IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-030-64319-5_21.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Working While Homosexual in South Africa: Where Are We Now?

In: Exploring Gender at Work

Author

Listed:
  • Lusanda Sekaja

    (University of Johannesburg)

  • Ikraam Kraft

    (University of Johannesburg)

  • Catherine Lötter

    (University of Johannesburg)

  • Nadia Daniel

    (University of Johannesburg)

  • M. Christina Meyers

    (Tilburg University)

  • Byron G. Adams

    (University of Johannesburg
    Tilburg University
    Ghent University
    University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

While being homosexual in Africa has serious consequences, in post-democratic South Africa, with its progressive constitution, homosexual people are considered equal to heterosexual people. However, constitutional equality does not always translate into practical equality for various reasons, in particular, religion. In this chapter, we evaluate the experiences of gay and lesbian South African employees from three empirical studies from the past five years. We were specifically interested in the perceived experiences of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination of homosexual people. Results indicated that for gays and lesbians, these negative experiences at work are still a reality, which was confirmed by contemporary literature. Furthermore, religion continues to fuel these stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Although forced by company policy, there are also signs that fellow employees are becoming more tolerant. Organizations have at their disposal various ways to dismantle the harmful stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination and to help foster a climate of inclusion. The findings add to the lacking body of knowledge regarding the treatment of gays and lesbians in the workplace in South Africa and give insight into the influence of religion in this dynamic. Directions for future research are given.

Suggested Citation

  • Lusanda Sekaja & Ikraam Kraft & Catherine Lötter & Nadia Daniel & M. Christina Meyers & Byron G. Adams, 2021. "Working While Homosexual in South Africa: Where Are We Now?," Springer Books, in: Joan Marques (ed.), Exploring Gender at Work, chapter 0, pages 407-424, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-64319-5_21
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-64319-5_21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-64319-5_21. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.