This is (still) a man’s world: Young professional women’s identity struggles in gendered workplaces

Abstract

Recent research has documented the rise of neoliberal and postfeminist sensibilities within young women’s sense-making and accounting activities in western countries – exemplified by the image of the “top girl”. Yet workplaces remain structured by male power and patriarchal norms. In this qualitative focus group study conducted in Auckland, New Zealand, we investigated how young professional women negotiate the contradictions between the “top girl” mode and gendered workplaces in their accounts of workplace difficulties. Our aim was to explore the affective dimension of participants’ identity struggles and to discuss possible implications for thinking about young professional women’s experiences of emotional distress. We identified shared narratives about how to “survive”, and suggest the imperatives bound up in them can be thought of as lessons that women learn to get by at work. In addition to reinforcing the status quo, they represent the negotiation of inherently conflictual professional identities, which places a considerable emotional strain on women.

Polyphonies of depression: The relationship between voices-of-the-self in young professional women aka ‘top girls’

“…As part of a larger critical qualitative study on the sociocultural context of emotional distress and depression in young professional women in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Chowdhury, 2018a, 2018b; Chowdhury and Gibson, in press), 13 women were interviewed about their experience of depression. We were interested in talking to women who could be placed in the social category of high achiever, in those exemplifying McRobbie’s (2007) description of ‘top girls’.…”

Thought Bodies: Gender, Sex, Sexualities

“…The "implicit rules of heterosex" (Thomas et al, 2017, p. 283) also include that her orgasm is a sign of his prowess, and must be clearly indicated via specific behaviors. This, suggest the authors, continues to encourage women to fake orgasm, despite "postfeminist" notions of "freedom and choice" which position women's sexual agency as equal to men's, as apolitical and as entirely personal (this is consistently understood to be a consequence of neoliberal formations, as will be seen in the next chapter; see Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019;Gill & Orgad, 2018; see also McClelland, 2010). However, "power imbalances are concealed in this repackaged construction," not least because, "female sexuality continues to be understood predominantly in relation to male sexuality and ultimately to heterosexual intercourse" (Thomas et al, 2017, p. 282).…”

Practicing the Ideal Depressed Self: Young Professional Women’s Accounts of Managing Depression

“…Consequently, the sociocultural and material contexts individuals operate in are invisibilized or reduced to mental objects they have (positive or negative) attitudes toward. Research consistently shows that, in addition to general work stressors such as high workloads or lack of support (Melchior et al, 2007), women often face negative gender stereotyping and sexist discrimination at work (Bobbitt-Zeher, 2011; Cahusac & Kanji, 2014; Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019). In their study on the effects of sexism on emotional well-being, Klonoff et al (2000) found that women who have experienced sexist treatment report higher levels of psychiatric symptoms than men as well as women without experiences of discrimination.…”

“… 1. The first part of the research consisted of focus group discussions with 12 young professional women focused on work-related difficulties, gender issues, and emotional struggles (Chowdhury & Gibson, 2019). …”