This paper explores how mothers who are creative workers articulate their subjectivities and examines how their interdependent identities as both mothers and creatives lead to a constant and unresolved negotiation of subjectivity. This constitutes an additional cognitive work burden or a “subjectivity load” for mother‐creatives. The study is based on a small‐scale qualitative study of 40 mothers working in Creative Industries in Ireland. Venn's framework on subjectivity is used to explore the attitudes, values, expectations, and dispositions that respondents articulated when questioned about how they saw the self in relation to the identities of mother and worker. Key findings note that mother workers held ambivalent attitudes about the combination of mothering with work. In terms of their values, respondents internalized a negative and irresolute sense of self if they did not live up to social values on motherhood. With regard to expectations of themselves, mothers felt that they were always having to choose between conflicting demands and that there was an internalized expectation that motherhood should be prioritized over work. Finally, in terms of their disposition, respondents explained they felt that society refused to understand mothers as artists and so they could not easily achieve a settled subjectivity in light of the invisibility of mothers who were also creative workers. Consequently, mother‐creatives are always engaged in a process of negotiation across identity contradictions to form their own subjectivities. This ongoing ambivalence creates another cognitive or subjectivity load around the making and remaking of the internalized self.
{"title":"The subjectivity load: Negotiating the internalization of “mother” and “creative worker” identities in creative industries","authors":"Anne O’ Brien","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13157","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores how mothers who are creative workers articulate their subjectivities and examines how their interdependent identities as both mothers and creatives lead to a constant and unresolved negotiation of subjectivity. This constitutes an additional cognitive work burden or a “subjectivity load” for mother‐creatives. The study is based on a small‐scale qualitative study of 40 mothers working in Creative Industries in Ireland. Venn's framework on subjectivity is used to explore the attitudes, values, expectations, and dispositions that respondents articulated when questioned about how they saw the self in relation to the identities of mother and worker. Key findings note that mother workers held ambivalent attitudes about the combination of mothering with work. In terms of their values, respondents internalized a negative and irresolute sense of self if they did not live up to social values on motherhood. With regard to expectations of themselves, mothers felt that they were always having to choose between conflicting demands and that there was an internalized expectation that motherhood should be prioritized over work. Finally, in terms of their disposition, respondents explained they felt that society refused to understand mothers as artists and so they could not easily achieve a settled subjectivity in light of the invisibility of mothers who were also creative workers. Consequently, mother‐creatives are always engaged in a process of negotiation across identity contradictions to form their own subjectivities. This ongoing ambivalence creates another cognitive or subjectivity load around the making and remaking of the internalized self.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The present study explores the relationship between individualization and gender‐related disparities in teleworking. The research is part of a larger project evaluating a pilot program among administrative personnel at an Austrian university before implementing telework across the organization. It presents three key points about the intersection of teleworking and parental roles. First, telework interlinks with individualization in general, and organizations should play a proactive role in preventing the stress that can arise from such individualization. Challenges through individualization have eased due to the collective experiences in the pandemic‐driven lockdowns. This overarching insight lays the groundwork for understanding the nuanced gender differences explored in the subsequent points. Second, this individualization process is gendered when it comes to parenting. The flexible nature of telework can ease the burden of juggling paid work with other responsibilities. At the same time, organizational telework initiatives can unintentionally reinforce traditional gender roles, placing women as primary caregivers. The findings indicate that when telework is solely a family‐friendly benefit, it leads to a double invisibility of mothers' workload. However, the normalization of hybrid telework as an inner‐organizational right might mitigate gendered hierarchies in the long term. Third, while all interviewed mothers felt responsible for parenting, fathers adopted different subject positions that did not disrupt the organizational normalization of mothers as primary caregivers. It sharpened during the pandemic. The study concludes that adopting hybrid telework models could challenge the prevailing “ideal worker” image and support mothers in advancing their careers. Collective experiences and ideas of flexibility as every employee's right can counteract individualization and gender inequalities.
{"title":"The gendered paradox of individualization in telework: Simultaneously helpful and harmful in the context of parenting","authors":"Maria Clar‐Novak","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13155","url":null,"abstract":"The present study explores the relationship between individualization and gender‐related disparities in teleworking. The research is part of a larger project evaluating a pilot program among administrative personnel at an Austrian university before implementing telework across the organization. It presents three key points about the intersection of teleworking and parental roles. First, telework interlinks with individualization in general, and organizations should play a proactive role in preventing the stress that can arise from such individualization. Challenges through individualization have eased due to the collective experiences in the pandemic‐driven lockdowns. This overarching insight lays the groundwork for understanding the nuanced gender differences explored in the subsequent points. Second, this individualization process is gendered when it comes to parenting. The flexible nature of telework can ease the burden of juggling paid work with other responsibilities. At the same time, organizational telework initiatives can unintentionally reinforce traditional gender roles, placing women as primary caregivers. The findings indicate that when telework is solely a family‐friendly benefit, it leads to a double invisibility of mothers' workload. However, the normalization of hybrid telework as an inner‐organizational right might mitigate gendered hierarchies in the long term. Third, while all interviewed mothers felt responsible for parenting, fathers adopted different subject positions that did not disrupt the organizational normalization of mothers as primary caregivers. It sharpened during the pandemic. The study concludes that adopting hybrid telework models could challenge the prevailing “ideal worker” image and support mothers in advancing their careers. Collective experiences and ideas of flexibility as every employee's right can counteract individualization and gender inequalities.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper I analyze 30 years of research on patriarchy in top management and organization studies (MOS) journals, and I map out an agenda for (re)igniting patriarchy as both a topic of study and lens for viewing key MOS issues in a new light. I organize my review (175 articles) around three themes: intersections, subjects, and contexts. By intersections I refer to the nuanced ways that scholars define patriarchy, adopting interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives to understand the diversity of women's experiences under patriarchal domination. By subjects I refer to the primary focus on women's experiences, and on the ways that women's subjectivities are socially constituted and negotiated within patriarchal discourses of work and organizational life. By contexts I refer to the sites where MOS research has investigated patriarchy, as well as the ways this research has framed patriarchy itself as a context. Based on this thematic review, I outline a future research agenda to further refine the concept in MOS in three key ways. I call for increased research approaches that center the structural/political forces of patriarchy and gender, increased focus on the experiences of men as agents and subjects of patriarchal domination, and increased attention on patriarchy in Western contexts to redress the overrepresentation of research on patriarchy in the Global South. I conclude that patriarchy is an important line of inquiry for MOS, and that further attention to the concept would enable MOS research to contribute more fully to contemporary debates on gender.
在本文中,我分析了 30 年来顶级管理与组织研究(MOS)期刊中有关父权制的研究,并制定了一项议程,以(重新)点燃父权制,使其既成为一个研究课题,又成为以新的视角看待管理与组织研究关键问题的透镜。我围绕三个主题组织我的评论(175 篇文章):交叉、主题和背景。在交叉方面,我指的是学者们定义父权制的细微方式,他们采用跨学科和交叉的视角来理解父权制统治下女性经历的多样性。所谓主体,是指主要关注妇女的经历,以及妇女的主体性在父权制的工作和组织生活话语中的社会构成和协商方式。所谓背景,我指的是 MOS 研究调查父权制的地点,以及这种研究将父权制本身作为背景的方式。在这一专题回顾的基础上,我概述了未来的研究议程,以便从三个关键方面进一步完善 MOS 概念。我呼吁增加以父权制和性别的结构/政治力量为中心的研究方法,更多地关注男性作为父权制统治的推动者和主体的经历,以及更多地关注西方背景下的父权制,以纠正全球南部父权制研究过多的问题。我的结论是,父权制是 MOS 的一个重要研究方向,对这一概念的进一步关注将使 MOS 研究能够为当代有关性别的辩论做出更充分的贡献。
{"title":"Where is the patriarchy?: A review and research agenda for the concept of patriarchy in management and organization studies","authors":"Nicole Ferry","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13145","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I analyze 30 years of research on patriarchy in top management and organization studies (MOS) journals, and I map out an agenda for (re)igniting patriarchy as both a topic of study and lens for viewing key MOS issues in a new light. I organize my review (175 articles) around three themes: intersections, subjects, and contexts. By <jats:italic>intersections</jats:italic> I refer to the nuanced ways that scholars define patriarchy, adopting interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives to understand the diversity of women's experiences under patriarchal domination. By <jats:italic>subjects</jats:italic> I refer to the primary focus on women's experiences, and on the ways that women's subjectivities are socially constituted and negotiated within patriarchal discourses of work and organizational life. By <jats:italic>contexts</jats:italic> I refer to the sites where MOS research has investigated patriarchy, as well as the ways this research has framed patriarchy itself as a context. Based on this thematic review, I outline a future research agenda to further refine the concept in MOS in three key ways. I call for increased research approaches that center the structural/political forces of patriarchy and gender, increased focus on the experiences of men as agents and subjects of patriarchal domination, and increased attention on patriarchy in Western contexts to redress the overrepresentation of research on patriarchy in the Global South. I conclude that patriarchy is an important line of inquiry for MOS, and that further attention to the concept would enable MOS research to contribute more fully to contemporary debates on gender.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141153206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although the U.S. Pregnancy Discrimination Act protects people from discrimination, there remain risks for individuals who become pregnant while working. Therefore, many choose to stay quiet about their pregnancies before beginning to show. Doing so, however, requires a constant management of appearance and behavior that feels necessary for employment. To investigate how pregnant people manage occupational settings while growing visibly pregnant, I draw on data from interviews with 54 women in the U.S. who were employed during their pregnancy. Findings reveal that efforts to manage the pregnant body are both aesthetic and emotional, and they constitute a form of unpaid labor that I term the “silent shift.” The silent shift encompasses two types of labor: the labor of concealing and the labor of dealing. Concealing—typically done during the first trimester—involves trying to strategically hide a pregnancy from co‐workers through alterations to work attire (i.e., aesthetic labor) or behavioral changes, such as napping in the office or discretely running to the bathroom. When concealing was no longer an option, pregnant women had to deal with awkward comments from co‐workers about their bodies. In these instances, women employed emotional labor to keep silent about how such remarks made them feel by suppressing negative emotions, rationalizing co‐workers’ comments, or by laughing them off. These findings suggest that even though laws and institutional policies have created space for pregnant workers, there remains a tension between the professional and pregnant body—a tension that women themselves feel compelled to manage.
{"title":"The silent shift: Pregnant women doing aesthetic and emotional labor at work","authors":"David J. Hutson","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13146","url":null,"abstract":"Although the U.S. Pregnancy Discrimination Act protects people from discrimination, there remain risks for individuals who become pregnant while working. Therefore, many choose to stay quiet about their pregnancies before beginning to show. Doing so, however, requires a constant management of appearance and behavior that feels necessary for employment. To investigate how pregnant people manage occupational settings while growing visibly pregnant, I draw on data from interviews with 54 women in the U.S. who were employed during their pregnancy. Findings reveal that efforts to manage the pregnant body are both aesthetic and emotional, and they constitute a form of unpaid labor that I term the “silent shift.” The silent shift encompasses two types of labor: the labor of concealing and the labor of dealing. Concealing—typically done during the first trimester—involves trying to strategically hide a pregnancy from co‐workers through alterations to work attire (i.e., aesthetic labor) or behavioral changes, such as napping in the office or discretely running to the bathroom. When concealing was no longer an option, pregnant women had to deal with awkward comments from co‐workers about their bodies. In these instances, women employed emotional labor to keep silent about how such remarks made them feel by suppressing negative emotions, rationalizing co‐workers’ comments, or by laughing them off. These findings suggest that even though laws and institutional policies have created space for pregnant workers, there remains a tension between the professional and pregnant body—a tension that women themselves feel compelled to manage.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141060946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economic abuse (EA)—intimate partners' efforts to control women's economic resources—still suffers from ambiguous legal recognition. Even in countries with legal recognition, state allocation of resources for support remains meager. We suggest that Israeli state welfare organizations (SWOs) employees have developed their professional response to EA along two distinct value sets—a dominant institutional logic in their respective organizations and a more covert feminist institutional logic encountered in collaborations with feminist Non Governmental Organizations. Using a framework of multiple institutional logics, in interviews with 48 SWO employees, we map the multiple institutional logics that cultivate responses to EA survivors and show that elements of feminist understanding and practices on EA permeate SWOs' practices. The existence of a feminist institutional logic creates a path for exploring whether the feminist impact is significant in enabling committed responses to EA even while no institutional change is achieved.
经济虐待(EA)--亲密伴侣控制妇女经济资源的行为--仍然在法律上得不到明确的承认。即使在法律认可的国家,国家分配用于支持的资源仍然很少。我们认为,以色列国家福利组织(SWOs)的员工是按照两种不同的价值体系对 EA 做出专业回应的--一种是在其各自组织中占主导地位的制度逻辑,另一种是在与女权主义非政府组织合作中遇到的更为隐蔽的女权主义制度逻辑。在对 48 名社工组织雇员的访谈中,我们使用了多重制度逻辑框架,绘制了培养对紧急救护幸存者做出反应的多重制度逻辑图,并表明女权主义对紧急救护的理解和实践元素渗透到了社工组织的实践中。女性主义制度逻辑的存在,为探索女性主义的影响是否在即使没有实现制度变革的情况下也能对紧急呼吁做出坚定回应提供了一条途径。
{"title":"Responding to economic abuse: An institutional logics analysis of feminist activism","authors":"Orly Benjamin, Dalit Yassour‐Borochowitz, Arianne Renan Barzilay","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13144","url":null,"abstract":"Economic abuse (EA)—intimate partners' efforts to control women's economic resources—still suffers from ambiguous legal recognition. Even in countries with legal recognition, state allocation of resources for support remains meager. We suggest that Israeli state welfare organizations (SWOs) employees have developed their professional response to EA along two distinct value sets—a dominant institutional logic in their respective organizations and a more covert feminist institutional logic encountered in collaborations with feminist Non Governmental Organizations. Using a framework of multiple institutional logics, in interviews with 48 SWO employees, we map the multiple institutional logics that cultivate responses to EA survivors and show that elements of feminist understanding and practices on EA permeate SWOs' practices. The existence of a feminist institutional logic creates a path for exploring whether the feminist impact is significant in enabling committed responses to EA even while no institutional change is achieved.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140938972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While in the last decade gender research has shown great interest in problems around work–life balance for women and the implications for their career mobility, the links between these and women's health and wellbeing have not been fully examined. This article reviews international research undertaken between 1980 and 2020 on the early career period of female doctorate holders. The focus is on the early career mobility (career progression as well as international, disciplinary, and sectorial mobility) of women with doctorates and the connections between their mobility and their physical and mental health and wellbeing. Guided by feminist theories on recurrent institutionalized and legitimized gender inequalities, our review identifies the establishment of inequity during the early career period for female doctoral graduates inside and outside academia and associates this with imbalances in mobility patterns, which are directly connected with their personal lives. The evidence found also suggests that women's health and wellbeing is mostly negatively impacted by these circumstances which may be contributing to women leaving academia or employment. Some improvements at institutional level are recommended as well as the need to continue challenging perceptions of gender roles and responsibilities.
{"title":"Early career mobility and health and wellbeing of female doctorate holders: A narrative review of the international literature","authors":"Inma Álvarez, Clare Horáčková, Jitka Vseteckova","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13138","url":null,"abstract":"While in the last decade gender research has shown great interest in problems around work–life balance for women and the implications for their career mobility, the links between these and women's health and wellbeing have not been fully examined. This article reviews international research undertaken between 1980 and 2020 on the early career period of female doctorate holders. The focus is on the early career mobility (career progression as well as international, disciplinary, and sectorial mobility) of women with doctorates and the connections between their mobility and their physical and mental health and wellbeing. Guided by feminist theories on recurrent institutionalized and legitimized gender inequalities, our review identifies the establishment of inequity during the early career period for female doctoral graduates inside and outside academia and associates this with imbalances in mobility patterns, which are directly connected with their personal lives. The evidence found also suggests that women's health and wellbeing is mostly negatively impacted by these circumstances which may be contributing to women leaving academia or employment. Some improvements at institutional level are recommended as well as the need to continue challenging perceptions of gender roles and responsibilities.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140939011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article argues that a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment that highlights corrupt aspects of sexual harassment may contribute to a shift in focus from the experience of the harassed, to the actions of the harasser. This argument is based on an analysis of testimonies of sexual harassment from the #metoo call by the Swedish police in 2017, which reference abuse of power and quid pro quo elements. By introducing the recently developed analytical framework of ‘sexual corruption’, we show how a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment may contribute to attributing responsibility to harassers. Identifying sexual harassment that includes the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as corruption centers on the role of the abuse of power and, thus, the responsibility of the person abusing their position of power. Moreover, this shift bypasses discussions of whether or not the situation was experienced as ‘unwelcome’ by the harassed, the severity of the act, and questions of coercion and consent. Identifying instances of sexual harassment that include the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as corruption also closes off attempts to portray it in terms of ‘jokes’ or banter, which is common in the police context. The article contributes with analytical tools that enable a shift from tracing the experience of the harassed to centering on the actions and responsibility of the harasser.
{"title":"Holding the harasser responsible: Implications of identifying sexual harassment that includes abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as sexual corruption","authors":"Silje Lundgren, Malin Wieslander","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13142","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment that highlights corrupt aspects of sexual harassment may contribute to a shift in focus from the experience of the harassed, to the actions of the harasser. This argument is based on an analysis of testimonies of sexual harassment from the #metoo call by the Swedish police in 2017, which reference abuse of power and quid pro quo elements. By introducing the recently developed analytical framework of ‘sexual corruption’, we show how a perpetrator‐based definition of sexual harassment may contribute to attributing responsibility to harassers. Identifying sexual harassment that includes the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements <jats:italic>as corruption</jats:italic> centers on the role of the abuse of power and, thus, the responsibility of the person abusing their position of power. Moreover, this shift bypasses discussions of whether or not the situation was experienced as ‘unwelcome’ by the harassed, the severity of the act, and questions of coercion and consent. Identifying instances of sexual harassment that include the abuse of power and quid pro quo elements as corruption also closes off attempts to portray it in terms of ‘jokes’ or banter, which is common in the police context. The article contributes with analytical tools that enable a shift from tracing the experience of the harassed to centering on the actions and responsibility of the harasser.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140939014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study examines the subjectification of working mothers through the lens of intersectionality by listening to the under‐represented voices of those whose lives are shaped at the intersections of gender, poverty, Islam, and Javanese ethnicity. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist discourse analysis, the subtle subjectification process is observed through conversational interactions in which working mothers construct the ‘ideal woman’. The findings challenge the predominant postfeminist framing in the extant literature by illustrating how here working mothers draw on a specifically local discourse (i.e., moderate‐Islam and Javanese cultural discourses) to construct the ideal woman as embodying the dual wife‐mother identities. Based on these locally dependent discourses, working mothers accentuate their identity as wives while subduing identities as mothers and workers. The emphasis on the underexplored wife identity imbues work with a distinct significance for mothers within this context.
{"title":"‘Who is the ideal woman?’: The subjectification of impoverished Javanese working mothers","authors":"Carmelita Euline Ginting‐Carlström","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13140","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the subjectification of working mothers through the lens of intersectionality by listening to the under‐represented voices of those whose lives are shaped at the intersections of gender, poverty, Islam, and Javanese ethnicity. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist discourse analysis, the subtle subjectification process is observed through conversational interactions in which working mothers construct the ‘ideal woman’. The findings challenge the predominant postfeminist framing in the extant literature by illustrating how here working mothers draw on a specifically local discourse (i.e., moderate‐Islam and Javanese cultural discourses) to construct the ideal woman as embodying the dual wife‐mother identities. Based on these locally dependent discourses, working mothers accentuate their identity as wives while subduing identities as mothers and workers. The emphasis on the underexplored wife identity imbues work with a distinct significance for mothers within this context.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140938975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The “truth” will not set you free, but this book might: A review of believability: Sexual violence, media, and the politics of doubt. By SarahBanet‐Weiser, KathrynClaire Higgins, Cambridge: Polity Press. 2023. pp. 256. ISBN: 978‐1‐509‐55382‐2","authors":"Melody House","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13143","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140839465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article investigates how the complexity of life domains of menopause‐aged women creates a paradox of simultaneously challenging the ideal worker stereotype while being caught within it. The empirical setting of menopause at work acts to highlight how work, life, and health pressures are entangled in how women present themselves at work, through varying organizational and societal expectations of being ‘fit for work’. We draw on 80 semi‐structured, life‐course interviews of women over 50 working in four occupational settings: social care, manufacturing, finance, and self‐employed. Findings are presented through three empirical vignettes, providing unique insight into how ideal worker expectations perpetuate or challenge the persistent silencing of ‘being’ menopausal at work, reinforced by life domain experiences relevant to mid‐life. We present a theoretical contribution to ideal worker theory by highlighting that women who redefine the ideal worker stereotype might be less vulnerable to gendered ageist workplace cultures. We provide a practical contribution for how organizations can better support this generation and future generations of mid‐life women at work.
{"title":"Menopause, work and mid‐life: Challenging the ideal worker stereotype","authors":"Belinda Steffan, Wendy Loretto","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13136","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates how the complexity of life domains of menopause‐aged women creates a paradox of simultaneously challenging the ideal worker stereotype while being caught within it. The empirical setting of menopause at work acts to highlight how work, life, and health pressures are entangled in how women present themselves at work, through varying organizational and societal expectations of being ‘fit for work’. We draw on 80 semi‐structured, life‐course interviews of women over 50 working in four occupational settings: social care, manufacturing, finance, and self‐employed. Findings are presented through three empirical vignettes, providing unique insight into how ideal worker expectations perpetuate or challenge the persistent silencing of ‘being’ menopausal at work, reinforced by life domain experiences relevant to mid‐life. We present a theoretical contribution to ideal worker theory by highlighting that women who redefine the ideal worker stereotype might be less vulnerable to gendered ageist workplace cultures. We provide a practical contribution for how organizations can better support this generation and future generations of mid‐life women at work.","PeriodicalId":501466,"journal":{"name":"Gender, Work & Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140839460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}