Gender, the body and organization studies: que(e)rying empirical research

Even in organization studies scholarship that treats gender as performative and fluid, a certain ‘crystallization’ of gender identities as somehow unproblematic and stable may occur because of our methodological decision-making, and especially our categorization of participants. Mobilizing queer theory — and Judith Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and performativity in particular — as a conceptual lens, we examine this crystallization, suggesting it is based on two implicit assumptions: that gender is a cultural mark over a passive biological body, or is a base identity ‘layered over’ by other identities (class, race, age etc.). Following Butler, we argue that in order to foreground the fluidity and uncertainty of gender categories in our scholarship, it is necessary to understand gender identity as a process of doing and undoing gender that is located very precisely in time and space. Given this perspective on gender identities as complex processes of identification, non-identification and performativity, we offer some pointers on how the methodological decision-making underpinning empirical research on gender, work and organization could and should begin from this premise

Cis women's bodies at work: co‐modification and (in)visibility in organization and management studies and menopause at work scholarship

This paper reviews research on cis women's bodily self‐discipline in the workplace. We compare literature exemplifying the ‘bodily turn’ in organization and management studies to scholarship on menopause at work, to identify key themes across these oeuvres and the significance of the blind spots in each. There is little overlap between them: only eleven organization and management studies publications dealt with menopause. In classifying these literatures using Forbes’ (2009) concept of co‐modification, we distil four themes: bodily moulding; non‐disclosure; failing; and resistance, redefinition and reclamation. Based on this, we argue for more substantive considerations of menopause in organization and management studies, and suggest what the organization and management literature has to offer its sister scholarship. For example, we foreground how menopause exacerbates the visibility paradox facing female workers which organization and management studies identifies; and argue that menopause at work scholarship should pay more attention to specific bodily accommodations, refusals and the ‘unscripted’ aspects of menopause in organizations

The Menopause Taboo at Work: Examining Women’s Embodied Experiences of Menopause in the UK Police Service

This article contributes to the growing body of knowledge about gendered ageing at work through an examination of the embodied experiences of women undergoing menopause transition in the UK police service. Drawing on 1197 survey responses, providing both quantitative and qualitative data gathered across three police forces in 2017–18, the findings highlight the importance of a material-discursive approach that considers contextual influences on women’s bodily experiences. The article evidences gendered ageism and the penalty suffered by women whose ageing bodies fail to comply with an ideal worker norm. It makes an important contribution both to theorising embodiment, drawing in age as well as gender discourses, and to promoting a material-discursive approach that recognises the materiality of the body while also offering the potential for agency, reflection and resistance

The Mental Health of Children and Young People

Children and young people were not a priority in the early stages of the pandemic. Whilst children and young people were considered to be at ‘low health risk’ but this did not account for the seriousness of mental health issues. Evidence of the psychological impact of Covid-19 on children and young people is fast emerging. A concerning number of studies and systemic reviews suggest the overwhelming negative impact on child and adolescent mental health. The Buttle UK survey (June 22 – 15 July 2021) revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic had exacerbated an ‘under the radar’ mental health crisis leaving a generation of children traumatised and unable to benefit from the Government’s educational recovery programmes. ‘We must listen to frontline professionals and prioritise mental health support’: https://buttleuk.org/news/news-list/state-of-child-poverty-202

The post-/reproductive: researching the menopause

Purpose In reflecting on the experiences of bidding for, winning, completing and disseminating a government-funded report on the effects of menopause transition on women’s economic participation, the purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of these experiences on the authors’ work and on the authors. These experiences took place in a variety of work contexts. Design/methodology/approach Following the publication of the report, the authors undertook collective, autoethnographic memory work that forms the empirical body of the argument. This is presented in 13 vignettes. Findings From the earliest days of the menopause transition project, the authors found themselves continually traversing the supposed public–private divide in the work contexts. The experiences speak to broader social issues around gendered ageism in these contexts. Research limitations/implications The paper analyses the challenges of researching what is a universal experience for women yet also a taboo subject. It discusses the relevant implications for and possible effects on researchers who investigate such topics in organisation and work studies and elsewhere. Originality/value Menopause experiences as they connect to work are under-researched per se. The paper extends knowledge of how this research area is not only shaped by researchers but has an impact on those researchers

Menopause at work

For cis women and transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people, menopause transitions experienced during their working lives are diverse. Menopause is explored in biomedical, cultural, management and organizational studies literature (MOS). The practice of relating menopause to age(ing) in MOS is recent, positioning menopause within (cis)gender age and ageing studies where undoing ageism is a priority. Unfortunately, scholarly literature on TGNC people’s navigation of menopause at work does not exist. Given the diversity of perspectives possible in this field, the relationship between menopause and work can be characterized along a spectrum, where the extremes along this characterization spectrum are presented. This entry provides a view into the state of knowledge on menopause and transition stages experienced while at work outside of the home with a call to critically interrogate the state of knowledge into this relationship between menopause and work

Narratives, Lamai and female labour : re)narrating the untold story of HRM in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry

This thesis explores the formation of female shopfloor workers’ collective identity in the Global South. It raises the question of why female shopfloor workers in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry are called lamai (little ones) and what role HRM plays in this process – of (un)doing the workers’ collective identity as lamai. It revisits the identity construction process by locating it beyond the organizational actors’ work-identity narratives. By (re)conceptualizing HRM as a ‘web of texts’it problematizes the rhetoric–reality dualism in HRM and so dissects the role of the language(s) of HRM in the formation of work identities. For this the thesis embarks on a reading journey, informed by poststructuralist discourse analysis, and renarrates (un)doing the lamai identity as in different texts which it generates in multiple research settings in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry. During this journey it shows how (un)doing the lamai identity becomes a ‘collective burden’ of actors in both wider society as well as the industry itself. It argues that the lamai identity is a ‘double-bind’ phenomenon which amalgamates the workers’ gender and their class in order to form a third ‘object’ – i.e., childrenized female labour – out of fusion with the signifier lamai. So it elucidates how the same signifier lamai marks the workers’ resistance to doing their identity as lamai while at the same time doing the identity itself. In conclusion, the thesis argues that doing female shopfloor workers’ collective identity as lamai creates an ethical paradox within which adult workers become lamai. It nonetheless shows how this childrenization process is legitimized by the language(s) of HRM. Therefore, it concludes that the language(s) of HRM is not rhetoric but an inextricable part of the reality of HRM.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo