The “Truly Creative” Florists: When Creativity Becomes a Gendered Privilege

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how creativity is displayed among florists working in Switzerland, and how exactly gender plays out in this process. It investigates how the florists refer to creativity as a natural skill, according to which criteria these “creative identities” are allocated, and how gender intersects with this allocation process. Drawing on thirty-six months of ethnographic research in various occupational settings, I will examine the gendering of creativity and its unequal allocation among workers in a highly feminized occupation. This article brings to light that although the scope for creativity is first presented as equally distributed among women and men, it becomes gendered upon a closer look: male florists tend to be perceived as truly creative. The resulting inequality is important to understand in order to unveil certain underlying mechanisms at play: even in a highly feminized occupation, masculinity appears to be strongly associated with professional competence.

Keywords

gender florists sociology of work sociology of occupational groups creativity

It’s a vocational occupation. You will have a poor wage all your life. You will work like crazy and in abominable conditions. In winter, it’s cold, and you will freeze because it’s wet. You know all that. However, here you are . . . because you like this occupation!¹

This quote above is an almost indoctrinated statement. Nicolas,² a florist and teacher of a professional training course for future florists, repeats this to his students from the moment they start their apprenticeship. He stresses that being a florist is not financially appealing and that the occupation must therefore be practiced with passion.³ Also, because one likes this occupation, one would be ready to accept the poor working conditions. It is well known that the occupational commitment in a so-called creative workplace setting does not always match the monetary restraints of a market economy of exchange (Menger 1999). For this reason, researchers have previously analyzed workers’ self-understanding of a “calling” or “inner drive” as a recurring feature in their personal narratives (Menger 1999). The florists I met emphasized a particular “non-monetary reward” (Menger 1999, 555) that compensates for the little pay and the demanding work conditions, namely, creativity.

One of the research problems addressed in this paper is the gendering of creativity, its unequal allocation among the workers, in a highly feminized occupation. It sets out by exploring how passion and creativity—as artistic ideals and must-haves—are referred to as innate skills within the florist occupation, and will investigate how creative identities are allocated. Although the scope of creativity is first presented by florists as unlimited and equally distributed among women and men, it is highly gendered upon closer look: male florists tend to be perceived as naturally and truly creative and are therefore more highly regarded than their female counterparts. The inequality that results from this gendering is key to unveiling certain social mechanisms at play: even in a highly feminized occupation, masculinity is strongly associated with professional competence and performance.

This ethnography will address and analyze the distinctive attribution of particular strengths, such as creativity, to either men or women. The paper’s specific contributions are twofold. First, it advances theory about the “doing gender” approach (West and Zimmerman 1987) by presenting and analyzing various situations and ways in which, and through which, gender is made relevant. Second, the paper contributes to the sociology of work, particularly service occupations, by examining the (gendered) mechanisms at play in a feminized occupation. In so doing, the article explores the notion of glass-ceiling and glass-escalator. This will help to better understand the mechanisms at hand and therefore contribute to a better understanding of when gender matters in the workplace and how it becomes relevant for workers, that is, when gender is done. If the paper’s discussion on creativity primarily focuses on how creativity is referred to as an innate skill and contributes to a working definition of the florist occupation, the paper is also relevant to critical social research on creativity.

The article is structured as follows: first, I discuss two areas of study this article draws on, the doing gender approach and the body of work around atypical occupations. I will also tackle some definitions of creative labor, creativity and gender inequality. Next, I provide a brief overview of the florist occupation in Switzerland. I will then explain my methodological approach before turning to the empirical part of this article: In the findings section, I will first outline how creativity, portrayed as a vocation, is not only considered a natural skill and resulting from a calling, but also as a mandatory if not most important skill for doing the job. I will show that creativity necessarily overlaps with commercial imperatives and therefore question creativity as the one skill that matters. Next, I will show how creativity becomes a gendered privilege: even though floristry is generally associated with femininity through stereotyped characteristics, my findings reveal that within the occupation, the scope for creativity is limited by gender: men are more frequently ordained the truly creative members of the profession.

Doing Gender and Atypical Occupations

I conceptualize gender as pervasive and an intrinsic part of everyday life. Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman state that “gender” is neither a rigid variable, nor a social role, but the product of “social doings” (1987, 129) and something that is constantly accomplished in interaction. The notion of “doing gender” therefore refers to the social construction of differences between men and women (West and Fenstermaker 1995), that are in no way “natural” but that become real through the everyday interactions that legitimize the binary nature of sex and gender categories. Gender serves as an organizing feature of work organizations (Connell 1987), which makes them an ideal site for the social production of difference (West and Fenstermaker 1995). For instance, there is a great deal of research that has analyzed the implications of minority status for male and female career paths, stressing the asymmetrical and unequal consequences for men and women (Bourdieu 1998; Fortino 1999). While the notion of a “glass ceiling” has become commonplace in the analysis of women’s experience within “male bastions” (Buscatto and Marry 2009), the term “glass escalator” (Williams 1992, 1993, 1995) appears most suited to analyzing the mobility patterns and to describing the advantages that accrue to the small number of men who enter female-dominated occupations (Zinn 2017). “Masculinity” often still goes with leadership and competence whatever the professional context (Heintz et al. 1995, 52), and those qualities associated with masculinity still tend to be more highly regarded than those associated with femininity (Schein 2001, 683). This is why men more easily attain positions of power and influence. In other words, being a man in a highly feminized occupation can translate into an advantage (Charrier 2007; Le Feuvre 2007; Williams 1995). Some authors have been more interested in the implications of such atypical career choices for the gender order (Connell 1987; Lapeyre 2006) or from the perspective of weakening or challenging gender boundaries more generally (Le Feuvre and Laufer 2008; Le Feuvre and Zinn 2013). This body of literature tackles the significance of the apparent inversion of traditional sex roles and overwhelmingly concludes that despite individual “transgressions,” the dominant gender order remains intact (Le Feuvre and Zinn 2013).

Floristry, “Creativity,” and Gender Inequality

“Creativity” here refers to two elements: first, Banks and Hesmondhalgh (2009) define it as work that “is geared to the production of original or distinctive commodities that are primarily aesthetic and/or symbolic-expressive, rather than utilitarian and functional” (416). Also, the production would often be artistically—rather than economically—driven. Second, all the florists I have met during my fieldwork claim that “creativity” is an essential component of their work. In this sense, I also use “creativity” as a member-recognized category, defined here as “the eagerness to look for special things and combine different textures” (Stéphane, self-employed, aged 37). Or as another participant put it, creativity “means to have this artistic fiber, to have an attraction to vegetal forms and materials” (Marielle, florist employee, aged 27). Creativity is about art and self-expression (Neff, Wissinger, and Zukin 2005), and florists highlighted the fact that they love to imagine and then create floral arrangements in order to live their creative inklings on the job. Mathieu, another respondent, put it this way: “For me, creativity means that you know how to create your own world.” In other words, their consideration of creativity seems closely linked to an artistic ideal. Interestingly, the florists themselves take up a stereotype featuring the typical creative “as driven by passion” and all about “Do What You Love” (Conor, Gill, and Taylor 2015, 2), which possibly compensates for the long hours and little pay. There is a great deal of research tackling gender inequalities in creative labor⁴ that has for instance revealed that creativity is primarily seen as a “feminine” strength (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2015; Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997; Sang, Dainty, and Ison 2014). If the florist occupation is more commonly associated with femininity through stereotyped characteristics of women and men and their expected effect on occupational competence, we will see that the scope for genuine creativity tend to be limited to male florists.

Florists in Switzerland

The most recent data from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (OFS) indicate that of the 6,122 florists in Switzerland, only 366 (6 percent) are men. Since the beginning of the Swiss Occupation Census in 1970, the profession has had a clear-cut majority of female workers (OFS 2011). In fact, the number of male florists has been slowly decreasing since the 1970s. Becoming a florist usually involves a thirty-six-month apprenticeship, leading to a nationally recognized diploma, or a “CFC”⁵ (CSFO 2012a). This is acquired in one of two ways. The first is entirely through an apprenticeship in an established floral business, such as an independent floral shop or garden center, during which the would-be florists have class once a week. Alternatively, this happens through a dedicated course at a vocational school, during which the students do more limited internships in florists’ shops.⁶ Although it is legally possible to set up a floral business or to work as a florist without a certified diploma, more than 80 percent of Swiss florists are qualified in this way (OFS 2011). Nearly 20 percent of florists are self-employed. They own or rent a workspace, pay themselves from their commercial profits, and usually employ salaried collaborators and one or two apprentices. Employment conditions within the floral industry are gendered in important ways. For example, whereas 52 percent of the male florists are self-employed, this is only the case for 17 percent of their female counterparts (OFS 2012a). However, because the occupation is statistically female-dominated, the vast majority of florist shops in Switzerland (n = 1,027) are nevertheless owned and run by women (men: n = 190) (Zinn 2017). Furthermore, 351 of the 366 male florists (96 percent) work full time,⁷ in contrast to 74 percent of their female counterparts. Compared to the Swiss average of just 42.2 percent of women in full-time jobs (OFS 2012b), the rate of female full-time work in this industry is surprisingly high. Two specific characteristics of the occupation could explain this high rate, though (1) women’s discontinuous activity patterns,⁸ and (2) the low wage levels of salaried florists in Switzerland: although there is no legal minimum wage, the florist’s professional association recommends a full-time salary scale for skilled laborers⁹ (SPFA 2012) that puts salaries in the lowest quartile of the Swiss wage range (OFS 2008).

Florists’ Tasks

In terms of workplace activities, my field observations revealed that florists undertake the following tasks: cutting and preparing fresh flowers, welcoming clients in the shop, giving advice, creating the compositions in accordance with the clients’ wishes, organizing deliveries and delivering flowers, carrying equipment that can be heavy (such as vases, flower pots, or bags of potting soil), “attractively” arranging commercial outlets and decorating various locations with flowers for social events, such as weddings or funerals (CSFO 2012b). Official career advice documents also confirm these primary tasks.

Figure 1.

Front and back stage. Pictures taken in three different flower shops in Switzerland and Chicago.

Self-employed florists will do a number of additional, secondary activities, including obtaining the “right” flowers at the right time by anticipating demand, negotiating prices at auctions, bookkeeping, stock control, and staff management. All of these tasks are associated with specific skills that are considered to be important for the occupation: social and business acumen, imagination and creativity, and manual abilities. Creativity therefore necessarily overlaps with the social skills required to achieve recognition for this from their clients, in the form of customer loyalty. This last point is an important one that I will return to later.

Research Methods and Setting

The data¹⁰ used to build the arguments in this article are taken from a larger research project on florists based on field notes and interview data collected between 2012 and 2016 in various occupational settings (vocational training schools, flower markets, etc.). As for how I decided upon the particular locations for fieldwork, I drew on what Baszanger and Dodier (1997) have labeled “multi-situated,” or “combinatory,” ethnography, in which the ethnographer circulates across different field sites as she is trying to follow the phenomenon under consideration. A main focus has been put on three florist shops located in the center of a small city in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and in a medium-sized town in the French-speaking part of the country.

The data are made up of fieldnotes from participant observation in various settings, from semistructured interviews (tape-recorded and transcribed) with florists and teachers, informal discussions and overheard conversations with the people in the workplace. I conducted 12 formal interviews with female (7) and male (5) florists. Half of the participants are shop owners, one is a florist teacher, the others are salaried florists and apprentices. Two of my interview contacts had been established through personal networks and both of these florists gave me the names of other possible contacts. In another case I just entered a flower shop and asked to interview the owner. Most of the interviews took place on the workplace while the florists were doing their work. A small number of them were conducted during lunch break. Some of the interviewees I met only once for the interview, some others I knew from before as I was doing participant observation at their workplace.

Regarding the observations and given the importance of apprenticeships and hands-on training, my presence did not appear incongruous. In fact, my work generally followed the standard processes of integrating trainees into the occupation in Switzerland, where becoming a florist involves a thirty-six-month apprenticeship in an established floral business. Each teenager who wants to train as a florist is obliged to do an internship prior to the apprenticeship. What’s more, I believe that having informants who primarily saw me as a student who was interested in their occupation and ready to have hands-on involvement was a significant advantage in negotiating the internships and in gaining direct access to the occupation. Additional data were gathered during a three-month unpaid internship at a florist on the south side of Chicago during spring 2014. This article is primarily based on data collected in Switzerland, but I will use a vignette from my American field site to highlight an issue about how costumers orient to sex categories.

My role in the field can be described as both an ethnographic researcher and florist trainee as I became an intern in order to do participant observation in the field (Cefaï 2002). The observations took place over several months, starting with one whole week on the premises, followed by shorter periods (two to three consecutive days) once a month. In one of the shops, I have been doing fieldwork for almost two years. In all cases, I acted as an intern, with hands-on involvement in the daily activities of the shop—that is, consistent participation in the tasks, following the florists around and doing the small tasks that they wanted me to do. Although the majority of these tasks I was assigned were clearly more those of an unskilled laborer (preparing and processing flowers, cleaning, carrying equipment, delivering flowers), I was regularly empowered to do a florist’s tasks as well, such as designing various arrangements that were sold in the shop.

Only overt observations (Fine 1993; Gold 1958; Cefaï 2010) were carried out, insofar as all florists within the workplace settings knew who I was and why I was there (i.e., as “a student doing a sociological study of florists and who is interested in questions related to gender”). One could argue that “gender” is a sensitive topic and that an ethnographer should not prime her research subjects to its study in order to increase the chances of researcher-acceptance and to decrease researcher-influence on the data collected. I made it standard practice instead to disclose my status to my research participants. This did not mean that I announce all my specific research goals and interests, but the fact that I do research and on what. In this sense, I use what Fine (1993) calls “shallow cover” when it comes to information control and informed consent. Since I was responsible for working while in the shop, I was generally not able to take notes on the spot. Instead, I wrote down notes from my daily observations when I got home in the evening or the next day (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995, 27–30). The field notes I produced were as exhaustive as possible, particularly toward the beginning of the study when everything was new and I was not sure what patterns would emerge. The simultaneous processes of collecting and coding data and then going back and forth into the field to elaborate on those codes have helped to better understand my subjects, step by step (Pattillo 1998). The conclusions for this article were reached through a constant reexamination of the field notes, analytic memos (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995), and interview transcripts, to find where significant themes emerged. These themes included both elements reflected by the interview guide and themes that emerged after the data were collected (Sang, Dainty, and Ison 2014). In other words, the analysis developed both inductively and deductively (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995, 27–30; Katz 2001; Strauss and Corbin 1998). The quotes and vignettes featured in this article emphasize the key elements of the empirical data and have been selected for their ideal-typical characteristics (Sumerau, Padavic, and Schrock 2015).

Findings

Naturalizing Creativity

The strength of the profession that my research participants most often referred to—in informal discussions, interviews, and ordinarily in the workplace—was “being creative” and “having an eye for flowers.” Although it is both a mandatory characteristic for doing a good job and a reward for being a florist, it is usually seen as an innate, rather than an acquired, skill: “Either you have it or you don’t” (Stéphane, self-employed, aged 37). When I asked Peter (self-employed, aged 41) to explain exactly how I should arrange the flowers for a bouquet, he did not give any explanation but stated that if anyone could learn the basic principles of flower-arranging techniques, the creative inklings could not be taught. He thus shares a similar vision with Stéphane: both of them consider creativity a natural strength. Also, most respondents believe that the passion for the occupation starts very early on in life. In fact, becoming a florist has often been presented as a logical consequence of a “natural calling.” Thus, according to Nicolas,

If one of my students never had his own kitchen garden, no balcony, no access to nature . . . that wouldn’t necessarily make him or her a bad florist, but it’s true, I would be surprised that they would want to train as a florist. It would be weird, that’s true, so, I think that one who spent a lot of time outdoors, surrounded by nature, as a young child is more capable, is sensitive to the evolution of the four seasons, etc.

Being creative and becoming a florist are presented as resulting directly from a vocation that started at a very young age. Marielle articulates this sentiment clearly:

I always actually wanted to do that [become a florist]! Since I was really little, I was attracted to flowers. It’s too funny. In photo albums, there are pictures where I am looking into the camera while picking flowers in the tray in front of the house. There are pictures where I have my nose in the flowers or where I am in the woods making bouquets or stuff like that . . . I always loved it, you know? And, um, when I went to the florist, I was there and watching the flowers and said I wanted to become a florist. I always knew I wanted to do that.

A good florist is passionate since early childhood and creative by nature. Creativity is seen as a natural strength that is linked to the idea that being a florist is a vocation and not a simple job.¹¹ In other words, one is made (or not) to be a florist. This vocation also explains why one continues to be a florist in spite of the precarious working conditions, particularly poor pay, that indicate one is not in it for economic reasons but rather as a result of a calling. I often heard in my different field sites that “one needs to be passionate to persist as a florist.” Because they are so highly dedicated to their careers, florists are inclined to put up with their precarious work conditions. Or at least this is the narrative many florists tell themselves to stay motivated in the job. Dedication is thus framed as a larger ideal within the occupation. Buscatto’s (2004) jazz musicians manifest a very similar dedication to their activity as the florists I have studied. The musicians present their activity “as a fulfilled ‘self’ expression form invading all spheres of private and professional life” (36). In becoming musicians they “express a stronger passion than reason: their vocation” (Buscatto 2004, 43; my translation). This romantic conception of conveying the florist solely as a creative and passionate artist is in fact much more complex. Commercial imperatives oblige the florists to adapt to the customer’s request.

Creativity and Commercial Imperatives: The Gendering of the Product

To what extent can one be “creative,” achieve artful designs and still please the customers and, in so doing, be a good salesperson? I wrote in my field notes regarding gendered preferences of clients:

Vignette 1: “Business is business!” (Monroe Florist, April 24th, 2014)

Scott, who co-runs the shop with Anissa, shows me the paper forms they fill out for any incoming order, indicating the kind of bouquet or arrangement (colors, type, etc.) the customer’s request. I look at these forms and notice one of them, which mentions orders for a “feminine” or for a “masculine” bouquet. “So, the client specifies that it’s for a woman or a man, right?” I ask. “Oh, yeah, they do that all the time!” says Scott.

Later that morning when Anissa comes back from the market, she takes two bouquets out of the cooler. One has bright red colors, the other more pastel and pink shades. “Are these the masculine and the feminine bouquets?” “Yeah, they are,” she says, laughing. I want to know whether the customer has indicated that it is for a woman and a man: “Yes, she did,” says Anissa. “It’s stupid, I know! I usually say there is no such thing as a masculine bouquet. It’s true that most men don’t like pink flowers, but otherwise it’s the same. It’s stupid, but business is business! It’s the same in every service occupation.”

The “masculine” bouquet	The “feminine” bouquet

This excerpt demonstrates two things: first, how customers orient to sex categories.¹² Certain attributes are thus bound to the device of “gender” (Stokoe 2004; Sacks 1972) and considered female or male—in other words, the material (colors, size, and types of flowers) becomes gendered. For instance, some categories are linked to other categories, such as “pink shades” and “women” or “bright colors” and “men.” This result clearly highlights the central premises of the “doing gender” approach: certain attributes are thought as more or less appropriate for either men or women. Gender is socially constructed and made relevant on the interactional stage, here between laborers and their customers. People are held accountable (Garfinkel 1967) for their behavior or preferences through which gender is done and actualized. Second, and to put the focus back on creativity, the florists react to these requests in adapting their design, which means they are constrained by customer satisfaction. I am thus arguing that creativity is tempered by the (supposed) gender preferences of clients. Commercial imperatives and creativity therefore overlap. This interplay makes it particularly interesting to examine Anissa’s claim that “business is business.” She also labels her profession as a “service occupation,” and stresses “customer satisfaction,” despite the fact that “service” might be at odds with artistic license. This is why from a sociological point of view portraying florists solely as creative and passionate artists is no longer congruous. We have to take into account that a florist is not only someone with imagination, as many of my informants stressed. She or he also has to have the social skills required to achieve recognition for this from her or his clients, in the form of sales and customer loyalty and respect certain tacit rules that make the flowers last longer. In other words, a good florist is also a good salesperson. Florists have therefore to balance commercial imperatives and customer service while working with a natural medium, making creative arrangements. However, creativity is clearly a must-have for florists. The next section will address in more detail the distinctive attribution of creativity and analyze the gendering of creative inklings.

The Truly Creative Florists: When Creativity Becomes Gendered

How are creative identities allocated among florists? Which florists actually get to be creative at all? Is there anything like a “super-creative core” (Florida 2002) constituted by the truly creative members of the occupation? For my respondents, creativity is seen as an innate, rather than acquired, skill. At first, it did not appear to be gendered. For example, when I asked Stéphane to discuss his vision of the occupation, he stressed that there are men and women who have no creative inklings, thus implying that, just like some of their male counterparts, all women are not necessarily particularly suited to this occupation. Mathieu (self-employed, aged 38) states, “sex doesn’t matter at all, as long as the quality is there. The rest is not important.” Since men and women are seen as having potentially equal capacity for floral creativity, we could infer that these florists demonstrate weak gender accountability (Garfinkel 1967; Heritage 1984; West and Zimmerman 1987, 2009; Hollander 2013). However, upon closer inspection, these gender-neutral narratives seem to account for the fact that they are florists, working within a highly feminized occupation, but nevertheless are still “real men” (i.e., “an honored way of being a man” [Connell and Messerschmidt 2005]). Insisting on the gender-neutral character of creativity helps to legitimize their choice of occupation. In other words, florists clearly demonstrate a high level of orientation to sex categories:

As a man, becoming a florist proves that you really want to be a florist because for a man it is less obvious; it is very unusual. And by really wanting to become a florist, you have to try harder than anyone else, and then it is much easier to have your own business and to be self-employed. (Dominik, self-employed, aged 31)

Dominik believes that male florists have a clear advantage over women in terms of their determination and perseverance. Being a man is seen as a guarantee of being particularly motivated to get involved in the job. If men are statistically not very likely to become florists, it is assumed that those who do choose this occupation must have to have a kind of disposition or a creative instinct. This disposition is then portrayed as a sign of authentic¹³ skills that, in the end, turn the few male florists into the truly creative members of the occupation. According to my respondents, it is precisely because becoming a florist represents such an exceptional choice for male florists that their career paths are more often upwardly mobile than those of their female colleagues. The scope of creativity becomes unequally distributed, and men tend to be considered the truly creative members. Even in occupations statistically dominated by women, “masculinity” is strongly associated with professional performance (Schein 2001, 683) and leadership. Men therefore more easily attain positions of power and influence (Williams 1993). They take their gender privilege with them when they enter female-dominated occupations despite their numerical underrepresentation (Williams 1995). In other words, the male florist’s atypical status in a feminized occupation is a bonus (Charrier 2007; Le Feuvre 2007). The overwhelming idea that men tend to be considered better florists than most of their female counterparts has repeatedly emerged in my field sites. Men make up only 6 percent of those in the occupation, but more than half of these male florists are independent shop owners against only 17 percent of all the female florists (OFS 2012a). Furthermore, the male florists are more qualified and hold more visible positions than their female counterparts: for instance, 25 percent of men have a diploma that provides a solid foundation for starting a business,¹⁴ compared to only 5 percent of the female florists. In addition, the central committee of the Swiss florist association is composed by three men out of four members.¹⁵ At last, the florists in charge of Switzerland’s six largest flower markets are all men. Beyond the statistical reality, there is also a more subtle but dominant discourse within the occupation about women’s lack of commitment to the labor market that would justify the men’s over-representation in the most rewarding sectors of the occupation. It was striking to what extent, each time I entered a new field site, the female florists and shop owners became almost invisible, as the dominant discourse within the occupation conveys shop owners and successful florists as men. Sandra says: “The great florists are often men (laughs). Unfortunately, again the men! It’s very often them . . . and then the normal florists, the “small hands,” are the girls, so again, the men are put on a pedestal.” If creativity is at first hand considered a feminine strength (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2015; Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997; Sang, Dainty, and Ison 2014) and floristry therefore more commonly associated with femininity, mechanism at hand contribute to exclude women from the scope of genuine creativity (Koppman 2014). The men are therefore featured more easily as the potential shop owners. Sandra goes on: “As a male florist, you literally have to be the shop owner. I think it is, it’s written in their genes. The man the boss, the woman an employee, that’s how it goes! I know very few male florists employees . . . it’s horrible to say, but I think it’s still like that in our society.”

Discussion and Conclusion

This article has set out by investigating how “creative identities” are allocated and how gender intersects in this allocation process within a highly feminized occupation. My findings offer a broader understanding of the importance of creative labor within the floral industry and have brought to light various mechanisms of gender inequality in the workplace. Throughout, creativity appears as both a mandatory characteristic for doing a good job and a reward for being a florist. Creativity is also portrayed as an innate skill rather than as an acquired competence. This article has then tackled how creativity is displayed among florists: whereas the scope of creativity is first presented by florists as equally distributed among women and men, it is highly gendered upon closer look: male florists tend to be perceived as “naturally” and “truly” creative and are therefore more highly regarded than their female counterparts. This finding has strong parallels with Nochlin’s (1971) research on women artists in which the author shows that great women artists are “hidden” (4), as the figure of the artist is associated with a “male genius” (6). Nixon’s research in advertising argued that the gendering of creative roles was reinforced by a legacy of associations between masculinity and creativity (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2015, 33), suggesting that women could at best express taste rather than “true” creativity (Nixon 2003). The scope for genuine creativity is thus limited to some workers, and the sex category is the decisive variable in this allocation process. The men are seen as making an exceptional choice, which is taken as the sign of a kind of disposition and authentic skills—they must have the vocation for doing this job. If the florist occupation is more likely associated with femininity, within the occupation, male florists are presented as being particularly creative. In other words, creativity becomes a gendered privilege (Thanem and Wallenberg 2016) within the florist occupation. These findings show that gender is determined (Schilt and Westbrook 2009) and ordinary assumptions about it are locked into place through categorization processes (Baker 2000). That a sex category determines whether one is or is not creative is only possible when the binary conception has been done and has become institutionalized so that people can be held “accountable” (Garfinkel 1967) for their behavior, tastes, or preferences. By investigating how gendered assumptions are locked into place, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how and when gender is done in the workplace. The gendering of creativity unveils that even in highly feminized occupations, “masculinity” appears to be strongly associated with professional competence. It is therefore important to look into how gender is done in order to understand the inequality that results from the distinctive attribution of particular strengths, such as creativity. I close by considering the broader theoretical significance of my findings. By addressing the gendered attribution of particular strengths, such as creativity, the article’s specific contributions advance theory about the “doing gender” approach and suggests underlying mechanisms at hand in female dominated occupations. Gender differences are not given nor are they static, but negotiated. The notion of “doing gender” therefore refers to the social construction of differences between men and women (West and Fenstermaker 1995). These differences then become real through everyday interactions. The individual transgressions, men doing “women’s work,” therefore do not challenge gender boundaries but confirm a larger set of gendered inequalities that accrue advantages to the small minority of men within the occupation.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

ORCID iD

Isabelle Zinn

Author Biography

Isabelle Zinn is a postdoctoral fellow at Goethe-University in Frankfurt and the University of Chicago (SNSF Fellowship). She is interested in gender inequalities in the workplace, the articulation of life spheres, and “work ethics”. Her current research examines various “peripheral” occupational groups working in nursing homes for the elderly and how they take charge of the old age.

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