Paws for thought? analysing how prevailing masculinities constrain career progression for UK women veterinary surgeons

Treanor, Lorna; Marlow, Susan

Abstract

The structure of veterinary medicine is changing rapidly from that of traditional small privately owned practices to one of corporate franchises, often positioned within retail outlets. Accompanying this trend has been the increasing presence of women such that they now dominate clinical practice. To what extent are these two issues, increasing feminisation and corporatisation, linked? Since the mid-1990s, corporate providers have largely displaced the traditional self-employed practice ownership/partnership model. This has informed a blame discourse whereby feminisation is associated with industry restructuring given women's alleged preferences for predictable, flexible corporate employment plus, a lack of entrepreneurial ambition towards practice ownership. Drawing upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with women veterinary surgeons and key industry stakeholders, we critically analyse such arguments. We illustrate that diverse notions of corporate masculinity, operating in parallel with the entrepreneurial masculinity of traditional practice, generate this blame discourse and underpin women's limited progression into self-employed practice ownership. This has implications for the future structure of the profession and the careers of forthcoming generations of veterinary surgeons.

Citation

Treanor, L., & Marlow, S. (2021). Paws for thought? analysing how prevailing masculinities constrain career progression for UK women veterinary surgeons. Human Relations, 74(1), 105-130. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719846554

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 1, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jun 10, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 7, 2019
• Journal: Human Relations
• Print ISSN: 0018-7267
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-282X
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 74
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 105-130
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719846554
• Keywords: Gender; Women; Career; Veterinary profession; Corporate masculinity; Entrepreneurial masculinity; Professional partnership; Self-employment
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1848303
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726719846554