The Interlocking of Gender with Nationality, Race, Ethnicity and Class: the Narratives of Women in Hotel Work

Abstract

Whilst gender in the workplace is has been extensively researched, investigation into how gender interacts with other factors such as ethnicity and class has been less explicitly considered. This article explores the interlocking of gender with other categories such as class, ethnicity, race and nationality in the context of hotel work. It draws on the narratives of women describing their experiences of working in hotels. Findings from this empirically based examination suggest that gendered and other representations at work are not constructed as a process of adding difference on to difference, where categories are considered as separate and fixed. Instead, what emerges is a negotiation of the many categories shaping identities at work, which exist simultaneously and shift according to context.

A woman's place in hotel management: upstairs or downstairs?

“…It also sought to acknowledge the dynamic complexity of the glass ceiling metaphor (Altman et al, 2005) by recognising the diversity of experience between groups of women, while being mindful of the need not to reduce identities to categories that may become fixed (Adib & Guerrier, 2003). Bierema (2002) reiterates that the category 'woman' does not imply one homogenous group within which one individual's experiences can be easily replaced by another.…”

Cinderella in Babylon: the representation of housekeeping and housekeepers in the UK television series Hotel Babylon

“…'"Old work" of industrial forms and hierarchies of work still characterizes employment in tourism globally, featuring the predominance of low-skilled jobs, the appropriation of migrant labour, high employee turnover, unsocial working hours and lack of trade union presence' (Veijola 2009: 116). The largest proportions of women workers are found in the 'dirtiest' and most operational hotel jobs, those requiring domestic skills for which women are perceived as inherently skilled (Kinnaird et al 1994;Adib and Guerrier 2003).…”

Multiple Inequalities, Intersectionality and the European Union

“…Similarly, Gamson and Moon (2004) examine the nature and effects of sexuality among multiple and intersecting systems of identity and oppression. Another example can be found in the work of Adib and Guerrier (2003), who analyse the interlocking of gender, nationality, race, ethnicity and class for women working in the hotel industry. Also concerned with the issue of work and the economy, Brewer et al (2002) were instrumental in introducing the concept of intersectionality into the discipline of economics by editing a journal special issue on the intertwined influence of gender, race, class and caste on the economic situation of individuals and groups.…”