Well-Being, More Than a Dream: Women Constructing Metaphors of Strength

Abstract

Research on gender inequalities in well-being, attribute lower levels of wellness in women to the burden of multiple role demands, particularly during midlife. Using mostly quantitative measures of subjective well-being (SWB), such studies tend to narrow the concept of well-being and overlook the value of in-depth, context-specific inquiry. Work-life balance is also a consistent causative narrative in studies on women's well-being. Yet, such a narrative frequently emphasizes individual agency in a seemingly unattainable quest, implying an anomaly on how women then actually manage to sustain their well-being. The present study therefore explored the work-life experiences of women in their midlife. The aim was to reach a deeper understanding of the psycho-social dynamics at play in sustaining a psychologically-well self. Meta-theoretically the study built on non-traditional and gendered career models that augment female employees' unique career needs. From a socioanalytic stance, this study investigated secondary data gathered from focus groups, which were based on the socioanalytic method of social dream drawing. The data originated from four sessions of social dream drawings, in which the researcher as participant-observer, investigated work-life experiences of seven women. The gathered information was managed through Atlas.ti and processed through phenomenological hermeneutic analysis. The findings contribute to the discourse on women and well-being and give insight into the application of a unique socioanalytic methodology to research in this field from a gendered perspective. Results were analyzed by developing metaphors from the data. These metaphors reflect women's well-being as they present three unique career needs, namely challenge, balance, and authenticity, during their midlife career stage. Findings show how women's projective identification with outdated gender role norms may perpetuate a gendered notion of work-life balance, which consistently challenges their well-being. Projective identifications are evident in introjected feelings of self-doubt, self-stereotyping, and in the tension between female employees' personal and social identities. The study ultimately points to well-being as a dynamic phenomenon, which women sustain by engaging both positive and negative experiences and through identity tasks such as self-awareness, self-authorisation, self-regard, and authentic self-expression. These findings highlight the importance of creating self-reflective space in organizations to facilitate women's psychological well-being.

The supervisor as a ‘coastguard’ in the methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates

“…The use of metaphors has become a powerful feature of scholarly sense-making (Barnard, 2018), with the metaphor “doctoral journey” being widely used (Corcelles et al, 2019; Corner et al, 2017; Hughes and Tight, 2013; Lofstrom and Pyhalto, 2017). The richness and versatility of this metaphor for our study have been well demonstrated by (Hughes and Tight, 2013: 765), who describe a doctoral journey as the doctoral student’s “experience of change, difficulty and progress in doctoral studies”.…”

Authenticity as Best-Self: The Experiences of Women in Law Enforcement

“…Career development theories pertinent to women, isolate authenticity as a unique need in the career trajectories of women and fundamental to their work wellbeing (Barnard, 2018;Mainiero and Gibson, 2018;O'Neill and Jepsen, 2019). For women, feeling authentic is important to life satisfaction and coping with emotional burdens (Hwang and Kim, 2019).…”