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Article
Publication date: 15 August 2023

Georgina Thornton, Dominic Willmott, Emma Richardson and Lara Hudspith

Many women report experiences of street harassment during their lifetime. Previous quantitative survey research has shown the variety of ways in which this type of harassment can…

Abstract

Purpose

Many women report experiences of street harassment during their lifetime. Previous quantitative survey research has shown the variety of ways in which this type of harassment can impact upon a victim’s life, including restricting their freedom of movement and fear of further victimisation. The purpose of this study is understand the immediate and enduring psychological impact of street harassment on female victim-survivors.

Design/methodology/approach

The present study aims to explore, qualitatively, women’s experiences of street harassment through thematic analysis of on 35 online blog posts. Data were collected from the “Stop Street Harassment” website, where women are invited to share their experiences anonymously.

Findings

Three main themes were generated from the data. First was the age at which women began to experience street harassment, with recurring early incidents during formative childhood years. Second was the impact that experiences had on their mental health and psychological well-being with feelings of shame, fear, self-loathing, as well as decreased self-esteem and confidence experienced in the immediate aftermath – though the longer-term negative emotions reported were enduring feelings of anger alongside a constant state of anxiety from feelings of vulnerability to further victimisation. The final theme was the modification of behaviour after experiencing street harassment where women choose to avoid walking alone on the streets or consciously changed their clothing choices, to avoid being harassed.

Originality/value

This study offers a further qualitative insight into the real-life experience and psychological consequences of street harassment upon survivors’ mental health.

Details

Mental Health and Social Inclusion, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-8308

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 February 2024

Ali Hasaan, Adele Berndt and Mücahit Fişne

The increased importance of sports and athlete brands highlights the need for athletes to pay attention to branding as it has positive impacts. As athletes, Muslim women have not…

Abstract

Purpose

The increased importance of sports and athlete brands highlights the need for athletes to pay attention to branding as it has positive impacts. As athletes, Muslim women have not succeeded in building their brands. This study aims to understand the branding challenges facing Muslim female athletes and how to overcome them.

Design/methodology/approach

These branding obstacles and guidelines were explored using qualitative methods – specifically semi-structured interviews with Muslim female athletes and focus groups with experts. Data were analysed using open and axial coding to identify the codes.

Findings

The study identifies three major obstacles to branding by Muslim female athletes. Self-related obstacles, such as knowledge of brand building, social media, personal pressure and a lack of role models, impact the brand-building decision. Social-related (family and society) and sport-related obstacles (participation as women and as Muslims) further complicate this task. Experts provide additional insights regarding these obstacles, suggesting strategies to overcome them.

Research limitations/implications

The research focuses on athletes from one geographical area and has limitations associated with using qualitative methods.

Practical implications

The study suggests how self-, social- and sport-related obstacles are faced by athletes. It provides suggestions for federations, sports codes and other stakeholders to support athletes to overcome these barriers.

Originality/value

This study expands the understanding of the struggles Muslim women face in building their brands as part of an under-represented group.

Details

Journal of Islamic Marketing, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-0833

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 January 2024

Rhianna Garrett

This paper critiques institutional whiteness and racial categorisation in UK higher education. This is done through the representation of the complex narratives of “mixed race”…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper critiques institutional whiteness and racial categorisation in UK higher education. This is done through the representation of the complex narratives of “mixed race” women navigating their PhD experiences in predominantly white institutions, when their identities have proximity to whiteness.

Design/methodology/approach

This study introduces five vignettes of “mixed race” women, gathered from a wider study of 27 PhDs and early career researchers in UK higher education. The paper employs Yuval-Davis’ framework of belonging and bell hooks' approach to chosen versus forced marginality to create a conceptual framework based on fluid agency and empowerment, recognising belonging as an ongoing process.

Findings

The findings reveal how “mixed race” women can occupy a liminal space between belonging to and rejecting racial categorisation, as they attempted to situate their self-identifications within the boundaries of institutional whiteness.

Research limitations/implications

The study only utilises a small sample size of five counter-stories from a larger study on PhD career trajectories, limiting its empirical claims. It also only engages with “mixed race” women who have proximity to whiteness, encouraging research on different “mixed race” intersections.

Practical implications

This paper encourages more discussion around “mixed race” experiences of UK higher education and critical engagement with higher education’s reliance on statistical data to understand racialised communities.

Originality/value

This paper contributes new empirical insights into how whiteness is experienced when “mixed race” women negotiate their relation to it in UK higher education. It also provides theoretical advancements into understanding of institutional whiteness and critically engages with racial categorisation.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 April 2024

Susana Gago-Rodríguez, Laura Lazcano and Carmen Bada

Identity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends…

Abstract

Purpose

Identity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends on its trade-off with employees’ work identities and personalities. Organizational discourse nurtures this dynamic and interactive process. We focus on the regulation of an (undesired) organizational identity that is born at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sex and migrant discrimination in accounting-related positions. We aim to analyze how Latina accountants who migrate to Spain perceive that their triple status as Latina, women and migrants affects their careers as accountants and interpret whether this triple intersectional discrimination aims to create a Latina accountant’s self-identity.

Design/methodology/approach

This critical study follows a phenomenological approach to analyze the experiences of women born in Latin America who migrated to Spain to occupy accounting-related positions. A thematic analysis of their semi-structured interviews allowed us to examine the challenges faced by Latina accountants in their accounting careers in Spain.

Findings

Our interviewees' narratives display an internalization of, even resignation to, a self-identity that we label “Latina accountant identity.” This identity is based on explicit discrimination discourses that cause them to suffer from the intersection of racism, sexism and migrant conditions and is nurtured by the discourses of their senior managers, co-workers and subordinates.

Originality/value

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to frame the regulation of an intersectional discriminatory identity that is used to control Latina accountants from the inside, acting on the triple condition of Latinas, women and foreigners, influencing their self-perceptions regarding work and personal lives.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 June 2023

Mohamed Mousa, Hala Abdelgaffar, Islam Elbayoumi Salem, Walid Chaouali and Ahmed Mohamed Elbaz

This study examines how far female tour guides in Egypt experience sexual harassment and how they cope with it.

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines how far female tour guides in Egypt experience sexual harassment and how they cope with it.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative research method is employed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 full-time female tour guides working for several travel agencies in Egypt. Thematic analysis was used to extract the main ideas from the transcripts.

Findings

The findings show that female tour guides in Egypt would encounter annoying gender harassment mostly from tourists they serve, and they might suffer from irresponsible behavior – gender harassment, unwanted sexual harassment, and sexual coercion – from their local managers. When facing sexual harassment, female tour guides usually tend to adopt one of the following three coping strategies: (a) indifference to sexual harassment they encounter, (b) heroism by taking legal action when exposed to sexual harassment or (c) fatalism by taking inconsequential action such as complaining the harasser to his direct manager or filling in an official complaint inside their workplace. The selection of the coping strategy is usually based on the female victim's personality and the organizational and social context she adapts to.

Originality/value

This paper contributes by filling a gap in tourism, human resources management and gender studies in which empirical studies on the sexual harassment that female tour guides encounter, particularly in non-Western contexts, have been limited so far.

Details

Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-4323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2023

Tanya Jurado, Alexei Tretiakov and Jo Bensemann

The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to…

Abstract

Purpose

The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to encourage women to join the IT industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Internet media coverage of the Little Miss Geek campaign in the UK was analysed as qualitative data to reveal systematic and coherent patterns contributing to the social construction of the role of women with respect to the IT industry and IT employment.

Findings

While ostensibly supporting women's empowerment, the discourse framed women's participation in the IT industry as difficult to achieve, focused on women's presumed “feminine” essential features (thus, effectively implying that they are less suitable for IT employment than men), and tasked women with overcoming the barrier via individual efforts (thus, implicitly blaming them for the imbalance). In these ways, the discourse worked against the broader aims of the campaign.

Social implications

Campaigns and organisations that promote women's participation should work to establish new frames, rather than allowing the discourse to be shaped by the established frames.

Originality/value

The authors interpret the framing in the discourse using Bourdieu's perspective on symbolic power: the symbolic power behind the existing patriarchal order expressed itself via framing, thus contributing to the maintenance of that order. By demonstrating the relevance of Bourdieu's symbolic power, the authors offer a novel understanding of how underrepresentation of women in the IT sector is produced and maintained.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 July 2023

Alex Powell

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of how gay and lesbian spaces are constructed and deployed within the context of asylum claims by sexually diverse people…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of how gay and lesbian spaces are constructed and deployed within the context of asylum claims by sexually diverse people. Through doing this, the author details the ways in which the present deployment of place, as a form of evidence for a relatively fixed conception of sexual difference, does not correspond to the self-conceptions of sexually diverse asylum seekers.

Design/methodology/approach

This article draws on the experiences of eight sexually diverse refugees who agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews. Deploying a queer narrative analysis approach, these experiences are explored to develop a detailed understanding of how sexually diverse spaces are constructed within refugee status determinations. This interview-led approach is combined with a critical epistemology informed by the queer theory to understand the role of place in the construction of sexual identity.

Findings

The central finding of this article is that engagement/attendance with/in particular places and spaces is overdetermined as a form of evidence of LGBTIQA+ identity within refugee status determination. Further findings relate to the relationship between places and sexual identities more generally. The paper helps to shed light on how sexually diverse identities are conceived in essentially ontological and fixed terms, with the result that places are often flattened, with the diversity and tensions within them being ignored and occluded.

Originality/value

The originality of this study emerges from the analysis of new qualitative data. This originality is strengthened by the successful combination of empirical research, queer theoretical insights and the application of this combination to policy. This remaining a relatively rare combination. In addition, in contrast to the existing literature, the paper looks specifically at how LGBTIQA+ or queer spaces are conceptualised within refugee status determination processes.

Details

Journal of Place Management and Development, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8335

Keywords

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