The labyrinth of patriarchy: why ‘craftsmanship’ is not universal – lessons from dockyard tradeswomen

This article develops the concept of the labyrinth of patriarchy to explain how patriarchal power operates not as a fixed obstacle, but as an adaptive, multi-level system that reorganises itself across interpersonal, organisational, and societal levels. Drawing on biographical narrative interviews with 13 dockyard tradeswomen, it addresses the following question: how does the labyrinth of patriarchy undermine the availability and sustainability of ‘craftsmanship’ for tradeswomen? Existing theories of ‘craftsmanship’ hold the universalist assumption that meaningful work is equally available to those with sufficient skill and commitment. This article challenges that assumption, showing ‘craftsmanship’ as a gendered category shaped by notions of appropriate femininity and sustained through masculine systems of occupational recognition. It makes two interventions: that craft theory must account for the labyrinth of patriarchy as a force disrupting occupational recognition; and that resilience discourse individualises structural discrimination, producing Lakämper’s (2017) ‘affective dissonance’ through which women internalise exclusion as personal failure.