Hyper-femininity as decency: Beauty, womanhood and respect in emigration

Abstract

This article explores the meanings of hyper-feminine performances enacted by a group of former USSR women migrating to Alpinetown (in northern Italy) and employed as live-in careworkers. Utilizing data from a three-year, multi-sited ethnography, I describe the ways in which they draw social boundaries and advance generalized claims for respect. I also document how such hyper-femininity is rooted in a performative understanding of womanhood as a normative project. Using evidence collected both in Alpinetown and in the sending areas, I also argue that hyper-femininity in emigration plays a compensatory role, allowing these women to detach themselves from conditions they regard as degrading. A main implication of the findings is that the notion of hyper-femininity may be usefully generalized beyond the Western middle-class contexts in which it was originally applied, to address the various ways in which women of different backgrounds make use of gender symbolism to establish claims to social worth and respect.