Sisterhood in the oil field: informal support networks, gender roles and adaptation among women in the Oklahoma oil field
The petroleum drilling industry exhibits a number of definitive characteristics, which combined with the most recent boom/bust drilling cycle, affect women in much the same manner as factors commonly associated with the eroding of women's social and economic positions within modernizing societies. Recognizing that modernization has a negative impact on women, this study focuses on strategies of adaptation employed by women associated both directly and indirectly with the petroleum drilling industry in an oil boom/bust town in western Oklahoma. Utilizing the traditional techniques of ethnographic interview and participant observation, it was shown that informal support networks formed by women enhanced women's adaptation by extending their resource base beyond the nuclear family and encouraging solidarity. Gender-based division of labor was also modified by western energy development. Boom times facilitated a rigid division of labor that gave way to a more flexible arrangement during bust times without a concomitant change in gender-based ideology. This was accounted for by differences in the rates of change for the underlying habits and values associated with the public and private sectors.
- Research Organization:
- Oklahoma Univ., Norman (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6081044
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
An Overview of Global Gender Initiatives for Women in the Nuclear and Radiological Fields
I'll have a collier for my sweetheart: work and gender in a British coal mining town
Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
OIL FIELDS
LABOR RELATIONS
OKLAHOMA
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
WOMEN
ANIMALS
FEDERAL REGION VI
FEMALES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
INDUSTRY
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
MAMMALS
MAN
MINERAL RESOURCES
NORTH AMERICA
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
PRIMATES
RESOURCES
USA
VERTEBRATES
020300* - Petroleum- Drilling & Production
294002 - Energy Planning & Policy- Petroleum
290200 - Energy Planning & Policy- Economics & Sociology