Clearing up the bullshit : Deconstructing 'feminisation', gender stereotypes and gender biases within UK veterinary surgery

Abstract: This thesis explores ‘feminisation’ discourse(s) within the UK veterinary profession, including the ways in which gender stereotypes and biases also influence such discourses and experiences of working within the field. Drawing upon and combining a range of sociological, organisational and feminist theories such as Witz’s (1992) theory of gendered professional projects and Butler’s (1990) highly influential notion of performativity, I am able to contextualise and expand upon the ‘doing’ of the veterinary profession as well as being able to frame ‘feminisation’ discourses as paradoxes, potentially producing the effects they articulate. My analysis is divided into two parts; the first deals with results of a 463 participant survey of veterinary workers regarding definitions, perceptions and observations of ‘feminisation’ and gender difference, highlighting the significance of this subject matter within their professional lives. The second part incorporates a deeper thematic analysis of particular everyday realities, emerging from four semi-structured interviews which also aimed to explore in greater detail individual perceptions and observations regarding ‘feminisation’ and gender biases and stereotypes, encouraging participants themselves to reflect upon their experiences. A number of conclusions emerged during the analysis, including an intriguing insight that those who tended to draw most strongly on gender stereotypes and biases to outline their perceptions and observations were paradoxically those who most vehemently believed gender was irrelevant. Fundamentally however this study concludes that the concept of ‘feminisation’ is a fluid conceptualisation, a cultural process and not just empirical category of ‘empty rhetoric’ as commonly utilised and applied to the veterinary profession; as such it has the potential to be utilised extensively to progress the profession in terms of wider inclusiveness, equality, transformation, in offering reconceptualised ways of considering what it means to be part of a ‘profession’ not predicated on patriarchal structures, and to ultimately reperceive how gender can be (re/un)enacted in transformative ways alongside progressively rearticulated ‘feminisation’ discourses.