IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021is2p289-306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lockdown & me …!! Reflections of working women during the lockdown in Vadodara, Gujarat‐Western India

Author

Listed:
  • Anuratha Venkataraman
  • Anjali Venkataraman

Abstract

This qualitative study reminisces about the experiences of working women in Vadodara during the lockdown from April to May 2020. It articulates their voices of how they understood themselves during the lockdown and relates their ongoing internal dialogue to the larger conversation on what it means to be a woman in the feminist, gender studies, and in the sociology of work literature. Indian women operate within an intersectional space between Western individualism and persistent patriarchal traditional gendered roles. Their sense of who and what they are, arises through their performative acts of their many roles as daughters, wives, mothers, and daughters‐in‐law. Therefore, their context becomes essential in understanding their lived experiences. Every woman in this study played multifaceted roles during the lockdown, which was not acknowledged by others around them thereby making them feel undervalued. The existential question of who and what am I, which was always in the background, now screamed in their mind. Loneliness and emotional turmoil grew in them, as the interactions within and beyond the house became indifferent, infrequent, and recreative opportunities receded. Work and childcare pressures were harsh on their time and emotions. The fear of getting infected in an earmarked COVID‐19 hotspot was real and frightening. Hence, they well and truly became locked down!

Suggested Citation

  • Anuratha Venkataraman & Anjali Venkataraman, 2021. "Lockdown & me …!! Reflections of working women during the lockdown in Vadodara, Gujarat‐Western India," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 289-306, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:s2:p:289-306
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12572
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12572
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12572?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. Carol Wolkowitz, 2002. "The Social Relations of body Work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 16(3), pages 497-510, September.
    2. Susan Sayce, 2019. "Revisiting Joan Acker's work with the support of Joan Acker," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(12), pages 1721-1729, December.
    3. Acker, Joan, 1994. "The gender regime of Swedish banks," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 117-130, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hashemi, Hossein & Rajabi, Reza & Brashear-Alejandro, Thomas G., 2022. "COVID-19 research in management: An updated bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 795-810.

    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. Dawn Lyon & Les Back, 2012. "Fishmongers in a Global Economy: Craft and Social Relations on a London Market," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(2), pages 1-11, May.
    2. Quack, Sigrid, 1997. "Karrieren im Glaspalast: Weibliche Führungskräfte in europäischen Banken," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Organization and Employment FS I 97-104, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Phillip Mizen & Carol Wolkowitz, 2012. "Visualising Changing Landscapes of Work and Labour," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(2), pages 1-7, May.
    4. Patricia Lewis & Ruth Simpson, 2017. "Hakim Revisited: Preference, Choice and the Postfeminist Gender Regime," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 115-133, March.
    5. Alison Sheridan & Lucie Newsome, 2021. "Tempered disruption: Gender and agricultural professional services," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1040-1058, May.
    6. Baum, Tom, 2012. "Working the skies: Changing representations of gendered work in the airline industry, 1930–2011," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1185-1194.
    7. Katherine Sang & Jen Remnant & Thomas Calvard & Katriona Myhill, 2021. "Blood Work: Managing Menstruation, Menopause and Gynaecological Health Conditions in the Workplace," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-16, February.
    8. Seierstad, Cathrine & Opsahl, Tore, 2011. "For the few not the many? The effects of affirmative action on presence, prominence, and social capital of women directors in Norway," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 44-54, March.
    9. Tienari, Janne & Quack, Sigrid & Theobald, Hildegard, 1998. "Organizational reforms and gender: Feminization of middle management in Finnish and German banking," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Organization and Employment FS I 98-105, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Adriaenssens, Stef, 2010. "'Its all supply and demand': Market fatalism and norm construction by prostitution clients in the Netherlands and Belgium," Working Papers 2010/18, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel, Faculteit Economie en Management.
    11. 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.
    12. Jason Hughes & Ruth Simpson & Natasha Slutskaya & Alex Simpson & Kahryn Hughes, 2017. "Beyond the symbolic: a relational approach to dirty work through a study of refuse collectors and street cleaners," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(1), pages 106-122, February.
    13. Sian, S., 2023. "Off-ramps and on-ramps: Career continuity and discontinuity in professional accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    14. Edisson Marcelo Coba Molina* & Jaime Fabián Díaz Córdova & Ángel Geovany Carrión Gavilanes & Daniela Estefanía Chango Casanova, 2022. "La diversidad de género y el rendimiento en el sector financiero ecuatoriano," Revista Finanzas y Politica Economica, Universidad Católica de Colombia, vol. 14(2), pages 561-586, June.
    15. Erin Hatton, 2017. "Mechanisms of invisibility: rethinking the concept of invisible work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(2), pages 336-351, April.
    16. Ruth Simpson & Alison Pullen, 2018. "‘Cool’ Meanings: Tattoo Artists, Body Work and Organizational ‘Bodyscape’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(1), pages 169-185, February.
    17. Elaine Swan & Rick Flowers, 2018. "Lasting Impressions: Ethnic Food Tour Guides and Body Work in Southwestern Sydney," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 24-41, January.
    18. Michelle O’Toole & Thomas Calvard, 2020. "I’ve Got Your Back: Danger, Volunteering and Solidarity in Lifeboat Crews," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 73-90, February.
    19. Rachel Lara Cohen & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "The Feminization of Body Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 42-62, January.
    20. Helen Rainbird & Michael Rose, 2008. "Work, Employment and Society, 1997—2007," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(2), pages 203-220, June.

    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:28:y:2021:i:s2:p:289-306. 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.