Equal Employment Opportunity: Women Bureaucrats in Male-Dominated Professions

The public sector prides itself on being a place where women and other marginalized groups can find shelter from workplace discrimination. Still, gender inequities are evident in the public sector workforce. In this article, interview data from city managers and police officers highlight the gendered internal organizational processes, arrangements, and interactions that impact women's experiences in male-dominated roles. Despite seemingly equal opportunities to access and engagement in these bureaucratic roles, the findings suggest that women constantly face gendered barriers and boundaries that directly impact their experiences on the job and their work-related outcomes. Legislative and administrative remedies are not sufficient to eliminate gendered experiences of women in maledominated roles. Rather, a cultural change from within the workplace is vital to realize the efforts of civil rights laws established more than 50 years ago.