(FEM2b) Gender at Work, Gendered Work II: Gender Inequality

Gender intersects with other axes of identity to create particular experiences of working life. Women, girls, and marginalized groups earn less, have fewer opportunities for employment, education and training, and contend with poverty, health challenges, discriminatory norms, policies and practices that do not adequately consider the needs of diverse women or mothers. Their work is often sorted, segregated, and routinely devalued and devalorised. Acknowledging ongoing and persistent gender inequalities in workplaces and the labour market, this session invited papers that explore and consider the material conditions of gender and work under capitalist patriarchy. We also invited scholars to consider the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated, reified, or transformed intersecting inequalities. Tags: Equality and Inequality, Feminism, Work And Professions

Organizers: Sonia D'Angelo, York University, Linda Christiansen-Ruffman, Saint Mary’s University, Ronnie Joy Leah, Athabasca University; Chairs: Linda Christiansen-Ruffman, Saint Mary’s University, Rashmee Karnad-Jani, Public Scholar

Presentations

Anne-Marie Bresee, Western University

Picturing workloads and well-being in the academic workplace: A photovoice project

Men and women professors experience the academic workplace differently. Women professors encounter cultural and structural barriers that men do not. The resulting gender inequity negatively impacts women professors, adversely affecting their well-being and sense of professional belonging. Rosenberg and McCullough (1981) refer to the feelings of professional belonging as mattering. Mattering results in positive outcomes such as self-esteem, competency and belonging while the opposite results in feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and self-doubt. Lack of mattering may also manifest in negative mental health issues. Studies indicate gender plays a role in the well-being of professors with women reporting higher levels of stress in comparison to men (Salimzadeh and Saroyan, 2020; Redondo-Flórez et al., 2020). Giving voice to women faculty members, who continue to be underrepresented within the academic workplace, is valuable. Photovoice encourages this “unsilencing” as it enables participants to document and interpret their everyday lived experiences. The psychological processes of professional identity, however, are often overlooked in literature in favor of the interplay of physical workplace structure and professional identity (Macdonald, 1989; Baldry and Barnes, 2012; Siebert et al., 2018). Little attention has been directed towards the academic workplace as a cultural space that shapes both social and professional identities. Further, studies tend to focus on segments of the academic profession, most notably contract faculty, providing a narrow understanding of women’s experiences in the academic workplace. This paper provides a more inclusive albeit small sample of women who hold faculty positions as contract, tenure track and tenured professors. Grounded in feminist theory, with its commitment to social change, the original aim of the study was to examine the role hiring rank and gender have in terms of workload and well-being of both men and women contract, tenure-track and tenured professors in the academic workplace. When no men agreed to participate, the study changed focus, becoming a photo story that exposes how the interplay of institutional, professional and personal values influences the experiences of women professors in the academic workplace. It builds upon existing photovoice studies that explore how professional identity develops in such professions as occupational therapists, pharmacists, nursing and teaching. By not using a traditional method of deconstruction of social binaries reflecting an us-them paradigm, photovoice is used to enable a discursive discussion of well-being in the academic workplace. The intention of photovoice is to open a space in which participants produce authentic knowledge about themselves, their lives and their communities (Fals Borda and Rahman, 1991). A group discussion relied heavily upon photo-elicitation which encouraged participants to tell the story of their own social, professional and personal meanings reflected in their images. The group discussion involved participants actively engaged in the process of meaning making. Thus, the women professors’ beliefs and experiences became the main source of understanding the gendering of institutional culture. The resulting discourse of this photovoice project provides insight into the workplace experiences that shape the well-being of five women professors teaching at the undergraduate level in the faculties of humanities, social sciences and arts at a medical / doctoral university in Ontario.

Julien Larregue, Université Laval

Denouncing Gender Inequalities in the Recognition of Scientific Excellence

The Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, established in 2000, was designed to strengthen the competitiveness of Canadian universities in the emerging global knowledge economy. The program aims to retain research talents and pursue academic excellence by annually rewarding researchers identified as the most deserving in their field. However, from the very first cycles of nominations, women have been disproportionately disadvantaged within the CRC program. The gap in the proportion of women holding academic positions compared to the number of CRCs granted to women researchers is notable. Based on this observation, and presuming that this disadvantage also operated according to other marginalized identities like Indigenous origin, visible minority status, and/or ability - eight researchers filed a complaint against the CRC program (Cohen et al. v. Industry Canada, 2003) with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). Our study identifies the reasoning and arguments used by the parties involved in the debate surrounding gender inequality within Canadian academia and analyzes the characteristics of the arguments deemed legitimate by the CHRC. By doing so, we identify elements that make an argument publicly defensible and contribute to improving understanding on the processes involved in denouncing gender discrimination in academia. This study utilizes qualitative content analysis on a corpus of academic papers, press articles, the complaint filed with the CHRC, and its settlement. Moreover, we also conducted in-depth interviews with various individuals who have taken a public stance on gender inequalities in science around the time of the settlement and afterwards. Preliminary analysis reveals a gradual broadening of the discourse on the discriminatory impact of the CRC program. First, the denunciations of the program before the CHRC mainly concerned its effects and structure. Complainants focused on elements perceived to be legally valid and binding (e.g., issues of equality). For instance, the absence of actual measures to enforce compliance with the Canadian Human Rights Acts (CHRA) and the lack of statistical monitoring to document non-compliance are denounced as shortcomings of the CRC program. Over time, the debate surrounding gender inequalities within Canadian universities has shifted to reveal a tension between the notions of excellence and equity. According to program officials, gender inequalities in the allocation CRC may be due to the fact that women have not yet proven themselves and that they fall short of the scientific excellence criterion upon which the program was built. If we are to follow their reasoning, imposing quotas and equity policies would contradict the programs objective of excellence. In reaction, some scholars counterargued that the notion of excellence, when use as a measure of scientific performance, can only reinforce the disadvantage experienced by researchers from marginalized groups. Broadly speaking, the various issues raised by the CRC program highlight the difficulties encountered by individuals who attempt to denounce social injustice in professional settings.

---

Non-presenting authors: Elisa Gicquiaud, Université Laval; Lyn Hoang, University of Manitoba

Noah Rodomar, Egale Canada; Brittany Jakubiec, Egale Canada

Manifestations of gendered labour as experienced by Two Spirit, trans, and nonbinary workers in Canada in the Working For Change project

Two Spirit, trans, and nonbinary (2STNB) people in Canada face significant disparities when seeking and maintaining employment due to a range of barriers including hiring discrimination, transphobic or racist harassment in the workplace, and the need to leave jobs that have proven hostile (Brennan et al., 2022; Kinitz et al., 2022). Furthermore, the existence of 2STNB people complicates cultural understandings of gender, which then can lead to new avenues for analysis when considering the ways that work and the division of labour are gendered. Using both a national survey (N = 555) and qualitative interviews (N = 79), the Working For Change project sought to better understand the employment experiences and barriers among 2STNB people in Canada. The overarching questions that guided our research were as follows: What are the employment, underemployment, and unemployment experiences of 2STNB people? How do 2STNB people experience the workplace? What forms of bias, discrimination, and violence are present in places of employment? Working For Change was conducted using a collaborative, community-based approach that sought the feedback of peer reviewers and recruitment assistance from other community organizations. Furthermore, our project was informed by intersectional theory, as Two Spirit identity is as much a racialized experience as a gendered one. 2STNB interview participants often reported that they felt compelled to assume extra responsibilities, sometimes to the point of overworking, due in part or whole to their gender. For example, 2STNB participants often served on equity, diversity, and inclusion committees to ensure that their needs were considered, or worked harder than their straight, cisgender, white colleagues to prove themselves valuable to the workplace or to earn equal respect (see Rodomar et al., forthcoming). Participants also frequently noted that they performed significant amounts of emotional labour in addition to their formal responsibilities, such as educating others in their workplace about trans and nonbinary identity, issues, or experiences. This form of emotional labour was even more prevalent for Two Spirit or Indigiqueer participants, answering questions about race or Indigeneity along with those about queerness or gender. Due to higher rates of gender-based harassment and discrimination, 2STNB workers also found the process of fielding and reporting these incidents to cut into the time needed to complete their work, on top of being an emotionally draining task. Finally, 2STNB workers were also subjected to the gendered division of labour as it occurs for cisgender people. Participants recalled being assigned tasks based on their perceived gender or being denied advancement opportunities for which they were qualified due to their gender presentation, with transfeminine workers being especially affected. Overall, 2STNB people were affected by the standard gendered division of labour in the workplace and are further subjected to forms of gendered labour that arose specifically from the experience of being gender diverse. Most participants, when asked about changes they would make, recommended more comprehensive education on gender diversity in the workplace, both to combat the initial ignorance that contributed to the gendered division of labour, and as a practical measure to prevent this responsibility from falling to the gender diverse employee themselves, which puts extra strain on the worker and impedes them from attending to their usual duties. The challenges that gendered labour presents are just one of many factors that contributed to a much larger discrepancy between labour and income experienced by 2STNB Canadians.

---

Non-presenting authors: Dan Irving, Carleton University; Félix Desmeules-Trudel, Egale Canada; Ellie Maclennan, Toronto Metropolitan University

Gazel Manuel, Egale Canada; Andrea Sterling, Egale Canada

Sex work is an inclusion and equity issue: A call for destigmatising sex work in intersectionally-informed workplace diversity, equity and inclusion policies

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies are nothing new, however, the extent of which DEI policies have been incorporated as an integral part of company policies is a relatively recent phenomenon that coincides with growing awareness and open discussions about social and political issues in mainstream society. Correspondingly, it is increasingly becoming commonplace to see employers incorporate intersectionality in their DEI policies. While there have been great strides to make DEI policies more inclusive, many populations are still left unaccounted for, such as those who have a prior history of doing sex work wishing to enter the paid labour force. Indeed, sex work remains highly stigmatised in Canadian society, and those with a history of sex work are more likely to experience barriers to employment or experience workplace discrimination stemming from stigma surrounding their work history. Sex workers in Canada comprise of mostly women (Kennedy, 2022), along with a sizeable portion of racialised, 2SLGBTQ+, and disabled people reported to have engaged in sex work at some point. The number of people reported to have engaged in sex work increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic (Nelson, Yu and McBride, 2020), with a huge shift towards virtual forms of sex work, such camming or content creation (e.g., OnlyFans). Virtual sex work is considered to be a more safe option for 2SLGBTQ+ people to participate in sex work that allows them to have greater control over their work environment, mitigate workplace stressors (e.g., sexuality and gender-based microaggressions and discrimination in the workplace), and engage with a larger network of affirming and supportive 2SLGBTQ+ sex work online community (Trujillo, 2020). In particular, those who experienced employment precarity during the pandemic were more likely to consider or engage in virtual sex work to make ends meet. With increased cost of living expenses and growing economic uncertainty, virtual sex work is increasingly becoming a more common and viable option for many people to earn income as part of the “gig economy” (Miles, 2023), making it more likely to encounter somebody has done sex work. From a business standpoint, employers can benefit by adopting a more open and progressive approach to sex work by drawing from a larger pool of talent, as many virtual sex workers operate as a business, with many possessing desirable skillsets such as social media marketing, customer service, video editing, and graphic design. With the growing trend of people delving into virtual sex work, there will be a need for employers to have DEI policies that critically consider their stance on sex work and work towards that destigmatisatising of sex work, especially if the aim is to have an inclusive and equitable workplace.

Tayler Vajda, York University

The Archetype of The Ideal Male Ally Against Sexism

This research examines inclusive male allies against sexism who respond to instances of gender bias in the workplace in order to reveal the personality traits of the ideal male ally archetype in hopes of motivating more men to embody similar inclusive traits and to respond to workplace sexism. Using a vignette study, participants were asked to imagine starting at a new workplace called Expedite Data Inc. Here, they were required to attend an orientation where they were introduced to an existing employee. During the orientation, the existing employee shared a short story about why they enjoyed working at Expedite Data Inc. The (1) gender and (2) the extent to which the existing employee shared a short story involving an act of allyship against sexism were manipulated. Participants were then asked to imagine continuing to work at Expedite Data Inc. for several months. Participants were then exposed to an instance of gender bias and were asked how they would respond. More specifically, participants were asked to rate the effectiveness of different response types, while also considering whether they would be comfortable responding in different ways. Participants then answered the HEXACO personality inventory (Ashton and Lee 2009). Statistical analysis found that male participants with either high levels of openness, agreeableness, and or consciousnesses were significantly more likely to act in inclusive ways. More specifically, it was found that male participants with high openness scores were significantly more comfortable supporting the target of the sexist comment. It was also found that male participants with high agreeableness scores were significantly more comfortable reporting the sexist perpetrator to human resources. Lastly, it was found that male participants with high conscientiousness scores were significantly more comfortable confronting the sexist perpetrator. Not surprisingly, the reserve results were found for men low in consciousness, as men with low levels of consciousness were significantly more likely to support the sexist perpetrator. This research reveals some of the personality traits embodied by inclusive men who personify the archetype of a male ally against sexism and decide to actively respond to instances of gender bias in the workplace. These findings are interesting to consider when thinking about how institutions can begin to support inclusive gender performances and who may be receptive to practices used to initiate transitions to a more inclusive workplace. These findings are also important to consider when thinking about what traits institutions should look for when hiring male employees, especially for leadership positions or forms of work that are associated with a large amount of social, and cultural capital.