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Observing Inequality: Can Ergonomic Observations Help Interventions Transform the Role of Gender in Work Activity?

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Abstract

Work activity ergonomics (sometimes called francophone ergonomics) draws heavily on observation in order to support transformation of work to arrive at better health without interfering with productivity. Recently, ergonomists have attempted to integrate gender into their interventions. At the same time, ergonomists have been observing and documenting the importance of considering collective dimensions of work, thus including the construction of social relations among workers. Gender as well as biological sex can affect work activity through (1) Gendered job and task assignments; (2) Biological differences between women and men influencing the interface between work activity and the physical environment; (3) Gendered human relations at work, including sexual stereotyping, sexism, sexual harrassment, and sexual relations among workers and between workers and management or clients; (4) Manifestations of work-family articulation. But actually observing these phenomena poses various difficulties for the ergonomist. How can/should gender be observed by ergonomists? We describe a set of twenty studies, undertaken by ergonomists in collaboration with trade union women’s committees and health and safety committees, where observations were central. We describe in particular detail a study of work-family articulation. Participant and ergonomic observations of workers with highly invasive schedules assigned to cleaning transportation equipment, and relational analysis tools were mobilized to reveal determinants of work activity and some sources of social inequalities. Integrating observations of gender and other dimensions of social relations into ergonomic analysis and intervention is revealed as necessary, but not simple, and fraught with obstacles.

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Notes

  1. “Gender”, roughly speaking, refers to socially determined identity, while “sex” refers to chromosomally-determined identity. Fausto-Sterling (2005) and others have shown that few phenomena are exclusively determined by one or other of these, and that most male-female differences come from multiple interactions between individuals and their social and physical environment.

  2. One of the present authors (KM) was the founding chair of this committee. (http://www.iea.cc/about/technical.php?id=51dd5e2ab3de5)

  3. A similar agreement exists for a consortium of women’s groups, and ad-hoc agreements can be set up with eligible community groups. These activities also benefit from full-time personnel.

  4. In North America [unlike Europe], where union membership is universal once a majority of workers in a specific workplace have voted to join, this procedure involves participation by all workers, at least theoretically.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for valuable input from Quebec workers and their organizations. We acknowledge valuable discussions with Jessica Riel and Marie Laberge and among members of their research teams. We are thankful for grants from the Institute of Gender and Health of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Principal Investigator Marie Laberge), Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture (Principal Investigator Jessica Riel) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (J.A.Bombardier grant to Mélanie Lefrançois), as well as previous grants to the Invisible qui fait mal research team. We were greatly assisted by coordinators from the Université du Québec à Montréal Service aux collectivités (outreach service).

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  1. CINBIOSE and Institut Santé et Société, Université du Québec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C3P8, Canada

    Karen Messing, Mélanie Lefrançois & Johanne Saint-Charles

  2. School of Management, Université du Québec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C3P8, Canada

    Mélanie Lefrançois

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  1. Karen Messing
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  2. Mélanie Lefrançois
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  3. Johanne Saint-Charles
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Correspondence to Karen Messing.

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Messing, K., Lefrançois, M. & Saint-Charles, J. Observing Inequality: Can Ergonomic Observations Help Interventions Transform the Role of Gender in Work Activity?. Comput Supported Coop Work 30, 215–249 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-018-9337-x

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