 1998; Kan, 2008) shape
decisions about household divisions of labour, this article has highlighted that employ-
ment sectors which remain resistant to greater working-time flexibility provide a sig-
nificant backdrop to negotiations in the domestic sphere. These sectors continue to
exclude those without such flexibility, and experiences examined here remain atypical.
The second conclusion is that explicitly examining sexuality adds not only to our
knowledge of the experience of minority sexuality, but also to understanding of pro-
cesses of dominant heterosexuality, for example in how male and female partners may
react to challenges to masculinity from an atypical division of household earnings.
Wright 999

Further examination of class differences in both heterosexual and lesbian households,

that were not explored here, would be valuable (Taylor, 2007). A third conclusion sug-
gests that prioritization of financial independence within lesbian couples may be shift-
ing as the legal status of same-sex relationships has developed. There will be further
effects when same-sex marriage becomes law, for example in relation to disclosure of
sexual orientation at work through offering a normalizing discourse with heterosexual
colleagues (Dunne, 1998; Mitchell etal., 2009). Furthermore greater financial security
within couples may in turn impact on decisions about division of paid and unpaid
labour. The effect of same-sex partnership rights merits further investigation, along
with employer and employee attitudes towards work commitment of lesbian parents,
which could not be examined here as the sample contained no lesbians with children.
Attention here would extend the worklife research agenda to encompass minority sex-
uality (zbilgin etal., 2011).

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the women who gave their time to participate in this research, as
well as Hazel Conley, Geraldine Healy and the reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier
drafts.

Funding
This research was supported by a PhD studentship from Queen Mary University of London.

Note
1. Figures from Labour Force Survey Spring 2009 provided by Construction Skills, email com-
munication, 30 July 2010.

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Tessa Wright is Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Centre for Research in
Equality and Diversity, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London.
She has researched and written on equality and discrimination at work for many years, with a par-
ticular interest in gender and sexuality, initially working for the trade union movement and more
recently in academia. She is joint editor with Hazel Conley of the Gower Handbook of
Discrimination at Work.

Date submitted May 2012

Date accepted October 2013