Women's experiences of non-traditional employment: is gender equality in this area a possibility?

Currently, skills shortages are prompting the UK government to introduce initiatives intended to break down notions of stereotyped employment and attract women to non-traditional, male-dominated industries such as construction. Thus, it seems timely to revisit a study of the lived experience of non-traditionally employed women, conducted in Northern Ireland in the mid-1990s. Data from this study are presented here, specifically contextualized within R. M. Kanter's (American Journal of Sociology, 82, 965-90) framework of tokenism. Utilizing this framework, the paper examines the relationship that exists between the sexes (women as ‘tokens’ and males as ‘dominants’) in the non-traditional settings examined, indicating that barriers remain that women must surmount for gender equality to be achieved. The paper concludes by briefly examining one initiative working pro-actively to remove these barriers, providing women with greater opportunities to pursue non-traditional careers.