The Feminization of Body Work

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between 'body work' and gender, asking why paid work involving the physical touch and manipulation of others' bodies is largely performed by women. It argues that the feminization of body work is not simply explicable as 'nurturance', nor as the continuation of a pre-existing domestic division of labour. Rather, feminization resolves dilemmas that arise when intimate touch is refigured as paid labour. These 'body work dilemmas' are rooted in the material nature of body work. They are both cultural (related to the meaning of inter-corporeality) and organizational (related to the spatial, temporal and labour process constraints of work on bodies). Two sectors are explored as exemplars: hairdressing and care work. Synthesizing UK quantitative data and existing research, the article traces similarities and differences in the composition of these sectors and in how gender both responds to and reentrenches the cultural and organizational body work dilemmas identified.

‘Don’t Use “the Weak Word”’: Women Brewers, Identities and Gendered Territories of Embodied Work

“…Although more studies have attempted to redress this (Mik-Meyer, Roelsgaard Obling and Wolkowitz, 2018) and make the often absent, 'naturalised and taken for granted' bodies more visible (Wolkowitz, 2006: 55), female workers' bodies continue to be under-researched. When it comes to work requiring physical exertion, the focus has been mainly on masculine bodies, such as firefighters (Thurnell-Read and Parker, 2008), largely 3 overlooking the significance of the corporeality of women workers in male-dominated occupations requiring physical work and those outside of feminised occupations involving body work (Cohen and Wolkowitz, 2018;Holmes, 2015;Wolkowitz, 2006).…”

‘Please tell me when you are in pain’: A heartbreaking story of care, grief and female–canine companionship

“…In the latter part of the note above, losing the dog suddenly touches on a symbolic meaning in conveying the loss of meaning invested in the project of female–canine companionship (see Willmott, ) and reveals the emptiness of realizing that there is no one to do the ‘practical acts of care’ (see Graham, ) or experience physical touch — a central element of gendered body work (Cohen & Wolkowitz, , p. 42).…”

“…This was, of course, an impossible wish; if she wanted to be a dog keeper, she had to accept the inevitability that the lifespan of these companionships would be short compared to the life of humans. The desire to keep these companions by her side for her whole life was an incomplete illusion, and the body work relating to ‘the management of embodied emotional experience’ (Gimlin, , p. 353) she was continuously working on was, in fact, about handling the tension between care and grief, materialized in the gendered aspect of body work, of physical touch between her and her dogs (see Cohen & Wolkowitz, ).…”

“…Here, body work is understood as not only a matter of doing things with one's own body but as a wider concept involving the care and cure of others’ bodies (Wolkowitz, , p. 497; cf. Holmberg, ), thus entailing gendered constructions of ‘involving the physical touch and manipulation of others’ bodies’ (Cohen & Wolkowitz, , p. 42). Hence, we critically discuss the notions of grief and mourning attached to care as inseparable parts of the body work relationally done and undone in the daily practices that produce our female companionships (see,e.g., Kanov, Powley, & Walshe, ).…”

Spatio–Temporal Unboundedness: A Feature, Not a Bug, of Self-Employment

“…These occupations were selected on the basis of a) size -sufficient respondents in a single occupation or closely aligned set of occupations to conduct statistical analyses; b) rates of own-account and employer self-employment -a reasonably large number of both types of self-employed worker; c) diversity -selected occupational groups were varied, with different status, qualifications, socio-demographic-profiles and different types of work activity. Hairdressing was chosen as the most common form of female self-employment and involves workers in a mix of 'body work' (involving the touch and the manipulation of customers' bodies) and emotional labour (Cohen and Wolkowitz, 2017). In the UK it does not require accreditation.…”