As instituições podem me limitar?: um estudo sobre carreiras e estereótipos de gênero a partir da teoria institucional de Thorstein Veblen

Abstract

The tendency of gender identification with a professional area can occur without a reflection on how socially and historically it is constructed (ALVES, 2018), and one of the factors to which this is due is the existence of gender stereotypes rooted in the imaginary. Thus, the institutional theory by Veblen, in which instincts and habits of life and thought are central to understanding the behavior of the peoples and the development of institutions in society, provides elements to analyze careers that historically have been occupied more expressively by a genre. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the perception of gender stereotypes in the career of professionals who work in traditionally feminized or masculinized careers from the institutional perspective of Thorstein Veblen. Specifically, we sought to: I) to show a theoretical model in order to explain the perpetuation of feminized and masculinized careers based on the Thorstein Veblen's institutional theory; II) to discuss aspects that influence the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in public and domestic spaces from the perception of professionals who work in feminized and masculinized careers and of specialists in studies of institutional and gender theory; III) to generate an instrument in order to measure the individual's perception of gender stereotypes in his own career; and IV) to verify the perception of gender stereotypes in the career by professionals in the areas of Health and Engineering and working in Rio Grande do Sul/BR. For that, the study is characterized as exploratory-descriptive in wich the mixed method with a sequential exploratory strategy as adopted. A qualitative step was first performed and that from the results of that step, the quantitative phase was operationalized. The qualitative phase consisted of two rounds of interviews with 10 participants through the Delphi technique, of which they were analyzed using the content analysis technique. In the quantitative phase a research instrument was created aimed at the public of the objective III, resulting in 206 responses. Descriptive analysis, factor analysis, and non-parametric hypothesis tests were used. Regarding the results, it is concluded that the theoretical model was coherent and accepted by the respondents of the qualitative stage, as they recognize the existence of gender stereotypes, including in their careers, and the ways in which society institutionalizes them. The instrument created in order to measure the perception of gender stereotypes in the career presented itself statistically significant with 16 of the 20 variables and 50,01% of the sample presented a high level of this perception. The hypothesis tests indicated that, for the present sample, being female corresponds to a greater perception of gender stereotypes in the career than the male gender, discarding sociodemographic variables, and being in the area of engineering corresponds to a greater perception of gender stereotypes in the career than being in the health area. As well, being subordinate to a male boss implies a greater perception of this phenomenon than being subordinated to a female boss.