Gender and Disability: Feminizing Male Employees with Visible Impairments in Danish Work Organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine how stereotypical gender perceptions relate to employees with physical impairments. This is done by investigating how employees and managers in 13 Danish work organizations draw on stereotypical perceptions of femininity when they talk about their colleague with cerebral palsy, and by examining how these stereotypical perceptions influence the work lives of the participating employees with cerebral palsy — as seen from their own perspective. The empirical point of departure is an interview study conducted in 2013 with 13 employees with cerebral palsy, 44 colleagues and 19 managers. In contrast to the findings of much research on gender and work, this study finds that stereotypically feminized perceptions of employees with cerebral palsy as weak, in need of help, etc., are linked to the impairments of the employee rather than his or her biological sex or the specific gender norms of the particular industry. The analysis of this article thus contributes to increase our understanding of gender processes in work organizations. More specifically, the article shows how impairments intersect with gender perceptions; in this case how the study participants with cerebral palsy are expected to relate to and reproduce stereotypically female behaviour — regardless of their biological sex.

Gender and Disability in Male‐Dominated Occupations: A Social Relational Model

“…Indeed, there is a tension between hegemonic masculine traits of independence and autonomy and the need for assistance of others necessitated by ‘impairments’ (Shuttleworth et al ., ). For men with visible ‘impairments’, gendered understandings of work and disability can result in being associated with feminized traits such as helplessness (Mik‐Meyer, ). While the limited workplace research has focused on physical ‘impairments’, gendered aspects of an autistic spectrum disorder diagnosis has begun to receive theoretical attention through drawing on social models of both gender and disability (Cheslack‐Postava and Jordan‐Young, ), although not in relation to employment.…”

“…There is some evidence that men who challenge gender norms face considerable penalty in terms of their wellbeing (Sang et al , ). However, disability remains rarely examined in the context of gender and work (Mik‐Meyer, ).…”

Bodies and Intimate Relations in Organizations and Work

“…Over nearly 20 years, bodies at work has become an attractive focus of organization studies (e.g. Jeanes et al, ; Hassard et al ., ; Cooper, ; Coupland, ; Mik‐Meyer, , ) and management studies (Courpasson and Monties, ; Johansson et al ., ), with studies drawing on diverse frameworks, such as actor‐network theory (Mol, ), affect theory (Fotaki et al ., ; Seigworth and Gregg, ) and sensemaking theory (Küpers, ). It is evident that ‘the body’ in social theory and research can no longer be characterized as ‘an absent presence’, to paraphrase Shilling (/1993, p. 19).…”

Moving from intersectional hostility to intersectional solidarity

“…Similarly, Hancock (2007) suggests that "more than one category of difference (e.g., race, gender, class) plays a role in examinations of the complex [inequality dynamics]" (p. 251). More recent studies broadened the scope of intersectionality by considering the intersections between various other categories such as sexual orientation (Ozturk and Tatli, 2016), disability (Mik-Meyer, 2015), religion (Kaplan, Sabin, and Smaller-Swift, 2009), age (Mahon and Millar, 2014;Kelan, 2014) and occupational status (Tatli, Ozturk, and Woo, 2017).…”