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“You can call me Susan!” Doing gendered class work in luxury service encounters

Vanessa Sandra Bernauer (Helmut Schmidt University – University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany)
Barbara Sieben (Helmut Schmidt University – University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany)
Axel Haunschild (Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Germany)

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

ISSN: 2040-7149

Article publication date: 3 June 2022

Issue publication date: 4 May 2023

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Abstract

Purpose

With a focus on service encounters in the luxury segment of hospitality and tourism, the authors analyse how inherent social class distinctions and status differences are (re-)produced and which role gender plays in this process of “doing class”.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors combine concepts of class work and inequality regimes with a focus on intersections of class and gender. The empirical study is based on interviews in Germany with first-class flight attendants, five-star hotel employees, and luxury customers on how they perceive and legitimize luxury services, working conditions and status differences.

Findings

The authors identify perceptions and practices of status enhancement and status dissonance among luxury service workers, as well as gender practices and meanings such as specific feminized roles service workers take on. The authors also conceptualize these intersecting patterns of inequality reproduction as “gendered class work”.

Originality/value

The study broadens empirical accounts of labour relations in the service industries. The concept of organizational class work is extended towards worker–customer interactions. With the concept of gendered class work, the authors contribute to research on the intersectionality of class and gender and the reproduction of inequalities.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank the anonymous study participants for sharing their experiences and stories and enriching this article! The authors are grateful to all the colleagues who provided inspiring comments at various stages of the article’s journey, as well as the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Citation

Bernauer, V.S., Sieben, B. and Haunschild, A. (2023), "“You can call me Susan!” Doing gendered class work in luxury service encounters", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 42 No. 4, pp. 494-511. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2021-0272

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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