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Gender Salience in Women’s Career-Related Networking: Interviews with Russian Women

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Networks in the Global World V (NetGloW 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 181))

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Abstract

Networking is closely related to personal social capital and, in turn, career outcomes. Stable reproduction of gender inequality in organizations is largely connected to career-related networking opportunities and constraints both for men and women, and this area remains under-researched. In this study we tested the hypothesis that women perceive female gender as a significant constraint in their career development. Also, we tried to find specific situations in work relationships which make networking difficult for women. The main method was qualitative analysis of 51 semi-structured interviews with working women (mean age 33 years old). The pilot study revealed that women were not willing to support “feministic talks” and could hardly recall any difficult gender-related work relationships. We found a facilitating technique through visualizing their career paths, which resulted in spontaneous flashbacks. 57% of the respondents had experienced reminders about gender from co-workers. The reality of the “gender factor” in their professional networking was encountered by women as an unpleasant discovery accompanied with feelings of powerlessness and shame. Negative or humorous gendered interactions (used mostly by men) serve for psychological distance regulation and instrumental aims, setting gender subordination and power. Situations which make networking difficult include explicit or implicit notifications from colleagues that feminine gender is an obstacle for productive work and implies certain restrictions and requirements, motherhood (expected or actual), and sexual interest from male colleagues. We concluded that women assess gender as a visible and at the same time invisible variable affecting their career. There are a number of situations which make career networking constrained for women.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would appreciate feedback and comments on the paper from its readers. We are very grateful to our colleagues who helped us with data collection and processing: Katrina Aleksandrova, Olga Gundelach, Elizaveta Osmak, and Uliyana Udavikhina. The authors are also very thankful to all participants in this project for their time and interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Tatiana Kazantseva, Larisa Mararitsa & Svetlana Gurieva

Authors
  1. Tatiana Kazantseva
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  2. Larisa Mararitsa
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  3. Svetlana Gurieva
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Correspondence to Tatiana Kazantseva .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg University, Centre for German and European Studies, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Artem Antonyuk

  2. St. Petersburg University, Centre for German and European Studies, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Nikita Basov

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The reported study was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), project number 19-013-00686 A.

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Kazantseva, T., Mararitsa, L., Gurieva, S. (2021). Gender Salience in Women’s Career-Related Networking: Interviews with Russian Women. In: Antonyuk, A., Basov, N. (eds) Networks in the Global World V. NetGloW 2020. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 181. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64877-0_3

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