Inhalt: "Since the launch of the Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) campaign in 1984,
many initiatives to increase the participation of women in these areas of work have
been launched under its banner and the WISE approach has come to represent the dominant
discourse on equal opportunities for women in science and technology, having a major
influence on both policy and practice. This article examines the WISE discourse in
depth, arguing that WISE has had only very limited success because it is so narrowly
focused on women's 'choices', which it understands as being constrained both by a
lack of information about scientific and technological work and by a masculine image
of science and technology which, it infers, is alienating to women. Drawing on empirical
research which examined both women's and men's occupational decision-making processes,
this article takes issue with this construction of the problem, arguing that whilst
the assumptions of the WISE discourse cannot be supported empirically, the discourse
itself nevertheless continues to structure and limit the space women have to speak
of the conflicts and contradictions they experience, explanations for which require
a better understanding of the ways in which subjective experiences of both gender
and sexuality impinge upon work choices." (author's abstract)|