Sociology of Families and Intimate Lives GENDERED FLEXIBILITY IN THE ICT-CONSULTING BUSINESS The Importance of both Individualization and Tradition in Balancing Work and Family in Post-Modern Living

New ways of organising work and family – new ways of constructing gender in organizations. How is the individualization in the post-modern society influencing the gender construction at work and in the family? In this paper I discuss the individualization that characterize the “post-modern” society from a critical feminist standpoint. In my research I elaborate on the consequences of individualization for the construction of gender as a social category in two types of organizations, work and family. I focus especially on the (changing?) relationship between the divisions of labour in these two organizations. The increasing individualization seems to indicate that our society should develop in a more gender-integrated society with fewer impediments for women in the labour market and a more equal labour-division in the family. Since the increasing individualization in our society usually is depicted as if our lives no linger are determined by tradition, structural categories as “sex” and “class” seems to lose in significance. In the labour market the development towards increasing individualization is manifested in organizational strategies as dehierarhization, decentralization, flexibility and through an emphasis on the employers individual competence and the individuals increasing responsibility for planning and realizing the work process. According to some feminist theories, networking, flexibility and demand for social skills in new organizations should mean fewer impediments for women in the labour market since it creates a new demand for female workers and a better opportunity for women to combine work in the “public” and the “private” sphere. Is then the new ways of organising work and family as a consequence of the individualization changing the way gender is constructed? In dealing with that question I am particularly interested in the IT-sector, a part of the labour market generally depicted as a symbol for the new postmodern society and usually the type of organisation described as displaying the new characteristics of the labour market. Previous research has revealed that contrary to the supposed relationship between individualization and increasing gender equality, gender-segregation and gender-hierarchising structures reproduces. Maybe individualization is changing the way gender is constructed without really changing the way gender is constructed without really changing the power-relation between women and men?