Transcending Work–Life Tensions: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of Work and Gender in the Middle East, North Africa, and India

Abstract

Extant research has considered how professional women negotiate the contradictory demands of work and gender. However, these contradictions may be exacerbated for women from and living in the Middle East, North Africa (MENA), and India, as globalization has circulated Western discourses of gender equality that appear to conflict with non-Western discourses of gender difference. To better understand this potential conflict, we conducted a transnational feminist analysis that explored how discourses about work and gender created tensions for young women as they articulated their professional ideals. Three tensions surfaced in our analysis of interviews with women from the MENA region and India: (a) equality–difference, (b) modernity–tradition, and (c) individual–collective. To transcend these tensions, participants emphasized gender complementarity, professional and familial success, and their cultural pride. Taken together, these transcendence strategies indicate how gendered performances in the public sphere are tied to cultural and religious discourses and account for alternative renderings of work and woman that do not privilege Western ideals.

Keywords:

• gender
• intersectionality
• MENA
• organizational communication
• transnational feminism
• work–life balance

Acknowledgment

An earlier version of this manuscript received a Top Paper award from the Organizational Communication Division at the 2014 National Communication Association Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Notes

The name of the program has been changed for this study.

Participants described a strong connection between culture and religion, but this finding highlights those instances where participants privileged their cultural or national identity over their religious identity.

We engaged in several practices toward this end. First, we wrote theoretical memos to create a space to reflect on our own identities, cultural assumptions, thoughts, and feelings in a safe space (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Lindlof & Taylor, 2002). We then shared our memos to facilitate productive dialogue about issues related to cultural humility.