‘Who's Got the Look?’ Emotional, Aesthetic and Sexualized Labour in Interactive Services

Abstract

This article examines sexualized work and, more particularly, how and why, at the organizational level in interactive services, employees become sexualized labour. In doing so it assesses the thin line between selling a service and selling sexuality. The analysis revisits existing literature on emotional labour, organizational aesthetics and workplace sexuality, noting the common concern in this literature with employee's appearance or looks. The article argues that the current conceptualization of interactive services and sexualized work is partial and blunt; either because it does not adequately incorporate employee corporeality or because it fails to distinguish between the different forms of sexualized work. A better conceptualization is achieved by incorporating aesthetic labour into the analysis, demonstrating how it is extended to sexualized labour employees to have a particular corporate look. From this analysis it is argued that a conceptual double shift is to be needed to understand sexualised labour, firstly, from emotional to aesthetic and sexualized labour and secondly, from an employee sexuality that is sanctioned and subscribed to by management to that which management strategically prescribes.

Nigellissima: a study of glamour, performativity and embodiment

“…This coyness with regard to references to physical appearance has gradually disappeared in recent times, however, as organisations actively recruit employees who are aesthetically pleasing in order to fulfil customer service roles in what has become an increasingly appearance-driven consumer society. The recruitment of staff on the basis of their attractiveness may be overt and formal or more often covert and informal, note Warhurst and Nickson (2009). Furthermore, the recruitment of service staff resurrects a range of gender issues, issues that have perhaps never gone away but have merely been submerged beneath the surface, waiting for the right time and the right opportunity to resurface once again.…”

“…The discussion moves on to the customer service role or 'interactive service' role, as Warhurst and Nickson (2009) describe it, and considers the extent to which service roles in the contemporary workplace are gender coded as 'feminine'. It also discusses whether or not gender coding, if it occurs, leads to sex role typing in the workplace in relation to customer service roles, namely that sex and gender conflate to create jobs that are assigned to men and women according to the perceived 'masculine' or 'feminine' nature of those roles.…”

The Body/Sex/Work Nexus: A Critical Perspective on Body Work and Sex Work

“…Beyond the sex industry, as workers' bodily presentation and aesthetic representation are systematically incorporated into consumer landscapes, sexualisation becomes increasingly common across the service sector (Warhurst and Nickson 2009). While workers' sexualisation may be part of a resistant or informal worker strategy (Warhurst and Nickson 2009) it is also harnessed and organised by management across retail, hospitality and leisure environments, with services marketed on the 'sexiness' of staff (for example, Hooters or Abercrombie and Fitch).…”

“…While workers' sexualisation may be part of a resistant or informal worker strategy (Warhurst and Nickson 2009) it is also harnessed and organised by management across retail, hospitality and leisure environments, with services marketed on the 'sexiness' of staff (for example, Hooters or Abercrombie and Fitch). Management control operates via the recruitment of 'certain personalities'.…”

Kontrolle und Autonomie in der selbstorganisierenden Unternehmung: zum Post-Industriellen Strukturwandel des Arbeitsprozesses.

“…New Institutionalism, however, among other things, completely omits the question of work in the firm, which is where we turn to Labour-Process Theory. As is well known, Marxian discourses on labour in the Anglo-American context developed into Labour-Process Theory (LPT) (Braverman, 1985(Braverman, /1974Burawoy, 1979;Edwards, 1981;Friedman, 1977;Smith, 2015;Thompson, 2010;Warhurst, 2009) whereas in Italy they spun into Autonomism (Hardt/Negri, 2003;Negri, 1989;Virno, 2008;Lazzarato, 2012). Both projects are indebted to Marx's analysis of the formal criteria of work under the capitalist mode of production: wage-labour.…”