Paper Short Abstract:

The presentation reflects on the usage of clothes as mode of communicating competence among female employees in the Swedish energy sector. Clothing choices aimed at highlighting their status and capacity as individuals, but also visually affirmed their participation in a growing collective body of women that take on more place and a variety of roles and hierarchies in a sector wherein their presence has long been marginalised.

Paper Abstract:

The presentation is a reflection on the usage of clothes as mode of communicating competence among female employees in the Swedish energy sector. Clothing emerged as an analytical trope in our research quite unintentionally, as we did not expect to speak of ‘material’ things when it comes to career options and collective advancements. But it seems that some of our research participants could use their talk of clothing as segway into their experiences and trajectories as women in a men-dominated sector, and going through multiple stages of development in their professional roles. While previous research accentuates female students’ in STEMs pursuit of blending in, and becoming invisible, the entrance of our participants into the employment market has involved multiple rites of passage towards professional maturation and visibility. Ascendance in career trajectories and hierarchical ranks involved the acceptance, or pursuit, of increased visibility and an accentuation of however they construed their subjective difference. This ascension also involves the capacity to be able to stand in the intensity of visibility and difference, and use it as a signal of one’s capacity to take on a challenge and master it. And not only are these practices aimed at highlighting their status and capacity as individuals, but also to affirm their participation in a growing collective body of women that take on more place and a variety of roles and hierarchies in a sector wherein their presence has long been marginalised.