Disciplined Bodies: Women's Embodied Identities at Work

Abstract

This study employs a Foucauldian feminist lens to analyze how organizational and gendered discourses are quite literally written upon women's bodies in ways that often constrain women's professional identities. Nineteen professional women were interviewed about their definitions and experiences of their professional bodies. The interview data are summarized in the following three emergent and telling themes: (1) a professional body is a fit body; (2) a professional body (purpose-fully) emits signs and messages through bodily comportment, nonverbal behaviours, and performances. Thus, the body is conceived as a text to be read; and, (3) a professional woman's body is positioned as excessively) sexual. The task of controlling the female body is made more difficult because the female body has a tendency to overflow. The undisciplined, excessive body points to the female body's otherness. These three themes indicate how professional women's bodies are normalized and made docile in organizational contexts. Additionally, the interview data imply that both men and women are disciplinarians. Finally, the political implications of women's embodied professional identities are discussed and future research directions are presented.