Gender in the Flesh: Allostatic Load as the Embodiment of Stressful, Gendered Work in Canadian Police Communicators

Arija Birze, Elise Paradis, Cheryl Regehr, Vicki LeBlanc and Gillian Einstein
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Arija Birze: University of Toronto, Canada
Elise Paradis: University of Toronto, Canada
Cheryl Regehr: University of Toronto, Canada
Vicki LeBlanc: University of Ottawa, Canada
Gillian Einstein: University of Toronto, Canada; Linköping University, Sweden; Women’s College Research Institute, Canada

Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 5, 1299-1320

Abstract: Gender and work are important social determinants of health, yet studies of health inequities related to the gendered and emotional intricacies of work are rare. Occupations high in emotional labour – a known job stressor – are associated with ill-health and typically dominated by women. Little is known about the mechanisms linking health with these emotional components of work. Using physiological and questionnaire data from Canadian police communicators, we adopt an embodied approach to understanding the relationship between gender norm conformity, emotional labour, and physiological dysregulation, or allostatic load. For high conformers, emotional labour leaves gendered traces in the flesh via increased allostatic load, suggesting that in this way, gendered structures in the workplace become embodied, influencing health through conformity to gender and emotion norms. Findings also reveal that dichotomous conceptions of gender may mask the impact of gendered structures, obscuring the consequences of gender for work-related stress.

Keywords: allostatic load; body/work/gender nexus; body work; embodiment; emotional labour; gender; police communicators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:5:p:1299-1320

DOI: 10.1177/09500170221080388

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