One important element in recent feminist analyses of gender has been the investigation and deconstruction of dualistic thinking. This paper takes up one aspect of this issue of dualisms and the construction of gender. It examines the interplay between two particular dualisms in the context of daily life in and around high-technology industry in the Cambridge area of England. The focus on dualisms as lived, as an element of daily practice, is important (see Bourdieu 1977; Moore 1986), for philosophical frameworks do not exist ‘only’ as theoretical propositions or in the form of the written word. They are both reproduced and, at least potentially, struggled with and rebelled against in the practice of everyday living. The focus here is on how particular dualisms may both support and problematize certain forms of social organization around British high-technology industry.

High-technology industry in various guises is seen across the political spectrum as the hope for the future of national, regional and local economies (Hall 1985) and it is important, therefore, to be aware of the societal relations, including those around gender, which it supports and encourages in its current form of organization. In the United Kingdom, ‘high tech’ has been sought after by local areas across the country and has been the centrepiece of some of the most spectacular local-economic success stories of recent years. In particular, it is the foundation of what has become known as the ‘Cambridge phenomenon’ (Segal Quince and Partners 1985). The investigation reported on here is of those highly qualified scientists and engineers, working in the private sector in a range of companies from the tiny to the multinational, who form the core of this new growth. These are people primarily involved in research and in the design of new products. This is the high-status end of high tech. The argument in this paper takes off from two important facts about the scientists who work within this part of the economy: first, that the overwhelming majority of them are male; and, secondly, that they work extremely long hours on a basis which demands from them very high degrees of both temporal and spatial flexibility (see Henry and Massey 1995).