Temporality and gendered agency: Menopausal subjectivities in women’s work

Abstract

This article advances feminist organizational theorizing about embodiment and subjectivity by investigating menopause at work as a temporally constituted phenomenon. We ask how time matters in women’s embodied and subjective experiences of menopause at work. Theoretically, we draw on feminist writers McNay and Grosz to explore the relationship between gendered agency and time in a corpus of 48 qualitative interviews conducted with women employed at two Australian universities about their experiences of menopause. Our empirical analysis identifies three temporal modalities – episodic, helical and relational – that show how gendered organizational subjectivities are not simply temporally situated, but created in and through distinct temporal forces. We offer two contributions to feminist organizational theory: first, by illuminating the ontological role played by time in gendered agency; and second, by fleshing out the notion of a ‘body politics of surprise’ with implications for feminist studies of organizational embodiment, politics and ethics.

Tackling Taboo Topics: A Review of the Three Ms in Working Women’s Lives

“…A traditional view of an ideal worker is an employee who “has no sexuality, emotionality, and does not procreate” (Acker, 1990: 151); in this way, ideal workers are predictable, controllable, and reliable. In contrast, the three M s represent “a danger to the spoken or unspoken social order of the organization on account of their ‘leakiness,’ unboundedness, unpredictability or unreliability” (Jack, Riach, & Bariola, 2019: 126). Furthermore, ideal workers offer “complete commitment to paid work through long work hours, around-the-clock availability (especially for professionals), and prioritize employers’ interests above personal ones” (Kmec, O’Connor, & Schieman, 2014: 64; see also Padavic et al, 2019); the three M s may require attending to personal needs first.…”

The Menopause Taboo at Work: Examining Women’s Embodied Experiences of Menopause in the UK Police Service

“…Gendered ageing as both a bodily experience and a phenomenon shaped by contextual influences is clearly demonstrated (Riach et al, 2015). Within this, there was space for agency, with women having capacity (albeit often limited) for positive reflection on the menopause and resistance to the gendering processes they encountered (Jack et al, 2019). Women who were more aware and better prepared for menopause appeared to manage its symptoms more effectively.…”

“…This article demonstrates the intricate web woven by intersections of age and gender as reflected in women's embodied experiences of menopause and demonstrates the importance of an approach to embodiment that captures age. Critical to this is the material-discursive approach to exploring embodiment that recognises both the materiality of the body and contextual influences and allows women the capacity for agency, reflection and resistance (Jack et al, 2019;Ussher, 2008). The article also makes a practical contribution in evidencing the need for a supportive organisational culture in enabling women in menopause transition to maintain dignity at work and fulfil their potential.…”

“…Indeed, international research highlights the diversity of experience that exists with regard to menopause transition, in relation, for example, to national context, ethnicity and socio-economic status (Delanoë et al, 2012;Hunter and Rendall, 2007;Salik and Kamal, 2015). Moving on from a bio-medical perspective that fails to understand women's embodied experiences to a material-discursive position that embraces the possibility of re-configurings (Barad, 2003) also offers the potential to afford greater agency to women (Jack et al, 2019). To date, however, there remains little research that explicitly examines embodied experiences of menopause at work, and that which does tends to focus on women working in professional or administrative office-based work (e.g.…”

The post-re/productive: researching the menopause

“…Studies of organisations and work have paid very little attention to menopause, despite the 'bodily turn' in our discipline two or more decades ago. Notable, but rare, exceptions include Jack et al (2014Jack et al ( , 2018, Atkinson et al (2016) and Gatrell et al (2017), as well as our government-funded report on the impact of menopause transition on women's participation in paid employment (Brewis et al, 2017). We researched and wrote this report between January 2016 and summer 2017; and it consists of a critical review of 104 English language publications dating back to 1990.…”