How Identity Informs the Bicultural Context of South African Indian Women Engineers Vanishree Nundagopaul Pillay¹, Zanele Ndaba 2 , and Jenika Gobind² ¹University of Johannesburg, South Africa ²University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa vanishreep@uj.ac.za zanele.ndaba@wits.ac.za jenika.gobind@wits.ac.za Abstract: This qualitative study articulated the voices of 25 South African Indian women engineers through the exploration of their identities in a bicultural context. Data extracted from their life stories provided elucidation of participants’ bicultural identity navigation. This applied firstly in a personal context, historically known for its culturally driven patriarchal undertones. Secondly, their professional context, in a career dominated by men and deeply rooted in gender partiality against women engineers. Findings of this research indicated the transformed application of Indian cultural norms evidenced by (a) growing family support of a career that would – under Indian culture – be deemed unsuitable for an Indian female, and (b) an unexpected finding: the rise of a paternal motivator that contributed to positive socialisation informing autonomous career decision-making by participants. The continued dominance of men in the profession presented as a strong negative indicator adversely impacting fluid navigation. This article contributed to the literature on identity and biculturalism by considering an insufficiently studied sample of women. The findings and recommendations of this article provided previously untapped information about the identity challenges faced by bicultural female engineers in a male- dominated profession. Keywords: socialisation, gender, bicultural identity, engineering, Indian women, male dominance 1. Background Cultural prohibitions imposed on Indian women can be traced back to the days of imported indentured labour and even before, stemming from the land of their ancestry, India (Meer, 1972; Jaga and Bagraim, 2017; Jaga, Arabandi, Bagraim and Mdlongwa, 2018). The orthodox Indian norms and values systems instructing the socialisation process of Indian women were deeply embedded in patriarchal dominance that would have Indian women believe in their subservience to men (Bell and Nkomo, 1998; Bharuthram and de Kadt, 2003; Littrell and Nkomo, 2005; Khan, 2012; Ahmed and Carrim, 2016; Carrim, 2016). Indians, in comparison to Euro-centric cultures, viewed action by humans as being pre-destined; age and seniority were highly valued and helped constitute the wise who would be decision-makers… namely men (Chakraborty, 1995). Indian women traditionally had one purpose: the role of subordination (Carrim, 2012; Carrim and Nkomo, 2016). For South African Indian women, socialisation during early childhood and into adulthood favoured male over female, giving the former the ranking of head of household and the latter, subservience to her male counterpart with little to no agency (Meer, 1972). The ripple effect of racism and sexism from apartheid South Africa presents in the post-apartheid era as women of colour access opportunities in the workspace. This is evident with White males still dominating top and senior managerial positions, particularly in the private sector (Carrim, 2012). The Employment Equity Act No. 55 (1998) opened up opportunities for women in the workspace (Landman and O’Clery, 2020). However, implementation focused on race with only limited attention being given to gender inequalities (Landman and O’Clery, 2020). Discrimination against women in the workplace continues with men remaining dominant, delaying equal opportunities for all South Africans, especially women (Booysen and Nkomo, 2010; Musetsho, Isac and Dobrin, 2021). With women now occupying professions previously dominated by, and deemed “for men”, a sense of unease presents. This is caused by historic stereotypical perceptions about gender roles, with the notion of man being the “ideal worker” (Schein, Mueller, Lituchy and Liu, 1996; Ryan, Haslam, Hersby and Bongiorn, 2011; Wong, Liu and Klann, 2017). The engineering space is one of the most contested male-dominated spaces now shared by women (Hewlett, 2008). “Historically, women have faced systematic barriers with regard to their participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics” (King Miller, 2017:1). Barriers were fashioned from perceptions about the identities and roles of women that were current during past regimes of oppression (Hooks, 1989; Nath, 2000; Acker, 2006; Carrim, 2016). These perceptions ultimately gave rise to then-pervasive social inequalities that led 179 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Gender Research, 2022