Gender Stereotypes and the Reshaping of Stigma in Rehabilitative Eldercare

Abstract

Rehabilitation policies are becoming increasingly popular in eldercare as a means to ensure dignity and reduce costs. This paper examines the implications of rehabilitation within Danish homecare work, a type of work that is often stigmatized due to its associations with low‐status ‘dirty’ body work in old people's homes. The paper combines two research traditions: studies of dirty work and studies of body work. It draws on observations and focus groups in Denmark to explore how the introduction of rehabilitation changes the work of care workers, and how such changes are associated with a potential reshaping of stigma. In contrast to previous research, this paper shows that although rehabilitation was partly introduced to reduce stigma of this type of work, the practice of rehabilitation paradoxically reinforces the stigma that it attempts to manage. Thus, the analysis helps to improve our understanding of the ambiguous and varying ways rehabilitative eldercare reshapes and reinforces stigma and gender stereotypes among women who do ‘dirty’ body work.

Occupational stigma among further education teaching staff in hair and beauty: Mild but challenging

“…The complexities of this stigma were, however, magnified when unpacking how participants countered discourses on gender/class intersectionality that stigmatized hair and beauty work. The tainted social positioning of hair and beauty work was underpinned by discourse intersecting gender/class that inform the hierarchal organization of labor (Crawford & Mills, 2011; Flensborg Jensen, 2017). Configured as a ‘realistic aspiration for the working‐class girl’, hair and beauty work is widely regarded as a low status form of labor (Sharma & Black, 2001, p: 918).…”

“…There is conceptual purchase to the insights posed, in that they highlight the struggles endured by those working in an occupation where pronounced imagery informs perception. Whether it is depictions of the subordinate, servile woman acting in a customer‐facing role (Gustavsson, 2005), the flamboyant, effeminate male hairdresser (Hall et al., 2007) or the compassionate female care worker (Flensborg Jensen, 2017), such prominent imagery gives rise to a stigma that confers otherness, inferiority, and misunderstanding. Beyond this article, I implore others to explore how discourse and the hyperbolic imaginings of their own work incite difference and generate misunderstanding.…”

“…FE lecturers and trainers teach a predominately female cohort of students how to engage physically with customers, enacting touch that is both technical and deferential (Cohen & Wolkowitz, 2018). The deferential touch undermines status on account of a gender binary that privileges disembodied ‘masculine’ forms of work (Ashcraft, 2007; Flensborg Jensen, 2017; Schnurr et al., 2020).…”

“…The FE sector also highlights how stigma becomes embodied. Within the dirty work literature, it has been acknowledged that by working in a stigmatized role, there is a risk of personifying that stigma (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Flensborg Jensen, 2017). This article illustrates how discursive imagery reaffirms fixed ideas dictating who should be a hairdresser or beautician based on specific attributes that are gender‐ and class‐based (Lindsay, 2004; Miller & Hayward, 2006).…”

Challenging the ‘dirty worker’—‘clean client’ dichotomy: Conceptualizing worker‐client relations in dirty work

“…The research we have reviewed shows that this final category of clients may also include people intimately involved in the conduct of the work: care recipients in community eldercare programs (Flensborg Jensen, 2017; Hansen, 2016; Chia, 2020; Stacey, 2005; Yu, 2018); clients of prostitutes or other types of sex workers (Neal, 2018; Toubiana & Ruebottom, 2022; Wolfe et al., 2018); patients in medical care settings (Godin, 2000; Roitenberg, 2020; Solimeo et al., 2017; Ward, 2021; Williamson et al., 2014), prisoners being re‐socialized (Mikkelsen, 2021) and family members cared for within their families (Brittain & Shaw, 2007). It is not intuitive to call the recipients of such care ‘clients’, nor the people who do care work as ‘dirty’.…”