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A Vicious Oval

Why Women Seldom Reach the Top in American Harness Racing

University of Pittsburgh

This article explores the gendered contradictions of visibility for self-employed women in male-dominated occupations. It provides a link between the extant literature on women’s workplace issues with visibility and the recent, dramatic increase in self-employed women, especially those who work in male-dominated fields. The author uses a harness-horse racetrack as the site for exploring the social mechanisms behind the invisibility and negative visibility experienced by these women in their work. Through an ethnographic study of their daily work experiences, an insidious pattern of events surfaced in which every path leads to the same endpoint: the underutilization of self-employed women in a male-dominated field. This article also explores the social processes and pressures that lead these women to contribute to their own oppression in male-dominated fields.

Key Words: self-employed • women • male-dominated fields • occupational sex segregation • visibility

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 35, No. 2, 119-147 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0891241605280444


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