"Against a sharp white background": How Black women experience the white gaze at work. Issue 5 (19th November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rabelo, Verónica Caridad; Robotham, Kathrina J.; McCluney, Courtney L.
• Is Part Of: Gender work and organization. Volume 28:Issue 5(2021)
• Page Start: 1840
• Page End: 1858
• Publication Date: 2020-11-19
• Subjects: Black women -- critical discourse analysis -- critical whiteness studies -- embodiment -- white gaze; Sex role in the work environment -- Periodicals; Sexual division of labor -- Periodicals; Sex discrimination in employment -- Periodicals; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Industries -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 306.361505
• DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12564
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0968-6673

Abstract

Abstract: Whiteness is a pervasive context in (post)colonial organizations that maintains its enduring presence through everyday practices such as the white gaze : seeing people's bodies through the lens of whiteness. The white gaze distorts perceptions of people who deviate from whiteness, subjecting them to bodily scrutiny and control. Understanding how the white gaze manifests is therefore important for understanding the marginalization of particular bodies in organizations. We therefore center Black women's narratives to examine the following research question: How is the white gaze enacted and experienced at work? We conducted a critical discourse analysis of 1169 tweets containing the hashtag #BlackWomenAtWork and identified four mechanisms of the white gaze whereby whiteness is imposed, presumed, venerated, and forced on Black women's bodies. We conclude with a discussion of the white gaze as an apparatus to enforce gendered racialized hierarchies vis‐à‐vis the body and how foregrounding whiteness deepens our understanding of marginalization at work.