IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v33y2019i3p483-499.html

‘Don’t Use “the Weak Word†’: Women Brewers, Identities and Gendered Territories of Embodied Work

Author

Listed:
  • Agnieszka Rydzik

    (University of Lincoln, UK)

  • Victoria Ellis-Vowles

    (University of Lincoln, UK)

Abstract

Focusing on an unresearched group of women brewers, and drawing conceptually on embodiment and identity work, this article explores worker corporealities within the gendered landscape of microbreweries and deepens understanding of the body/work/gender nexus in the context of brewer’s work. In doing so, it challenges the marginalisation of female worker bodies in scholarly work on male-dominated occupations. Drawing on interview and observation data collected in the UK in 2015, verbal narratives of women brewers’ experiences of their working lives are utilised to provide insights into how their gendered bodily practices constitute resources for constructing a distinctive ‘brewster’ identity. Women brewers engage in identity work, on both individual and collective levels, through the material and symbolic framing of their embodied and gendered working selves; navigating their physical working environments; downplaying gender to emphasise physical competence; and foregrounding gender in relation to non-physical aspects to accentuate difference and collective contribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Agnieszka Rydzik & Victoria Ellis-Vowles, 2019. "‘Don’t Use “the Weak Word†’: Women Brewers, Identities and Gendered Territories of Embodied Work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(3), pages 483-499, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:3:p:483-499
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017018789553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017018789553
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017018789553?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. Rachel Lara Cohen & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "The Feminization of Body Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 42-62, January.
    2. Mats Alvesson & Hugh Willmott, 2002. "Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 619-644, July.
    3. Nanna Mik†Meyer & Anne Roelsgaard Obling & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "Bodies and Intimate Relations in Organizations and Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 1-8, January.
    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. Mohammed Cheded & Alexandros Skandalis, 2021. "Touch and contact during COVID‐19: Insights from queer digital spaces," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 340-347, July.
    2. Bianca Stumbitz & Ameeta Jaga, 2020. "A Southern encounter: Maternal body work and low‐income mothers in South Africa," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1500, November.
    3. Rachel Lara Cohen, 2020. "‘We’re not like that’: Crusader and Maverick Occupational Identity Resistance," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 136-153, March.
    4. Eveline Bruijn & Gail Whiteman, 2010. "That Which Doesn’t Break Us: Identity Work by Local Indigenous ‘Stakeholders’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 479-495, October.
    5. Carlos Martin-Rios, 2016. "Innovative management control systems in knowledge work: a middle manager perspective," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 181-204, May.
    6. repec:bcp:journl:v:9:y:2025:i:10:p:4092-4109 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Minbaeva, Dana & Rabbiosi, Larissa & Stahl, Günter K., 2018. "Not walking the talk? How host country cultural orientations may buffer the damage of corporate values’ misalignment in multinational corporations," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 880-895.
    8. Suzan Lewis & Deirdre Anderson & Clare Lyonette & Nicola Payne & Stephen Wood, 2017. "Public sector austerity cuts in Britain and the changing discourse of work–life balance," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(4), pages 586-604, August.
    9. Denise L. Spitzer, 2022. "Working intimacies: Migrant beer sellers, surveillance, and intimate labor in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 906-921, May.
    10. Nathan Wilmers & Letian Zhang, 2022. "Values and Inequality: Prosocial Jobs and the College Wage Premium," American Sociological Review, , vol. 87(3), pages 415-442, June.
    11. Sharon Koppman & Elisa Mattarelli & Amar Gupta, 2016. "Third-World “Sloggers” or Elite Global Professionals? Using Organizational Toolkits to Redefine Work Identity in Information Technology Offshore Outsourcing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 825-845, August.
    12. Paul, Michael & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Groth, Markus, 2015. "Tightening or loosening the “iron cage”? The impact of formal and informal display controls on service customers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1062-1073.
    13. Karoline Strauss & Julija N. Mell & Frederik Anseel & Annemijn Loermans & David Sluss, 2026. "Complementarity in Future Selves: How Networks of Future-Oriented Cognitive Representations Influence Individuals’ Ability to Proactively and Adaptively Manage Their Career," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 90-112, January.
    14. Yves Gendron & Laura F. Spira, 2009. "What Went Wrong? The Downfall of Arthur Andersen and the Construction of Controllability Boundaries Surrounding Financial Auditing," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 987-1027, December.
    15. repec:bcp:journl:v:6:y:2022:i:8:p:447-453 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Danielle Treiber & Lize A. E. Booysen, 2021. "Identity (Re)Construction of Female Adolescents with Substance Use Disorders," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-19, June.
    17. Dentoni, Domenico & Pascucci, Stefano & Poldner, Kim & Gartner, William B., 2018. "Learning “who we are” by doing: Processes of co-constructing prosocial identities in community-based enterprises," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 603-622.
    18. Crozier, Sarah E & Atkinson, Carol & Bresnen, Mike & Goodwin, Peter, 2025. "Inter-identity threats and opportunities shaping professional influence for the Allied Health Profession (AHP) healthcare workforce: a study of identity paradox," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 386(C).
    19. Sörgärde, Nadja, 2020. "Story-dismantling, story-meandering, and story-confirming: Organizational identity work in times of public disgrace," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3).
    20. Laurence Romani & Patrizia Zanoni & Lotte Holck, 2021. "Radicalizing diversity (research): Time to resume talking about class," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 8-23, January.
    21. Claudia Gross, 2010. "Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 21(1), pages 60-81.
    22. Goretzki, Lukas & Messner, Martin, 2019. "Backstage and frontstage interactions in management accountants' identity work," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-20.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:3:p:483-499. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.