My first Little Black Dress: A Muslim immigrant woman academic's reflection on entanglement of esthetic labor and emotional labor at a White dinner

Abstract

This article is about personal reflections of an immigrant, Muslim, Pakistani, middle class, minority woman working in a business school in Canada who receives an invitation to a White dinner. She writes of experiencing emotional labor and esthetic labor; tensions based on gender, religion, class, age, and culture; skepticism against belonging and otherness—and the space in between; along with her consciousness of being under the disciplinary gaze of her own community members. She feels suspended between strength and vulnerability, resorting to reflective writing for sense‐making.