Becoming an Engineer or a Lady Engineer: Exploring Professional

Engineering Studies

ISSN: 1937-8629 (Print) 1940-8374 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/test20

Becoming an Engineer or a Lady Engineer: Exploring Professional Performance and Masculinity in Nepal’s Department of Irrigation Janwillem Liebrand & Pranita Bhushan Udas To cite this article: Janwillem Liebrand & Pranita Bhushan Udas (2017): Becoming an Engineer or a Lady Engineer: Exploring Professional Performance and Masculinity in Nepal’s Department of Irrigation, Engineering Studies, DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2017.1345915 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2017.1345915

Published online: 09 Jul 2017.

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Date: 11 July 2017, At: 00:56

ENGINEERING STUDIES, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/19378629.2017.1345915

Becoming an Engineer or a Lady Engineer: Exploring Professional Performance and Masculinity in Nepal’s Department of Irrigation Janwillem Liebranda and Pranita Bhushan Udasb a Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands; b International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal

ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

In this article, using the Department of Irrigation in Nepal as a case study, we argue that professional performance in irrigation engineering and water resources development is gendered and normalised as ‘masculine’. In Nepal, the masculinity of professional performance in irrigation engineering is located in intersections of gender, class, caste, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality and disciplinary education, and hinders especially female engineers to perform as a ‘normal’ engineer. Our analysis is based on interviews with male and female engineers in the department, documentation research, and ethnographic observations in the period 2005–2011. Our study suggests that professional performances and engineering identities in the organisation have always been tied to performances of masculinity. This implies that career prospects in the Nepalese irrigation department for female engineers remain grim; because for them to succeed and belong, they have to reconcile the near incommensurable: a performance of a ‘lady engineer’ with that of a ‘normal’ engineer.

Received 5 June 2016 Accepted 29 May 2017 KEYWORDS

Engineering; masculinities; gender; irrigation; water; Nepal

Introduction This article explores the gendered nature of professional performance in irrigation and water resources development, a field of engineering and expertise that has been qualified by feminist scholars as very ‘masculine’.1 The focus is on the Department of Irrigation (DOI) in Nepal, a government agency dominated by male (civil) engineers. We aim to study the gendered processes that shape and articulate professional identities and performances of masculinity in engineering. We broadly define ‘performances of masculinity’ as those practices and ways of being that serve to validate the masculine subject’s sense of himself as male/boy/man.2 We conceive masculinity to work in dynamic ways. Historically men CONTACT Janwillem Liebrand [email protected], [email protected] Management Group, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands 1

2

Water Resources

Lynch, “The Bureaucratic Tradition and women’s Invisibility in Irrigation,” 1993; Laurie, “Developing Development Orthodoxy,” 2005; Zwarteveen, “Men, Masculinities and Water Powers in Irrigation,” 2008, “Questioning Masculinities in Water,” 2011; Udas and Zwarteveen, “Can Water Professionals Meet Gender Goals?” 2010; Ongsakul et al., “Normalizing Masculinities in Water Bureaucracy in Thailand,” 2012; Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014; and Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities, 2002, p. 5.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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J. LIEBRAND AND P. B. UDAS

have occupied the professional domain in Nepal and the dominant presence of men in engineering especially helps to produce a particular masculinity in society. And vice versa, performances of masculinity help bring about a particular gendered irrigation profession in Nepal, making it normal for men to be an engineer. Such an approach may not resolve the theoretical debate in gender studies on why or when to call something or someone masculine, but it pragmatically enables us to trace some of the associations between gender, masculinity and ‘normal’ professional performance in irrigation engineering and water resources development. In Nepal and elsewhere in South Asia, employment prospects in engineering have never been encouraging for women.3 To date, a popular image of engineering as an all-male career is hegemonic in South Asia.4 This is particularly true for the public sector. At the same time, the problem of female underrepresentation in engineering in South Asia has become more acute and contested. In India and Nepal, for instance, there has been a 50-fold increase in engineering education in the last 6 decades, a trend that has increased both male and female student enrolment.5 In India, in some states, female students now even outnumber male students in some engineering disciplines.6 In India, Bangladesh and Nepal, a small but steady number of female engineering graduates is being produced, but only few of them have secured an engineering career in irrigation and water.7 In the 1990s, in Nepal, at the graduate level, women constituted just 8% of the workforce in the agricultural and natural resources management sector, covering the civil service (including the DOI), NGOs, INGOs and the private sector.8 In 2011, this number had increased to 12% of the staff in the civil service, but to only 3% in the engineering service of the public administration.9 To compare, in India, in 2002, women constituted just 8% of the workforce in science and technology.10 In addition, in 2004, Parikh and Sukhatme reported an unemployment rate for women engineers in India of 31–55% compared to an estimated 15–20% among men.11 These figures suggest that gender inequalities in engineering have remained firmly in place in South Asia, in spite of an increased and large availability of meritorious women (graduate) engineers. Saliently, the liberal and progressive idea that everybody can, and is entitled to, become a capable and ‘normal’ engineer remains hegemonic, both in the West and in South Asia. This humanist idea underpins donor-funded development cooperation in the region, including in Nepal. It is widely shared among engineers, development practitioners and

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ERA, Middle-level Manpower Follow-up Study, 1973; Shrestha et al., Job Environment and Job Consciousness of Agricultural Graduates, 1980; WECS, Maximizing the Participation of Nepali Human Resource in the Ministry of Water Resources, 1984, Series I. Changing Role of Women in the Water and Energy Sectors, 1991, Study Report on Professional Development Opportunities for Women in Nepal, 1996; HMG/N, Human Resources Development Study, 1989; Parikh and Sukhatme, “Women Engineers in India,” 1994, “Women Engineers in India,” 2004; Adhikary, Women Graduates in Agriculture and Forestry Development in Nepal, 1995; Karmacharya et al., “Demand and Supply of Women Professionals in the NRM Sector in Nepal,” 2003; Parikh et al., “Job Status and Career Profile of Women Engineers in India,” 2003; Gupta, “Indian Women in Doctoral Education in Science and Engineering,” 2007; and SaciWaters, Situational Analysis of Women Water Professionals in South Asia, 2011. 4 Nair, Women in Indian Engineering, 2012, p. 34. 5 Parikh and Sukhatme, “Women Engineers in India,” 2004, p. 193 and Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014, pp. 104–112. 6 See Nair, Women in Indian Engineering,” 2012, pp. 12–17. 7 SaciWaters, Situational Analysis of Women Water Professionals in South Asia, 2011. 8 Adhikary, Women Graduates in Agriculture and Forestry Development in Nepal, 1995, p. 15. 9 Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014, pp. 61–68. 10 Gupta, “Indian Women in Doctoral Education in Science and Engineering,” 2007, p. 512. 11 Parikh and Sukhatme, “Women Engineers in India,” 2004, p. 195.

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academia who believe in the meritocracy and impartiality of science and technology.12 Illustratively, in Nepal, views on the ‘entry’ of female engineers into the DOI go unchallenged. In the period from 1991 to 2011, it continued to be positively described in policy and research reports as something ‘recent’13 and ‘changing’.14 These descriptions hint at strongly held beliefs that emancipation and gender equity (should) come with time, as a trickledown effect of education, progress and modernisation. However, the figures suggest precisely the opposite: engineering for professionals in Nepal is not fulfilling these ideals. Our intention is to challenge these beliefs and assumptions, and explore cultural norms and masculinities in the profession of irrigation engineering. For our analysis, we rely on a literature review, questionnaires and interviews with DOI staff, and ethnographic observations in interactions with DOI staff, conducted in the period 2005–2011 as part of two PhD projects.15 We (Liebrand: Dutch, male; and Udas: Nepalese, female) were originally trained for the profession of agriculture and water management. Our educational background provided us with good access to the community of water professionals in Nepal, including irrigation engineers at the DOI. Our interviews also included a group meeting with (almost) all female engineers in the DOI.

Conceptual entry point and method of analysis The DOI can be considered a masculine engineering department in the sense that it is numerically dominated by male engineers. In 2011, the agency had 447 officers as core personnel (gazetted class categories) out of which 335 officers (79%) were engineer by education, mainly civil engineers (see Table 1). In 2011, the department had 20 female officers (4%) among its core personnel; 18 were engineer by education. Many of these female officers were junior engineers, who had entered the DOI recently (after 2008). In selecting the DOI for a case study, we are fully aware that our conceptualisation of the department as a ‘masculine’ organisation touches directly on contentious questions at the heart of the masculinity debate in feminist scholarship (e.g. how to distinguish between sex and gender, why to label something as ‘masculine’; is a profession masculine per definition when it is numerically dominated by men?).16 This debate is still open. To grasp the gendered dynamics of job performance and normalcy in the DOI, we analyse professional performance as ‘cultural performance’.17 The meaning of cultural performance is derived from public drama and staged or theatrical performance; it can be defined as follows: to show off, to perform behaviour as expected, to act according to social norms, or to underline an action for those who are watching.18 In the field of irrigation studies, Rap was the first scholar to apply this theory. He uses it to show that ‘success’ in irrigation 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

Gupta, “Indian Women in Doctoral Education in Science and Engineering,” 2007 and Armato, “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing,” 2013. WECS, Series I. Changing Role of Women in the Water and Energy Sectors, 1991, p. 24. SaciWaters, Situational Analysis of Women Water Professionals in South Asia, 2011, p. 14. Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014 and Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014. Kimmel, Changing Men, 1987; Gilmore, Manhood in the Making, 1990; Bourdieu, “Masculine Domination Revisited,” 1996; Whitehead and Barrett, The Masculinities Reader, 2001; Connell, Masculinities, 2005; and Connell and Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity,” 2005. Turner, The Ritual Process, 2008; McKenzie, Perform or Else, 2001; Schechner, Performance Studies, 2006; and St. John, Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance, 2008. Schechner, Performance Studies, 2006, p. 28.

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Table 1. Discipline or job background of core personnel in the DOI. The sum of gazetted first, second, and third class categories Discipline or job Civil engineering Agricultural engineering Mechanical engineering Geo-hydrology Administration Miscellaneous Total

Number

Percentage

294 46 15 38 32 22 447

66 10 3 9 7 5 100

Source: Chief Administrative Officer of the DOI, August 2011.

policymaking is part and parcel of a ‘cultural performance’ in policy networks.19 In the cultural performance view, ‘being normal’ in the DOI is not simply an outcome of merit and innate technical skills and knowledge, or of one’s capacity and personal network to secure promotion opportunities. It simultaneously is an outcome of one’s ability and desire to perform ‘on stage’, to create a credible voice for oneself.20 In this view, professional authority and success comes in specific cultural forms and bodies, being enacted through particular ritualised practices, as visible in professional traditions and skills, and performed through a ‘stylized repetition of acts’,21 as expressed in dress, behaviour and stereotypes. To illustrate: normal job performance in the DOI is primarily associated with fieldwork (for project implementation and construction) and male engineers – not with female engineers. Consider for instance the following quote by a female engineer in the DOI, who is recalling her job experiences in relation to fieldwork: [In the DOI], I always become like a second option [for field work]. If the men don’t want to go, if the men have some problem, then [they ask me]; ‘do you want to go?’ or ‘is it okay if I send someone else?’ [Working with female engineers] is always like a second choice for them [male engineers]. And even if I go ( . . . ), they scratch their head and they say ‘okay, if you are going, then we have to change the whole [plan]’. ( . . . ) it’s a whole new arrangement for them [and] they have this headache if they have to take a lady with them. And ( . . . ) recently, I asked some of my [male] seniors, if they want some new engineers in their department ( . . . ); [they said to me] if you have a male subordinate, it is easy for us, because we can call them anytime we want, seven o’clock in the morning, twelve o’clock at night, and we say ‘come to the office in the morning, we have to go to work [in the field]’; we [men] can accept to come where ever, whenever; we can work if we have to go to [the] field, just come on, pack your bags and we move, it’s okay, but if it is a lady, we cannot say that, we have to think ‘Oh God’, we cannot go ( . . . ) where we want.22

As can be derived from this quote, normal job performance is associated with what male engineers do, working in the field, and for this, female engineers are seen as a problem. It reveals that female engineers in the DOI are seen by their male colleagues as ‘ladies’ – or ‘lady engineers’ as they also are known in the DOI. It is a label that helps to legitimise the treatment of a female engineer as an exception or ‘second choice’ for fieldwork. The quote suggests that one’s capacity for professional performance and one’s desire to perform well

19 20 21 22

Rap, “The Success of a Policy Model,” 2006, “Cultural Performance, Resource Flows and Passion in Politics,” 2007. Hilgartner, Science on Stage, 2000. Butler, Gender Trouble, 1999, pp. 178–179. Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent G.

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on the job is deeply tied up with a cultural performance of ‘the engineer’. More specifically, fieldwork appears to function as a practice for engineers that serves to validate the professional subject’s sense of ‘himself’ as a man: ‘we’, ‘men’, ‘engineers’, ‘seniors’ and ‘subordinates’ doing fieldwork – as opposed to ‘ladies’ (or lady engineers) who are not supposed to do it. In this article, we dig further into this performance of masculinity in engineering in Nepal, exploring how and by whom it is supported, studying its institutional and societal location, and analysing what it means for engineers in the DOI. First, we present empirical evidence from interviews of engineers about their experiences on the job, mainly using excerpts from our group interview with women engineers in the DOI.23 We focus on working in the field. We pay specific attention to the gendered meanings that are ascribed to it, exploring how it might be associated with a culture of masculinity. Second, mainly using literature review, we explore how professional performances in the DOI intersect with the dominant national culture in Nepal. The social identities of ‘engineer’ and ‘lady engineer’ in the DOI hint at a relatively straightforward process of alterity, the social construction of identity through a process of ‘othering’.24 Yet, Gupta posits in her study on two Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the position of women doctoral students in science and engineering that the ‘informal milieu’ at engineering institutions is also influenced by the social context of a national culture because they are embedded in society.25 In South Asia, class, caste, and ethnic social divisions and nationality shape societies in critical ways.26 Notably, in Nepal, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the state promoted a patriarchal Hindu caste system for society.27 In this article, we explore how a process of othering in the DOI intersects with existing social divisions in society in Nepal. Third, using document research and literature review, we trace the historical context in which a ‘built in’ culture of masculinity in the organisation of the DOI might have developed. Taking inspiration from Connell’s work on hegemonic masculinity,28 conceiving ‘men and masculinities’ to relate in a normative hierarchy, we focus on laying bare (historical) contestations (among male engineers and professionals) that have shaped social hierarchies in the department. We conceive these hierarchies as the ‘cultural infrastructures’ of professional performance in the DOI. Oldenziel uses this term in her study on the development of the engineering profession in the US to describe how (male) engineers, in building machines and infrastructure, shaped gendered cultural norms and social stereotypes to guard the new engineering profession as the domain of white middle-class men.29 We intend to make a plausible case for the proposition that many of the contestations among engineers in the DOI, as visible in the shaping of mandates, projects and staff recruitment, became shaped around a ‘masculinisation’ of professional work. With this term, we describe a process of ‘naturalisation’ of ‘normal professionalism’30 in irrigation, as being increasingly associated 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

The group interview with women engineers in the DOI was done in English. Whitehead and Barrett, The Masculinities Reader, 2001 and Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014. Gupta, “Indian Women in Doctoral Education in Science and Engineering,” 2007, p. 508. Mohanty, Class, Caste and Gender, 2004 and Höfer, The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal, 2004. Gellner et al., Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal, 2008, pp. 39–78 and Tamang, “Legalizing State Patriarchy in Nepal,” 2000. Connell, Masculinities, 2005. Oldenziel, Making Technology Masculine, 1999. Chambers, “Normal Professionalism,” 1988, pp. 68–85.

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with ‘men’ and building structures or ‘hardware’.31 In this article, we use the terms cultural infrastructures and informal milieu as a synonym, as we understand them to relate to both social stereotypes and cultural norms.

Fieldwork and normal professional performance Fieldwork in engineering, entailing travel, staying overnight and residing in rural areas for project implementation and construction, is essential for getting exposure and it provides junior engineers with a basic professional foundation. Fieldwork is part and parcel of job activities in the DOI and it enables engineers to improve, test and update their knowledge and skills. It also provides engineers with critical opportunities to show their profession to colleagues, beneficiaries and other public. In many ways, fieldwork is thus an important professional performance for engineers. More specifically, it represents ‘more interesting, dynamic and challenging work’32 or the real thing among engineers, as researchers already observed in 1984 in a policy report on the participation of Nepali human resources in the water sector in Nepal. As the real thing, field work is associated with making a project work, from design to construction, and engineers are expected to develop a deep passion for it. In the DOI, as illustrated by the quote above, fieldwork is strongly associated with normal professional performance. In interviews, male engineers in the DOI typically spoke very enthusiastically about fieldwork, with heightened emotions, recalling pleasures and hardship. They emphasised how it had shaped them as a professional and person in life. For instance, one of the senior DOI engineers that we interviewed, in telling about his life, started talking freely, as in a flow, once he recounted his first experiences of fieldwork as an engineer. He recalled the difficulties that he had faced in working with farmers and mixed ‘his’ stories with vivid explanations of the technical intricacies of the torrential bottom intake (or Tyrolean weir), a structure that is suitable for turbulent mountain streams.33 In such an account, an experience of the masculine self, working with structures and technicalities in engineering are inseparably connected. Such an intense quality of experience suggests that participation in fieldwork in the DOI functions as a tradition or rite of passage for engineers in becoming ‘normal’, at least for men. In contrast, for female engineers, it occurred to us that fieldwork is a clearly traceable point in time when difficulties start in their jobs. They are expected to perform as ladies and lady engineers – not as engineers. In this context, Adhikary already observed in 1995 for women graduates in agriculture and natural resources management in Nepal that fieldwork is not considered a respectable profession.34 She writes, ‘women themselves and their families tend to distrust this type of employment regarding it as unsuitable, and risky to ( . . . ) her social reputation’.35 We found this attitude among female engineers in the DOI, as exemplified by quotes by two junior female engineers that we interviewed: 31 32 33 34

35

Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014, p. 160. WECS, Maximizing the Participation of Nepali Human Resource in the Ministry of Water Resources, 1984, pp. 6–7. Interview on 7 July 2010. Adhikary, Women Graduates in Agriculture and Forestry Development in Nepal, 1995, p. 37; see for similar statements: WECS, Series I. Changing Role of Women in the Water and Energy Sectors, 1991, p. 24; and WECS, Study Report on Professional Development Opportunities for Women in Nepal, 1996, pp. 20–21. Adhikary, Women Graduates in Agriculture and Forestry Development in Nepal, 1995, p. 37.

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Being an engineer, after doing my graduation and after joining office [DOI], I am supposed to go to the field office, and develop my [experience] in the field, but I am married and I have a child, so I am, in a way, compelled by social [norms]; I cannot go, I cannot travel ( . . . ).36 They [her in-laws] don’t really give arguments [like], you cannot go to the field, but silently they are speaking. They are speaking silently that we [women engineers] cannot go to the field. And that is the major problem. They cannot [tell] us that we cannot go to the field, [or] we cannot do this, we cannot do that. If they speak out, ( . . . ) we could conquer their feelings, we could ( . . . ) be sure what they are saying, but they don’t speak out; it is our major problem, they are just speaking it silently ( . . . ).37

The first quote illustrates a reluctance among some female engineers in the DOI to go to the field, and the second explains about the social pressure from in-laws. As can be surmised from these quotes, women engineers in the DOI are expected and aspire themselves to adhere to a norm of a ‘good’ woman. As female respondents explained to us, many women engineers are not prepared to risk ‘their’ dignity and the honour of ‘their’ family in practices that are implicated in the performance of an ‘engineer’. Family members monitor ‘their’ behaviour, particularly female in-laws. ‘Good’ behaviour implies for them seeing ‘their’ family life as a priority and enacting a performance that observes ‘the limits’ (not being loud, not being too frank and free with male staff, being decent and properly dressed) to make sure that embarrassing situations are avoided. The quote below by a junior female engineer illustrates this dynamic, explaining how she observed a situation at a workshop outside the capital (one hour’s drive from Kathmandu): We [she and one female colleague] just organized one workshop in Nagarkot. This is a national level workshop. And, we viewed [male colleagues’ behaviour] over there. [There were a] few seniors ( . . . ); me and another lady ( . . . ) went over there, and men were drinking. It is not ( . . . ) that we cannot drink. I don’t drink, and a few of [the men] don’t drink, and if they drink ( . . . ) that is fine, but we were so shocked by the behaviour of some of our very senior supervisors, very good supervisors that we were thinking no! Everybody was dancing!38

The quote illustrates a performance of modesty that a ‘good’ woman and ‘lady engineer’ in the DOI is supposed to show: in the presence of men, a ‘good’ woman should not see, or expose herself to, ‘loose’ behaviour such as dancing. According to female engineers, the same cultural dynamic is a reason for male engineers in the DOI to be reluctant to work with them in the field. Senior male engineers feel ‘additional’ responsibility for female engineers, as they substitute the role of (male) family members in the professional environment. Women engineers reported dealing with protective and fatherly male engineers. They treat junior female engineers as ‘their’ daughters, and they consider the deeds of female engineers under their supervision as ‘their’ responsibility. This behaviour of senior male engineers is illustrated with the following quote by a junior female engineer in the DOI: They [senior male engineers] think themselves ( . . . ) to be responsible for a lady ( . . . ). In fact, [when] getting a ( . . . ) male engineer in their office, they don’t feel ( . . . ) responsible for their deeds, [and] they don’t have to be responsible for the male engineers or male staff.

36 37 38

Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent D. Interview on 5 August 2011, respondent B. Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent D.

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But in the case of female staff, ( . . . ) they are compelled to feel responsible and they don’t want it.39

The quote above suggests that (young) female engineers are seen as a risk and burden by (senior) male engineers, as they feel that they have to guard the women’s reputation. Female engineers also reported that male engineers are not willing to accept the presence of a female engineer in the field for other reasons. Some of these reasons are illustrated by quotes by two female engineers: [Male engineers] will say whatever they want to, [but with female engineers] they control their speech ( . . . ). They [also] have to control their drinking and their smoking, their dirty talk, and everything, ( . . . ) the whole environment, so [male engineers] feel awkward [with female engineers].40 I stayed there [Sanga, six hours away from Kathmandu] for almost four days, and ( . . . ) there were all male engineers and male staff. [In the] evening, we had ( . . . ) dinner together, and after dinner, they sat for gossip, [and for] some kind of job-related things. I was eager to hear what they say, what they speak, [because] I am new to my field. I want to explore more, listening to them as well, listening also matters a lot. And I wanted to sit before them, I want to hear ( . . . ) their conversation [and] I want to add my opinion, but ( . . . ) the chief of that office wanted me to go out and have my sleep in [the] next room. Every time he was saying that. I was arguing ‘no sir, it is okay for me, I can handle this.’ I don’t know why he [said] that, [because] some gents engineers were saying it is okay if she stays here, but he was continuously arguing me to go out. I don’t know why, and from [the] second day, ( . . . ) he was feeling kind of ashamed. And [the] second day, I told [him] that, being with male engineers, I [was supposed to] feel a bit awkward, [but] I did not, [saying] that ( . . . ) I am okay with the situation, but he was not ready to accept it.41

These two quotes suggest that some male engineers perceive the presence of female engineers in the field as a threat to male comradeship. Men in Nepal, in the presence of women, especially in upper caste cultures (see elaboration in the next section), are expected to refrain from low and joyful ‘male’ practices such as drinking, smoking, dancing, dirty talk and playing cards. We reckon that it is exactly these type of activities that mark fieldwork as a rite of passage for becoming an engineer. They belong to a tradition and normal professional culture in the DOI. It partially explains why fieldwork is such a cultural taboo for female engineers. In explaining why women engineers are ‘unfit’ for fieldwork, male engineers in the DOI typically used the sex argument, the idea that women are biologically weaker than men. They stated for instance that women lack the physical stamina to participate in fieldtrips. They also stated that women need more elaborate toilet facilities because of the biology of menstruation. The sex argument is remarkable, because about 40% of the population in Nepal consists of rural women who take upon their shoulders heavy workloads in agriculture and prepare food, menstruate, bear children, walk long distances and make use of primitive toilet facilities in the field. It also ignores the fact that some women professionals in Nepal have always worked in rural areas, as home scientists and community development

39 40 41

Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent B. Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent F. Interview, 5 August 2011, respondent B.

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experts.42 In other words, the idea that women engineers are ‘unfit’ for engineering and fieldwork is a social idea – not a biological reality. It is a cultural taboo being played out. Overall, the quotes suggest that fieldwork is the paradigmatic experience for constructing and reconfirming male and engineering identities in the DOI – for the possibilities it provides to display features that have come to be associated with engineering ingenuity and masculinity. Women (engineers) are not supposed to aspire to, and undertake, fieldwork; and for a male engineer, the most effective way to protect his status and identity, and the associated material access to resources, career opportunities and promotion, is to treat the female engineer as a ‘lady’. For this purpose, the repertoire of discriminatory practices is almost infinite within a male dominated environment. The status of a female engineer can be questioned in gossip, as the women at the meeting explained. People can say that she is a woman of loose morals, working with men. A woman can also be subtly harassed in dirty talk when she meets male colleagues, causing an embarrassing situation for her and making her part of it. ‘Her’ social reputation is then discredited and a culture of normalcy among men is restored. The stereotype of the ‘lady engineer’, as performed by female engineers themselves and their families, and by their male and female colleagues, is clearly highly problematic for women engineers in the DOI. It puts them in a subject position in which they constantly need to prove and explain that they are capable professionals. Tellingly, the female engineers in our meeting stated that they had liked our invitation for the interview, because it had addressed them as ‘engineers’ – not as ‘lady engineers’.

National culture in Nepal and the DOI’s informal milieu The social identities of the ‘engineer’ and ‘lady engineer’ reveal a process of othering in the DOI. The authority and professional performance of (male) engineers is partially based on a marking of female engineers as ‘unfit’ for the job. In the DOI, this process of othering is influenced by the dominant national culture in Nepal. Social stereotypes and cultural norms in the DOI’s informal milieu intersect with existing social divisions in the country, along the lines of class, caste, ethnicity, sexuality and nationality. These intersections give a specific location to performances of masculinity among engineers in the department. The dominant culture in Nepal continuous to be defined by a patriarchal Hindu caste system and specific hegemonic norms of compulsory heterosexuality, as exemplified by arranged marriages.43 More specifically, the Bahun and Chettri hill castes and the (ethnic) Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley, whose male members constituted the ruling classes in the Rana era (before 1951), also came to dominate the civil service after 1951.44 This male elite also controlled new opportunities for engineering education in Nepal (after 1960). As a result, the civil service in Nepal is characterised to date by a relatively homogenous ‘male’ culture that is associated with high class and upper caste. In 2007, 72% of all 42 43 44

Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014, pp. 68–90; see also: Adhikary, Women Graduates in Agriculture and Forestry Development in Nepal, 1995, pp. 11–13. Tamang, “Patriarchy and the Production of Homo-erotic Behavior in Nepal,” 2003, p. 250. Nepal society is characterised by a Hindu caste system that originates from the hills. In this system, the Bahun (priests) and Chettri (warriors) occupy the highest tiers. They are known as the hill castes. In addition, Nepal has various ethnic groups, the Newar of the Kathmandu Valley being one of them. The Newar can be Hindu or Buddhist and they also have a caste system. For the sake of the argument, we ignore here differences within caste groups, such as among hill Bahun and among Newar Bahun caste groups.

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the gazetted class positions (core personnel) in the civil service were occupied by Bahun, Chettri and Newar people,45 whereas these groups constituted just 37% of the population in Nepal.46 Interestingly, the engineering profession in the civil service in Nepal forms a notable exception. In Nepal, relatively many male Madhesi – considered a marginalised group in Nepal – are employed in engineering, also in the DOI. The Madhesi are known as the castes of the Tarai (to be distinguished from indigenous Tarai groups such as the Tharu).47 Historically, the Madhesi are not part of the state elite, except for a few members.48 Nepalese is not their mother tongue and, to date, this affects their employment opportunities in the Kathmandu-based civil service and aid industry. With the start of development in Nepal in the 1950s, it appears that engineering was recognised by Madhesi as an opportunity to claim membership in the circles of the country’s elite, much like middle-class men in America, as described by Oldenziel, sought to fit themselves into a new industrial-urban system around 1900 by laying claim to the engineering profession.49 In this history of marginalisation, upper caste Madhesi men appear to have shaped the engineering profession as a particularly masculine one. Compared with the Bahun, Chettri and Newar hill castes, Madhesi caste cultures are more conservative, and gender disparities tend to be more strongly articulated.50 For instance, Madhesi castes have a stricter dowry system than hill castes, comparable to regions in India. In fact, this practice, according to some male Madhesi engineers, was (and is) directly linked to the popularity of engineering studies among the Madhesi; sons with an engineering degree are seen as more desirable marriage candidates and their families can ask for a higher dowry. The culture of the informal milieu at the DOI has also been shaped by a project of national integration and state expansion. In 1963, King Mahendra promulgated a legal code to create a single national culture based on Hindu norms, introducing ‘the concept of a single system of family law, and by implication, a single family form, for the whole country’.51 To invent and standardise ‘the Nepali family’, an interpretation of the Bahun–Chettri form was taken as a model.52 The role of women as wives and mothers was promoted and the predominant ideal for women was duty and obedience. Each (female) individual was ranked according to hegemonic principles of male superiority and respect for age. The other ideal was the sacredness of consanguine women, whereby higher status females rank over younger males.53 In this particular ‘Hindu’ template, the social and sexual reputation of a woman (ijjat) was also the currency of men and needed to be secured, her dignity being an issue of honour and family reputation.54

45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Poudyal, “Dynamics of Formal and Informal Institutions Shaping the Administrative Culture,” 2009, p. 42 and 58. DFID/WB, Unequal Citizens. Gender, Caste and Ethnic Exclusion in Nepal. Summary, 2006, pp. 17–18. Geographically, Nepal can be divided in three zones: mountains (Himalaya), hills (up to 3000 metres) and the Tarai (plains at the foothills, stretching into India). For clarification, the Madhesi category includes both Hindu castes and a Muslim minority. Regmi, A Study in Nepali Economic History, 1768–1846, 1972 and Regmi, Landownership in Nepal, 1976. Oldenziel, Making Technology Masculine, 1999 and Frehill, “The Gendered Construction of the Engineering Profession in the United States, 1893–1920,” 2004. Gellner et al., Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal, 2008, pp. 241–273. Gilbert, “Women and Family Law in Modern Nepal,” 1992, p. 737. Gilbert, “Legal Rights and Social Strategies,” 1993, p. 67. Bennett, Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters, 2002, pp. viii–ix. Tamang, “Patriarchy and the Production of Homo-erotic Behavior in Nepal,” 2003, p. 253.

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The promotion of ‘the Nepali family’ in the Panchayat period (1960–1990) has critically shaped the informal milieu at the DOI. The propagation of these norms by the state encouraged the development of separate gendered spheres of the feminine domestic realm of the private (for women) and the masculine realm of the public (for men), producing a form of state patriarchy in Nepal.55 More recently, state patriarchy has been challenged by ethnic discontent and a Maoist’s people’s movement, but to date, women engineers in the DOI continue to be associated with their bodies according to a family ideology, normalising the view of women as natural wives and mothers. The dominant perception is that the primary duty of educated, high class, upper caste Hindu women especially – and women engineers in the DOI tend to be from these ranks – is to safeguard ‘their’ social status by acting purely and chastely. In contrast, the duty of educated, high class, upper caste men is to act ‘professionally’. Symbolically, these perceptions intersect in Nepal with the Hindu religion Ardhanarishvara (the half man-woman deity) and the Buddhist philosophy Yin Yang, which both represent the male and female character in duality, as part of one whole. In Nepal, the mix of these ideologies continue to shape a dominant notion of physics for boys and biology for girls. It discourages women from opting for physics at higher secondary school (16–17 years old), which is a pre-requisite for engineering education. Instead, they are encouraged to choose biology with a view to entering medical professions.56 In the context of these ideologies, fieldwork in the DOI, for female engineers, is a taboo and associated with ideas of risk and danger, and purity and pollution.57 Both male and female engineers repeatedly referred in interviews to ‘security concerns’ and ‘safety issues’ for women to explain why fieldwork is (more) risky for them. Especially women of upper caste rank and education are expected to perform as ‘ladies’ and observe ‘their’ purity according to caste norms. The concepts ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’ in Hindu orthodoxy have a specific meaning and touch upon a broad set of practices – not only on the sexual reputation of upper caste women.58 Polluting activities for a Hindu can be walking on the street, touching certain other people, or eating inappropriately prepared food. The strictest teachings prescribe that smoking, drinking alcohol and eating meat are polluting practices. This is also true for behaviour such as gambling and playing cards or dancing. Especially for upper caste men, menstrual blood is seen as a source of pollution. The degree to which Hindu orthodoxy is followed by people varies enormously in Nepal,59 but, generally, expectations for upper caste women are higher than for upper caste men, and norms of purity need to be observed more strictly in the presence of upper caste women. ‘Security concerns’ and ‘safety issues’ for women engineers in relation to fieldwork primarily relate thus to issues of social status, not necessarily to an actual or perceived threat of sexual harassment, although this was also reported to occur. The idea alone that a woman of upper caste is seen among men who are not part of the family – think of a female engineer

55 56 57 58 59

Tamang, “Legalizing State Patriarchy in Nepal,” 2000, p. 127. Udas, “Situational Analysis of Women Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2011, p. 126. Cf. Turner, The Anthropology of Performance, 1987, The Ritual Process, 2008. See for a background: Höfer, The Caste Hierarchy and the State in Nepal, 2004; Bennett, Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters, 2005; and Gellner et al., Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal, 2008. Gellner et al., Nationalism and Ethnicity in Nepal, 2008.

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Table 2. Associated characteristics of the ‘engineer’ and ‘lady engineer’ in the DOI. ‘Engineer’

‘Lady engineer’

He Men Middle and higher classes Upper caste Bahun, Chettri, Newar, Madhesi Norm (large in number) Senior, intermediate, junior levels Real engineering work (‘Hardware’) Fieldwork Reliable (for fieldwork) Capable and competitive Strong (physical stamina) Rational Corruptible First choice Shirt, pants, shoes or official dress for men Use of cars and bikes Comradeship (drink, smoke and dance)

She Women Middle and higher class Upper caste Bahun, Chettri, Newar Exception (few in number) Junior levels Complementary work (‘Software’) Office work (e.g. training, design) Liability and burden (for fieldwork) Need special treatment Weak Emotional Honest, decent Second choice or left over Saris, sandals or official dress for women Walking, public transport, brought to work Threat and risk

Source: Compiled on the basis of interviews and ethnographic observations.

who works in a team of male colleagues – can already cause security concerns for her and her family. It can be seen as a safety issue because it can discredit her social reputation. The existence of the Nepal Engineers’ Wives Society is another example of this ideology. The society was set up in 2001 by some active wives of engineers, following the example of the Nepalese Army Wives Association and its equivalent for the police. The organisation operates as a social welfare organisation, focusing on ‘women’s issues’. It combines blood donations and breast cancer briefings with the celebration of Hindu festivals. The society is a venue for engineers’ wives to perform as ‘ladies’ of high class and upper caste status, enabling them to show their reputation to peers among the elite. The intersections and cultural norms described above, in a dynamic of alterity, produce gendered dualisms that are at the heart of engineering identities.60 In the DOI, they translate into persuasive social stereotypes for ‘engineers’ and ‘lady engineers’ (see Table 2). These gendered dualisms and associated stereotypes inform professional performances in the department, guiding who, and with what activities, is entitled to be acknowledged as a normal engineer. In principle, this is true both for male and female engineers, but it is especially female engineers who face difficulties in having ‘their’ professional performance acknowledged as ‘normal’. Hence, women in the DOI can do well as ‘lady engineers’, but lady engineers, by definition, are the ‘other’ and of a lesser value (see Table 2).

The cultural infrastructures of irrigation engineering in the DOI In this last section, we trace some of the historical context in which a ‘built in’ culture of masculinity in irrigation engineering might have developed. As a way to show that gendered discrimination among engineers in the DOI has helped to shape the profession, we focus on laying bare normative hierarchies in the department, studying the shaping of mandates and projects, and processes of staff recruitment. Our intention is to explore a history of 60

Zwarteveen, “Questioning Masculinities in Water,” 2011, pp. 45–46.

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‘naturalisation’ or ‘hardening’ of normal professional performance in irrigation engineering, characterised as being increasingly associated with ‘men’. The DOI was originally established by the government of Nepal with the help of India in 1952 as the Canal Department.61 With the fall of the Rana autocracy in 1951, the new government of Nepal embarked on a project of modernisation in an open country. The newly independent India formed an example for Nepal. With the help of five top Indian civil servants – who we assume were all high class, upper caste men – a completely new government structure and civil service was created.62 It was modelled after the Indian civil service, which in turn was a product of the British colonial administrative system.63 Also, the new Ministry of Public Works under which the Canal Department was placed was influenced by the Indian example. A retired Indian, male irrigation engineer from the Punjab was nominated by India, at Nepal’s request, to act as first chief engineer.64 The government of Nepal mandated the department, as its sister agencies in India,65 to construct canal works in the country for irrigation supply. For this purpose, the agency recruited mainly civil engineers and overseers. These were men because engineering education and women attending schools in Nepal then was near to non-existent. Newly recruited Nepalese engineers came almost exclusively from Indian engineering colleges. One of these was Roorkee College (now IIT Roorkee), established in 1847. It was the first (civil) engineering college in British India. As described by Zwarteveen,66 these types of colleges in British India were exclusive elite and male domains. They functioned as sites for the cultivation of ideals of Victorian manliness. They were places where associations between athleticism, militarism and performances of professional authority, race and manhood were forged in a colonial context. Strong cultural hierarchies among males, between white ‘higher’ British and ‘lower’ Indian students of colour, and between engineers of different rank, were shaped through connections between (civil) engineering and the army in British India. These connections characterised a new ‘masculine’ culture of engineering in the region, including in the DOI. Illustratively, between 1956 and 2013, 9 out of 13 Directors General of the DOI (all male) were trained at Indian engineering colleges.67 These links were further institutionalised by the Indian Aid Mission (IAM) in Nepal, which acted as the prime financer of the department in the formation years. In the context of new international development cooperation, India’s dominant influence in the shaping of the department was contested by the Americans. US technicians spoke disdainfully about the Indian emphasis on public works and their ‘bricks and mortar’ mentality.68 Such a statement suggests an (aid) politics and a shaping of cultural hierarchies among (foreign) professionals. We reckon that it partially resolved around an articulation of new performances of masculinity, because both Indian engineers and US technicians were primarily men at that time – men of different nationality, colour, caste and educational background. Eventually, the Indian influence in the department’s growth was most fiercely contested by Nepalese officials and engineers themselves, especially following the installation of the 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

DOI, Human Resources Assessment of DOI, 2008, p. 4. Shrestha, Readings in Nepalese Public Administration, 2001, p. 3. Stiller and Yadav, Planning for People, 1979, p. 91. Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014, p. 148. Gilmartin, “Scientific Empire and Imperial Science,” 1994, p. 1131. Zwarteveen, “Questioning Masculinities in Water,” 2011, pp. 43–45. Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014, p. 149. Skerry et al., Four Decades of Development, 1992, p. 43.

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Panchayat democracy in 1961 by King Mahendra. This move was couched in nationalism: ‘[k]ey to the legitimization of indigenous [panchayat] control over the state apparatus in Nepal was the doctrine of “development” – bikas – as “the national project”’ (emphasis original).69 More Nepalese (male) engineers were recruited and the promotion of ‘national’ irrigation works became a priority for the government.70 This move helped male engineers of the DOI to claim the characteristics of all strong statesmen of new independent nations – national pride, virility and individuality.71 In the context of foreign assistance, most arguments in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s however were about mandates and projects of various government departments. In the field of irrigation development, the discussion was mainly between male (civil) engineers and male agriculturalists, a group of professionals that included agricultural engineers. In general, irrigation works were considered critical in bringing about agricultural development and national progress,72 but the agriculturalists had ‘their’ own agency, the Department of Agriculture (DA). This agency operated as a rival agency to the DOI in the field of irrigation. Illustratively, the first countrywide irrigation programme, the Minor Irrigation Programme, was initially institutionalised in 1962 as a division under the DA, and only later under the irrigation department. In these discussions, irrigation engineers protected their profession vis-à-vis agriculturalists by articulating the mandate of the DOI as the ‘construction’ of irrigation works. By claiming that system construction is a ‘pre-condition’ for agricultural intensification, engineers obtained the upper position in a new cultural hierarchy among professionals. New norms of professional performance for engineers were articulated in the process, between men who do complex system construction (engineers) and men who engage with agricultural and irrigation management activities at the field level (agriculturalists).73 The competition among men in the government over mandates and projects found expression among engineers in terms that are to date commonly used in the DOI: ‘hardware’ and ‘software’.74 Hardware refers to the ‘real’ and important work of construction and software to management and organisational issues, such as farmers’ mobilisation and training activities.75 DOI engineers increasingly promoted and defended ‘their’ agency vis-à-vis the DA as an organisation for hardware – as an engineering department for structures. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ambitions of DOI engineers for public works construction were fortuitously met by loans for irrigation infrastructure development from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Together with the government, they promoted accelerated infrastructure development to remedy Nepal’s (perceived) food crisis.76 The goal was to extend infrastructure up to field level.77 These new plans and funds allowed DOI engineers to expand ‘their’ department into a large technical irrigation bureaucracy, from gate operators to overseers and engineers. These were the heydays of irrigation infrastructure development in Nepal. The DOI became a prestigious organisation in which the 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Tamang, “Dis-embedding the Sexual/Social Contract,” 2002, p. 314. Dahal, “A Review of Nepal’s First Conference on Agriculture,” 1997, p. 149. Cf. Tamang, “Dis-embedding the Sexual/Social Contract,” 2002, p. 315. Dahal, “A Review of Nepal’s First Conference on Agriculture,” 1997, p. 149 and pp. 158–159. WECS, Irrigation Sector Review, 1981, p. 91 and HMG/N, Human Resources Development Study, 1989, pp. 33–37. Udas and Zwarteveen, “Can Water Professionals Meet Gender Goals?,” 2010, p. 91. Udas, “Gendered Water Participation in Nepal,” 2014, p. 160. WECS, Irrigation Sector Review, 1981, pp. ii–iv. HMG/N, Master Plan for Irrigation Development in Nepal, 1970, p. S.1.

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‘engineer’ was associated with ‘men’ who were controlling technology, taming nature78 and creating new flows of water on underutilised lands. Events and changing circumstances in the 1990s and 2000s exposed DOI engineers to new challenges for their engineering status. Following the oil crisis of the 1970s and the government’s associated balance of payment problems in the 1980s, the state adopted neo-liberal aid policies Nepal from the mid-1980s onwards.79 For the DOI, this meant that the irrigation infrastructure development budget was cut by more than two-thirds between 1985 and 1995.80 The agency also was requested by the government to transfer financial and managerial responsibilities for irrigation systems to farmers under new irrigation management transfer policies.81 The latter meant in effect that the DOI had to downsize its bureaucracy in the 1990s, basically also by two-thirds.82 The new policies and donor calls for decentralisation and more ‘software’ (involvement of farmers in systems’ management) posed a threat to the dominant professional culture in the DOI. The division between the DOI and the DA, between ‘hard’ system construction and ‘soft’ irrigation management was identified by donors and administrators as deeply unsatisfactory.83 There were policy calls for the DA to claim a bigger say in irrigation affairs, particularly in the identification and screening of projects, but also in the design and construction phases. The new policies envisioned that irrigation powers would be taken away from the DOI and granted to the DA.84 These developments, quite literally, threatened to disempower or ‘emasculate’ the engineers of the DOI. In the context of policy reforms and budget cuts, a professional performance of engineering ingenuity, vis-à-vis (male) agriculturalists, no longer provided male engineers of the DOI with an uncontested status of being the ‘real’ and indispensable experts for irrigation modernisation. In response, we reckon, to restore ‘their’ mandate and reputation, DOI engineers have strengthened the image of the department as the lead agency in national irrigation and water resources development. In Nepal, a perceived lack of multi-purpose water resources development has always been identified as the main cause of the country’s under-development.85 In promising to capitalise on the huge water development potential of Nepal, DOI engineers claim a performance of being the ‘new’ builders of the nation, emphasising the need for ‘hardware’ for water resources development – not just for irrigation. In the course of the 1990s, this promise responded to popular appeal because it coincided with the fall of the Panchayat regime and the start of a new era of national democratic reform. In this capacity, development professionals and government officials see the DOI today as a principal actor in the broader field of water resources development in Nepal. Many senior DOI engineers, for instance, in the final years before retirement, take up a position in the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat, the prestigious national body for regional 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

HMG/N, Water Resources Development in Nepal, 1985, p. 1. Guthman, “Representing Crisis,” 1997, pp. 57–58. Liebrand, “Masculinities among Irrigation Engineers and Water Professionals in Nepal,” 2014, pp. 49–52. Singh et al., “Cultivating ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in Policy,” 2014, pp. 158–159. Khanal, Engineering Participation, 2003, pp. 136–137. WECS, Performance Review of Public Sector Intensive Irrigation Based Agricultural Projects, 1982, p. 12. HMG/N, Human Resources Development Study, 1989, pp. 57–70. Theuvenet, Report to the Government of Nepal on Irrigation, 1953; UN, Multi-purpose River Basin Development, 1961; HMG/N, Master Plan for Irrigation Development in Nepal, 1970, Water the Key to Nepal’s Development, 1981, Water Resources Development in Nepal, 1985; Gyawali, Water in Nepal, 2001; and Dhungel and Pun, The Nepal–India Water Relationship, 2009.

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(trans-boundary) water resources planning in Nepal.86 In promoting an image of the agency as leading in water, DOI engineers continue, to date, to cultivate a reputation of the department as an ‘engineering organisation’. In this sense, the DOI can be considered a typical South Asian, British-Indian style, public works department,87 meaning that careers and professional performances in the DOI continue to be closely associated with civil engineering – not necessarily with irrigation or agriculture itself. It implies that the DOI’s mandate continues to be articulated as the construction of irrigation systems and water works in the country, and that senior (male) officers in the agency, responsible for recruitment, continue to ask central administration for mostly civil engineers. It also means that the incentive structure in the DOI, as visible in staff performance and promotion evaluations, continues to be informed almost exclusively by construction work-based activities.88 By implication, because such activities include fieldwork, women engineers in the DOI continue to face challenges in being treated in the organisation as ‘normal’ engineers.

Conclusions and discussion In this article, we have shown that ‘normal’ engineering in the DOI requires ‘masculine’ performances, such as doing fieldwork in the context of project implementation and construction. Because female engineers, who assume such ‘masculine’ behaviour, tend to risk their social reputation and the dignity and honour of their family, as being educated women of high class and upper caste status, we expect that career prospects in the DOI for female engineers will remain grim for some time to come. Basically, women engineers face a double and paradoxical subjectification in the DOI. The ‘lady engineer’ provides for a socially arranged identity to make a woman engineer self-conscious as a professional, empowering her to act; but it also is an identity that secures her subordination as a woman in the organisation. As a result, women engineers face a delicate balancing act and deal with an impossible ‘choice’. Either they perform as a ‘good’ woman, educated and upper caste, observing their social reputation but risking their status as a professional and becoming seen as a lady engineer; or they try to perform as an engineer, building up working relations with male colleagues and pursuing fieldwork, but risking the prospect of losing their dignity and feminine status with all the negative consequences attached. In a nutshell, the female engineer’s subject position in the DOI consists thus of negotiating the near incommensurable – to reconcile a performance of a ‘lady engineer’ with the professional performance of a ‘normal’ engineer. This having been said, our analysis has also revealed that who and what is considered ‘normal’ among irrigation engineers is a matter of locality. The association between men, masculinity and engineering in Nepal is a historical construct, and one that has been cultivated through time. The irrigation profession had to be guarded as a field of expertise of engineers, first as the domain of a privileged group of men who aspired to positions in the state bureaucracy in the context of a project of national integration (1960s, 1970s, 1980s), and later, as a domain of technical expertise (of men) on ‘hardware’, structures and public works (from the 1990s onwards). The performances of the ‘engineer’ and ‘lady engineer’ in 86 87 88

See, for instance, Pradhan, “Personal Reflections,” 2009, pp. 243–267. SaciWaters, Situational Analysis of Women Water Professionals in South Asia, 2011. Udas and Zwarteveen, “Can Water Professionals Meet Gender Goals?” 2010, pp. 91–92.

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the DOI have thus a specific location, historically, culturally and geographically. They are embedded in, and help shape, a specific profession and society in Nepal, along intersections of gender, class, caste, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality and educational background. In Nepal, the ‘lady engineer’ is therefore best conceived as one among many cultural expressions of intersecting social differences in society and the engineering profession. Generally, our observations and analyses resonate with literature on engineering cultures and masculinity that focuses on the West.89 Oldenziel and Frehill, for the US, for instance, show how the engineering profession was made masculine.90 Faulkner, for the UK, describes how ‘engineering and pleasure in technology are (felt and perceived to be) “gender authentic” options for men and “gender inauthentic” options for women’.91 Typically, it appears, ‘women’, ‘ladies’, ‘lady engineers’ or whatever is considered ‘feminine’ seem to represent lesser value as a socially constructed norm. ‘Women’ appear to represent a socially arranged identity in engineering of being unfit for the job – an identity through which ‘men’ and ‘engineers’ represent a norm for professional performance. We iterate that this observation is a very global generalisation. For further research, we argue that the extent to which engineering cultures and their associations with masculinities can be compared across countries and continents needs to be posed as an open question. Notably, ‘masculine’ professional norms for irrigation engineering in Nepal are dominant but they also have never been totally hegemonic. In this article, we have documented various social processes that have influenced the performances of the ‘engineer’ and ‘lady engineer’: foreign aid, transformations in Nepalese society, policy changes and an increase of female engineering students – to name a few. In addition, a handful of women professionals have always undertaken (some) fieldwork in Nepal, as home science experts and community development specialists. And as illustrated by one quote, some (junior) female engineers in the DOI do fieldwork and some (junior) male engineers accept the presence of their female colleagues in it. These performances of women and men in the DOI reveal that norms for professional performance in engineering are being negotiated. Yet, it remains a matter of research and debate to what extent these negotiations, over a longer period of time, really pose a challenge to hegemonic norms in engineering.92

Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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