Eger, Claudia

English

Digital Commons @ TRU Library (Thompson Rivers University)

Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings
Volume 2019 Article 71
2019
The Moralization of Gender Inequality
Claudia Eger
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
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Recommended Citation
Eger, Claudia (2019) "The Moralization of Gender Inequality," Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings: Vol. 2019 , Article 71.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.tru.ca/cts-proceedings/vol2019/iss1/71
CTS 2019 
E 
Title: The Moralization of Gender Inequality 
 
Author: 
 
Claudia Eger 
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark 
 
Abstract:  
This paper studies the persistence of inequality permeating tourism, being embodied in its 
interactions, constructed in the gendered division of labor and inscribed on representations of 
destinations. It focuses on the ways in which relationships of gender inequality are performed 
and reproduced in the workplace and everyday life through doing gender (West and Zimmerman, 
1987). The conceptual foundations of doing gender lie in its critique of the essentialist binary 
construction of gender and the effects thereof on normative conceptions of gender that maintain 
intersecting systems of inequality.  
The paper adopts an interdisciplinary perspective drawing together organizational, 
feminist and philosophical studies to capture the complex intersections between gender, religion 
and access to tourism work. Departing from a view of gender inequality as rooted in the different 
valuation of genders, it develops a novel view of the social foundation of inequality based on 
respect. It argues that socially constructed disadvantages persist due to their moralization. More 
specifically, it studies the effects of women and men’s differentiated sense of entitlement to 
respect on women’s access to paid employment.  
The framework is applied to the study of gender in Muslim majority countries, which are 
increasingly leveraging tourism’s employment potential as a development strategy. The tension 
between universal norms and moral relativism have been at the center of debates in business 
ethics and development. Galvanized by women’s movements in the Arab spring uprisings, an 
increasing reflection on the position and role of women in Muslim societies, and society as a 
whole in the 21st century, has acquired renewed urgency. In theorizing about inequality-
supportive norms and practices in organizations and society, this paper aims to provide an insight 
to the sometimes-subtle transformations that represent sites of resistance and empowerment 
within gender trouble.  
  
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Eger: The Moralization of Gender Inequality
Published by Digital Commons @ TRU Library, 2019


The Moralization of Gender Inequality

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