Psychological Undercurrents in the Struggles Faced by Women Employees in Fulfilling Their Career Aspirations: An Image Theatre-Based Exploration

Abstract

This article reports the findings from a theatre workshop held at a private limited company that explored the struggles faced by women employees in fulfilling their career aspirations. 34 women employees participated in the two-day workshop which used image theatre of the Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed tradition. The workshop revealed that a major struggle faced by women was not so much to do with having to juggle multiple roles as much as it was to do with one responsibility, namely the home maker role, taking a non-negotiable and strong precedence. An unsupportive socio-cultural background within which the gender roles were entrenched took toll on the women employees perceived control and affected her self-confidence in general and at work. The need for any programme on gender within an organization to not just provide a systemic view of gender as a sociological construct but also focus on the underlying psychological effect of “doing gender” is discussed. The psychological use of image theatre as a relatively low budget process with the potential to elicit attitudes and perceptions in an impromptu manner that is free from managerial influence is also discussed.KeywordsImage theatreTheatre of the OppressedGenderCareerAgentic-communal dichotomyStereotype