IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v30y2023i4p1161-1177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bodies in‐between: Religious women's‐only spaces and the construction of liminal identities

Author

Listed:
  • Michal Frenkel
  • Varda Wasserman

Abstract

This paper examines the creation of women‐only organizational spaces as a diversity practice and assesses their potential to facilitate the workforce inclusion of religious women from gender‐conservative groups. Based on longitudinal fieldwork in two ultra‐Orthodox‐Jewish women‐only colleges in Israel and interviews with students and staff, we demonstrate how this practice constitutes three types of liminality—spatial, social, and epistemic—that enable ultra‐Orthodox women to move unimpeded between a familiar, religious environment and a secular one. In this protected and carefully curated environment, they feel safe and are able to develop new identities relevant to the secular labor market while maintaining or even enhancing their traditional, religious sense of self. The liminal space of the college reinforces their sense of belonging to a space of their own and serves as a bridge that helps them cope with the secular world.

Suggested Citation

  • Michal Frenkel & Varda Wasserman, 2023. "Bodies in‐between: Religious women's‐only spaces and the construction of liminal identities," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1161-1177, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:30:y:2023:i:4:p:1161-1177
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12958
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12958
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12958?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Van Laer, Koen & Janssens, Maddy, 2014. "Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Exploring the hybrid identity narratives of ethnic minority professionals," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 186-196.
    2. Erik P. Duhaime, 2015. "Is the call to prayer a call to cooperate? A field experiment on the impact of religious salience on prosocial behavior," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 10(6), pages 593-596, November.
    3. Jennifer Howard-Grenville & Karen Golden-Biddle & Jennifer Irwin & Jina Mao, 2011. "Liminality as Cultural Process for Cultural Change," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 522-539, April.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:10:y:2015:i:6:p:593-596 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Louise Nash, 2018. "Gendered places: Place, performativity and flânerie in the City of London," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(6), pages 601-620, November.
    6. Janssens, Maddy & Zanoni, Patrizia, 2014. "Alternative diversity management: Organizational practices fostering ethnic equality at work," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 317-331.
    7. Jawad Syed & Edwina Pio, 2010. "Veiled diversity? Workplace experiences of Muslim women in Australia," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 115-137, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holck, Lotte & Muhr, Sara Louise, 2017. "Unequal solidarity? Towards a norm-critical approach to welfare logics," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-11.
    2. Leyerzapf, Hannah & Verdonk, Petra & Ghorashi, Halleh & Abma, Tineke A., 2018. "“We are all so different that it is just … normal.” Normalization practices in an academic hospital in the Netherlands," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 141-150.
    3. Sophie Hennekam & Sabine Bacouel-Jentjens & Inju Yang, 2020. "Perceptions of Diversity Management Practices among First- versus Second-generation Migrants," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(5), pages 844-863, October.
    4. Sophie Hennekam & Sabine Bacouel-Jentjens & Inju Yang, 2020. "Perceptions of Diversity Management Practices among First- versus Second-generation Migrants," Post-Print hal-03232761, HAL.
    5. van Amsterdam, Noortje & van Eck, Dide, 2019. "“I have to go the extra mile”. How fat female employees manage their stigmatized identity at work," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 46-55.
    6. Laila Tingvold & Anette Fagertun, 2020. "Between Privileged and Oppressed? Immigrant Labor Trajectories in Norwegian Long-Term Care," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Maria Laura Toraldo & Gazi Islam & Gianluigi Mangia, 2019. "Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 617-654, May.
    8. Florence Karaba, 2024. "‘I Can Only Do My Best and Leave the Rest to God”: Religious/Spiritual Coping Strategies of African Nurses in the UK," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(4), pages 789-808, November.
    9. Stephanie Bertels & Jennifer Howard-Grenville & Simon Pek, 2016. "Cultural Molding, Shielding, and Shoring at Oilco: The Role of Culture in the Integration of Routines," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 573-593, June.
    10. Loan Thi Dao, 2017. "Out and Asian: How Undocu/DACAmented Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Youth Navigate Dual Liminality in the Immigrant Rights Movement," Societies, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-15, June.
    11. François Bousquet & Valérie Barbat, 2021. "Capital social collectif et rites de passage," Post-Print hal-03768511, HAL.
    12. Hayfaa A. Tlaiss & Maura McAdam, 2023. "Muslim feminists and entrepreneurship at times and in contexts of crises," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 1759-1784, September.
    13. Ilan Shdema & Moshe Sharabi & Doaa Manadreh & Galit Yanay-Ventura, 2024. "Religiosity and labour market attainments of muslim-arab women in Israel," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 2523-2542, June.
    14. Annette Risberg & Hervé Corvellec, 2022. "The significance of trying: How organizational members meet the ambiguities of diversity," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1849-1867, November.
    15. Mark G. Edwards, 2021. "The growth paradox, sustainable development, and business strategy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(7), pages 3079-3094, November.
    16. Weinfurtner, Tania & Seidl, David, 2019. "Towards a spatial perspective: An integrative review of research on organisational space," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    17. Regine Bendl & Alexander Fleischmann & Angelika Schmidt, 2025. "The (In)Visibility of Diversity in Alternative Organizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 196(2), pages 273-289, January.
    18. Ossenkop, Carolin & Vinkenburg, Claartje J. & Jansen, Paul G.W. & Ghorashi, Halleh, 2015. "Ethnic identity positioning at work: Understanding professional career experiences," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 515-525.
    19. Mie Plotnikof & Sara Louise Muhr & Lotte Holck & Sine Nørholm Just, 2022. "Repoliticizing diversity work? Exploring the performative potentials of norm‐critical activism," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 466-485, March.
    20. Ismintha Waldring & Maurice Crul & Halleh Ghorashi, 2015. "Discrimination of Second-Generation Professionals in Leadership Positions," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(4), pages 38-49.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:30:y:2023:i:4:p:1161-1177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.