Drawing on interviews and focus groups from Conakry, the capital city of the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, this article examines how people talk about women working in male-dominated skilled trades alongside women’s accounts of their work experiences in those sectors. We find that the idea of women doing gender atypical work, whom we call “crossovers,” evokes widespread admiration. They are unanimously described as brave and virtuous, contrasted with women who rely on money from relationships with men. However, this celebration falters in the workplace, where crossovers often experience paternalism and harassment. Building on theories of both gender beliefs and femininities, we attribute this discrepancy to the differential threats to the gender order that are posed by accommodating crossovers at work versus speaking positively about them. Working together requires men to confront actual women’s unexpected capabilities, while rhetorically celebrating crossovers may in fact reify stereotypes about most women and fail to fundamentally undermine men’s authority. Crossovers can serve as sources of inspiration for an alternative gender order, but we find that professed admiration for “exceptional” groups of women has both limitations and risks. We conclude by suggesting that the subversive potential of admiration for gender atypical behavior must be empirically examined, rather than assumed, with attention to why such women are seen as admirable as well as how this admiration is borne out in social interactions.

中文翻译：

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评估对做“男人的工作”的女性的钦佩

本文借鉴西非几内亚共和国首都科纳克里的采访和焦点小组，探讨了人们如何谈论在男性主导的技术行业工作的女性，以及女性对这些行业工作经历的描述。我们发现，女性从事性别非典型工作（我们称之为“跨界”）的想法引起了广泛的钦佩。她们被一致描述为勇敢和善良，与依靠与男性的关系赚钱的女性形成鲜明对比。然而，这种庆祝活动在工作场所却步履维艰，因为跨界者经常遭受家长式作风和骚扰。基于性别信仰和女性气质理论，我们将这种差异归因于工作中适应跨界与积极谈论跨界对性别秩序构成的不同威胁。一起工作需要男性面对女性意想不到的实际能力，而口头上庆祝跨界实际上可能会具体化对大多数女性的刻板印象，而无法从根本上削弱男性的权威。跨界可以作为另类性别秩序的灵感来源，但我们发现，公开表达对“特殊”女性群体的钦佩既有局限性，也有风险。我们的结论是，对非典型性别行为的钦佩的颠覆性潜力必须进行实证检验，而不是假设，并关注为什么这些女性被视为值得钦佩，以及这种钦佩如何在社会互动中得到证实。