Who cares? A lack of self‐care for women in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector

Abstract

In this article I examine the lack of self‐care regimes for women working in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector. While I draw on ethnographic research conducted in the Malaysian context of women's organizations, the issue of self‐care for activists and feminist activists is a global one that crosses borders and boundaries. I explore the gendered nature of care and care professions to demonstrate how women are predominantly affected in these working environments. To date, there has been little scholarship on self‐care and care in non‐profit/non‐governmental working environments. Using interviews with women working in the sector, I argue that women's emotional, mental and physical health comes at a cost in these hectic workplaces. This article contributes to the literature on gender, work and care in women's organizations by taking seriously women's concerns working in these spaces, where they experience self‐neglect and institutional barriers in care regimes.

“There's no amount of tea in the world that is going to fix the patriarchy right now”: The gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for women in the gender-based violence sector

“…One ED pointedly stated, “... one of the things that we know about COVID is that women-identified folks are disproportionately impacted by [the pandemic]...” (FG203, T1). Given our sample consisted of mostly female-identified people, and this reflects the make-up of primarily female-identified clients and workers in this field ( Bandali, 2019 ; Nordhues et al, 2021 ), the narratives below represent the experiences of women (shelter clients, frontline service providers, and EDs) during the pandemic, though men's perspectives are included where available.…”

“…These expectations disproportionately fell on the shoulders of women, especially single mothers, those who had little to no informal support, or those who were unable to access childcare services. It has been clearly demonstrated that women tend to take on more of the parenting and caregiving responsibilities in the home due to gender stereotypes and norms that situate women as nurturing, caring, and self-sacrificing ( Bandali, 2019 ; Moyser & Burlock, 2018 ) and that this trend continued during the pandemic when parenting and caregiving responsibilities were more complex ( Gladu, 2021 ; Hazarika & Das, 2020 ).…”

“…However, EDs and staff in our study felt that suggested self-care strategies during the pandemic lacked attention to gender, sometimes trivialized their experiences, and/or did not adequately reduce the experience of vicarious trauma that is often experienced in the GBV sector. Pre-pandemic research has shown that self-care and self-help discourses have traditionally targeted women ( Riley et al, 2019 ), often encouraging individual behaviours like self-love, rather than structural or organizational change and support ( Bandali, 2019 ; Riley et al, 2019 ). Preliminary research in the United Kingdom on the gendered nature of self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic is consistent with this ( Gill & Orgad, 2021 ).…”

Chronicles of conflicting care in confinement: Documenting the work experiences of seven ‘patient zeros’

“…And both Hélène and Marthe went through periods of extreme working hours (70–80 h/week) which through the exceptional conditions of the crisis became further normalized by their organizations (Turnbull & Wass, 2015). Lastly, for Pauline self‐sacrifice became key (Bandali, 2020) as she took on extreme amounts of caring work, both for her family and pupils, all combined in the private sphere of the home in which she struggled to find a ‘room of her own’ (Woolf, 2015).…”