論失業及其性別意涵之社會建構

The Social Construction of Unemployment and Its Gendered Meanings

王大維(Ta-Wei Wang)

《弘光人文社會學報》 9期 (2008/11) Pp. 177-200

https://doi.org/10.29933/SHSS.200811.0006

摘要

近年來台灣的失業及其衍生出的社會問題日益嚴重。過去國內對於失業的研究多半從實證主義與本質論的觀點，致力於了解導致失業的成因，卻鮮少從社會心理學的觀點去探究失業的象徵性意義及其對失業者的影響。本文的目的主要是透過文獻回顧與評論，以探究失業及其性別意涵的社會建構歷程。社會建構論被用來當做主要的理論架構，用以詮釋失業的論述形構及其對失業者的影響。此外，後結構女性主義的論點也被用來探討失業的性別意涵。本文以男性失業者為例，探究他們在社會中「男性即為養家者」的支配性論述之下，如何建構自身的男性氣概認同。本文的發現是，當前社會普遍存在對於失業者的病理化論述，而此種論述也影響失業者的自我建構。失業的經驗亦具有高度的性別意涵，男性在面臨失業時，其男性氣概將會受到衝擊並必須經過重新協商的歷程。根據此結果，筆者呼籲整個社會、失業的相關社會服務與心理衛生工作者、及失業者本人及其家庭應致力於參與協同的實踐以對於失業意義加以重新建構。

關鍵字

失業 ； 社會建構論 ； 性別意涵 ； 男性氣概

並列摘要

Recently, the unemployment and its related social problems in Taiwan are getting serious. Past literature on unemployment in Taiwan was mostly from the positivist and essentialist perspectives, and was devoted to investigate the causes of unemployment. It is rare to use the social psychological point of view to examine the symbolic meanings and their impact on the unemployed. The purpose of this paper was to explore the social construction of unemployment and its gendered meanings through the literature review. Social constructionism was used as a major theoretical framework to explore the discursive formation of unemployment and its impact on the unemployed. Post-structural feminism was also used to explore the gendered meanings of unemployment. This article used male unemployment as an example to investigate how unemployed men construct their masculinities under the dominant discourse of ”male breadwinner” in the society. The major findings were, firstly, there were prevailing pathological discourses around unemployment which might influence the identity construction of the unemployed. Secondly, the unemployment experiences were highly gendered, so when men were unemployed, their masculinities were impacted and might need to go through a re-negotiation process. According to the above findings, the author calls for a collaborative praxis to reconstruct the meanings of unemployment by the whole society, the related social welfare and mental health workers, and the unemployed themselves and their families.

並列關鍵字

Unemployment ； Social Constructionism ； Gendered Meanings ； Masculinities