Postfeminism as Coping Strategy: Understandings of Gender and Intragroup Conflict among Swedish Welfare Workers

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how workers in the women-dominated public sector in Sweden speak about and make sense of gender and intragroup conflict and the consequences of this way of thinking and acting for gender equality at work. Using qualitative interviews with 26 first-level managers and employees, we introduce an analytical framework that employs critical discourse psychology and the conceptualization of a postfeminist sensibility at work. We identified three competing meanings (postfeminist storylines) of gender and intragroup conflict: Supporting the gendered meanings of conflict, Unawareness of conflict’s gendered meanings and Counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict. The welfare workers acknowledged the role of gender in intragroup conflicts but, paradoxically, constructed their own workplaces as gender neutral, without inequalities related to gender. We interpret these three postfeminist storylines as coping strategies; that is, as ways to make sense of the false promise of gender egalitarianism that characterizes the Swedish labour market.

KEYWORDS:

• Postfeminism
• women-dominated work
• welfare workers
• intragroup conflict
• gender equality
• critical discursive psychology

Introduction

This paper draws on Gill’s (2007) concept of postfeminism as a sensibility in order to examine gendered understandings of intragroup conflict in women-dominated work organizations. Specifically, it explores how workers in the women-dominated welfare sector in Sweden simultaneously acknowledge the role of gender in intragroup conflicts and at the same time construct their workplaces as gender neutral, i.e., a workplace characterized by equal power relations. Kelan (2009) argues that this sort of reasoning arises from a gender fatigue that characterizes contemporary work organizations (see also Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill, Kelan, & Scharff, 2017; Lewis, 2018; Lewis, Benschop, & Simpson, 2017). On the one hand, Sweden is commonly at or near the top of gender-equality rankings (e.g. World Economic Forum, 2021). This shapes the idea and identity of “the Swedish egalitarian success”, a picture that tends to constantly become produced and reproduced (e.g., Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2019). On the other hand, most workplaces today are rhetorically committed to gender equality, but this societal identity makes it difficult for workers to articulate experiences of gender difference or gender inequality. Still, gender hierarchies and inequalities persist; for example, in the forms of male dominance in top positions and lower pay in women-dominated occupational tasks and jobs (Koskinen Sandberg, 2018). One way for workers to navigate and make sense of this false promise of gender egalitarianism is to choose to overlook persistent gender inequalities and construct their work organization as gender neutral. Altogether, this creates superficial understandings of women’s agency while simultaneously failing to recognize how gender continues to organize jobs and workplaces (Lewis et al., 2017).

In this context, studies have shown that, even when women and men behave in similar ways at work, they are often judged differently (e.g. Abrahamsson, 2003; Amanathulla & Tinsley, 2013; Höök, 2001; Stempel & Rigotti, 2018). For example, if the term ambitious is associated with women, it can often be considered a problematic behaviour leading to stress or other health issues (e.g. Stempel & Rigotti, 2018). In contrast, if it is associated with men, the same term ambitious may commonly be interpreted as a positive behaviour, involving being dedicated and committed. Behaviours at work are thus given different interpretations depending on whether they are associated with women or men. Furthermore, they become implicated in relations of power and in maintaining the status quo in the workplace (Gannon & Davis, 2012). From this it follows that, even when women and men display similar behaviours during work-related conflicts, these behaviours are often understood and interpreted differently. It is important to scrutinize how such understandings of gender play out in relation to intragroup conflict at work, because they shape the psychosocial working environment, social relations and the organization of occupational tasks (Acker, 1990). They also have an impact on how work organizations produce and uphold complex patterns of inequality, i.e. inequality regimes (Acker, 2006).

Most studies on the role of gender in intragroup conflicts at work have tended to focus on biological sex rather than social understandings of gender (e.g. Boonsathorn, 2007; Davis, Capobianco, & Kraus, 2010; Holt & De Vore, 2005; Thomas, Thomas, & Schaubhut, 2008). In addition, most of these studies lack structural perspectives and have explored intragroup conflict, conflict styles and conflict management without taking into account the gender segregation in the labour market or differences in the working environment, such as differences in job demands or levels of resources between the women-dominated public sector and the male-dominated private sector.

So far, the literature has also been inconclusive regarding the role of gender in intragroup conflict at work. Some systematic reviews have concluded that there is little, if any, evidence for differences in how men and women actually deal with intragroup conflict at work (Nicotera & Dorsey, 2006; Wall & Blum, 1991). Concurrently, recent findings suggest that men and women may use different strategies to resolve intragroup conflicts. For example, women may be more prone to using non-forcing strategies, such as being obliging and compromising, compared to men, who may more often prefer to use forcing strategies, such as dominating, to achieve their goal (Rahim & Katz, 2020). To some extent, these latter findings reflect persistent gender stereotypes of how men and women supposedly behave during intragroup conflicts, such that women are often perceived as emotional and vague, and men as straightforward and confrontational (Keisu, 2009).

Against this backdrop, this paper explores how workers in the women-dominated public sector in Sweden speak about and make sense of gender and intragroup conflict and the consequences of this way of thinking and acting for gender equality. We investigate how welfare workers in three different women-dominated workplaces (a school, a geriatric care ward and a social-work office) speak about gender and intragroup conflict in relation to their field of work. Specifically, we explore: 1) how the welfare workers navigate between discourses of gender and conflict in relation their field of work; and 2) the consequences of this way of speaking and acting about gender and intragroup conflict for gender equality.

Postfeminism and women-dominated work

Postfeminism is a contested term among feminist scholars, as noted by most of those who have used this concept to critically explore the field of gender, work and organization (e.g. Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill et al., 2017; Kelan, 2009; Lewis, 2018; Lewis et al., 2017). It is not the intention of this paper to explore the many concerns that postfeminism has raised among feminist scholars. Instead, for the purpose of this article, it suffices to say that postfeminism is generally understood in four different ways: as an epistemological break within feminism; as a historical shift within feminism; as a backlash against feminism; or as a critical concept used to capture a distinctive sensibility (Gill et al., 2017). In the remainder of this section, we will focus on the interpretation of postfeminism as a sensibility and how this way of researching gender can be used to understand the meanings of gender and intragroup conflict at work.

Postfeminism as a sensibility

The body of work that regards postfeminism as a sensibility (sometimes alternatively described as a cultural formation) considers postfeminism in itself to be the main object of study (e.g. Gill, 2007; Litosseliti, Gill, & Favaro, 2019; McRobbie, 2009). Consequently, in this context, postfeminism is not considered to be a theory or a historical phase. Instead, it is used “ … to describe the empirical regularities observable in contemporary beliefs about gender” (Gill et al., 2017, p. 230).

The growing number of studies within this area of research has shown that some of the most prominent features characterizing postfeminism concern the beliefs in empowerment, personal choice and individualism; the repudiation of sexism and the need for feminism, and, accordingly, a sense of gender fatigue; the dominance of make-over and self-reinvention; an emphasis on femininity as a bodily property; self-surveillance and self-discipline; and a renewed interest in ideas about sexual difference (Gill, 2007; Gill et al., 2017; Lewis, Benschop, & Simpson, 2018). Given that some of the core features of postfeminism are the beliefs in individualism, choice and self-surveillance, many studies have also highlighted the existing overlaps between the discourses of postfeminism, neoliberalism and entrepreneurialism (Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill et al., 2017; Lewis, 2018; Lewis et al., 2017). Consequently, postfeminism draws upon the imagery of the successful, modern, working woman, who uses her agency to navigate and take advantage of the supposed abundance of (gender-)free choices available to people in the market economies of contemporary societies (Ahl & Marlow, 2021). At the same time, postfeminism thrives on a paradox: although women are depicted as emancipated and free to make their own choices in life, they are also expected to celebrate their feminine bodies and the values associated with traditional femininity, such as beauty and self-care (Lewis, 2018). McRobbie (2009) refers to this paradox as the postfeminist masquerade, which she considers to be the new form of gender power in contemporary societies. By this, she means that the postfeminist promise of women’s empowerment and independence is in reality severely restricted by the cultural requirements for women to endorse the traditional roles and values associated with femininity.

The paper draws on Gill’s (2007) concept of postfeminism as a sensibility. According to Gill (see also Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill et al., 2017; Kelan, 2009; Lewis, 2018; Lewis et al., 2017; Litosseliti et al., 2019), postfeminism is not an epistemological or historical shift within feminism. Rather, it is a critical concept that can be used to explore the distinctive ways in which we make sense of gender in contemporary society, and how these understandings structure and inform how we communicate about patterns of gender inequality that are observed (or not) in different areas of society. By employing this analytical approach, this paper seeks to add an account to the growing field of studies on intragroup conflict and the role of gender and language in intragroup conflict at work. Furthermore, it may be used in management research and practice to broaden our understanding of how gender inequalities influence working conditions and the psychosocial working environment.

Postfeminism and women-dominated work in Sweden

According to McRobbie (2009), postfeminism is a condition in contemporary societies that is characterized by previous decades of feminist struggle. Against this backdrop, Ahl and Marlow (2021) show that there are surprisingly few differences even between countries such as Sweden and the UK, which otherwise are commonly categorized as opposites when it comes to welfare policies, the organization of labour markets and approaches to gender equality. By comparing how postfeminism has shaped government policies aimed at advancing women’s entrepreneurship, Ahl and Marlow (2021) find that, in both Sweden and the UK, previous collective feminist concerns about equality between men and women have been replaced by individualized narratives and measures. Hence, in both countries, postfeminism conceals the impact of discriminatory structures and patterns of subordination. Concurrently, in Sweden, postfeminism has been followed by policies that uphold feminine attributes and the skills associated with women-dominated occupations in the public sector as a vehicle to increase entrepreneurship among women. In contrast, in the UK, governments have used entrepreneurship as an argument for improving the work–life balance among individual women. Although these findings point to certain commonalities in the ways in which postfeminism has become embedded in the policies of different European welfare states, they also show that there are nuances in the postfeminist sensibility which could indicate that national contexts matter for how postfeminism shapes beliefs about gender.

Although Sweden is generally at or near the top of gender-equality rankings (e.g. World Economic Forum, 2021), it has one of the highest incidences of gendered occupational segregation in the EU (European Commission, 2017). Women make up most of the workers in the public welfare sector, while men are in a majority in the private manufacturing sector. This gender-segregated labour market also comes with a number of consequences, in terms of arduous working conditions and high levels of sick-leave in women-dominated jobs in the welfare sector (Härenstam & Nyberg, 2021; Nyberg, Härenstam, Johansson, & Peristera, 2021).

One factor contributing to these difficulties facing (women) workers in the Swedish welfare sector is the international wave of New Public Management (NPM) that followed the neoliberal turn in politics, which has profoundly affected the working conditions in women-dominated jobs in healthcare and social services (Elomäki & Koskinen Sandberg, 2020). Work and management models mirroring time and resource allocation in the private sector, such as Lean Production or New Taylorism, have been introduced into both healthcare and social services (Meagher, Szebehely, & Mears, 2016; Selberg, Sandberg, & Mulinari, 2021). This time-and-task reorganization of work and services has also been implemented within a general context of austerity (Elomäki & Koskinen Sandberg, 2020). Concurrently as the resources available for performing services in the welfare sector have been reduced, Sweden has maintained its ambition to provide universal coverage and high-quality services (Ranci & Pavolini, 2015). Hence, the infrastructure for delivering high-quality services has been weakened at the same time as the responsibility for doing more with fewer resources has fallen upon (women) welfare workers located at the bottom of the job hierarchy.

This clash between the logics of the private market and the egalitarian ambitions of the Swedish welfare state has created tensions and contradictions in the welfare sector that workers and frontline managers are forced to deal with on a daily basis (Regnö, 2021; Selberg et al., 2021; Strandell, 2020). As noted by Selberg et al. (2021, p. 4), one of the most crucial contradictions concerns the temporal logics between, on the one hand, caring for others, and on the other hand, providing efficient services within the context of a lean organization. This contradiction gives rise to a number of ethical dilemmas, manifested above all in the sense of never having enough time to provide high-quality services (see also Strandell, 2020).

Although the workplaces studied in this paper (a school, a geriatric care ward and a social-work office) deliver services to different population groups, they are all characterized by the above-described tensions and contradictions arising from the neoliberalisation of the Swedish welfare state. At the same time, the work and services performed in all three workplaces are strongly characterized by emotional labour, which is difficult, exhausting and requires a far-reaching presence and appropriate responses to the needs of others (Keisu, 2017; Lawless & Moss, 2007). This context and character of the workplaces adds to the complexity of understanding the interplay between gender and intragroup conflicts, because the root cause might not be related to the behaviours of co-workers or managers, but rather to working conditions in general, or worries about how these may affect users or clients (Keisu, Enberg, & Öhman, 2016). To further explore how gender interacts with intragroup conflicts in this particular organizational context, we introduce an analytical framework using critical discourse psychology and Gill et al.’s (2017) conceptualization of a postfeminist sensibility at work.

Analytical framework

This paper is based on the understanding that how we speak both shapes and is shaped by social realities. Hence, our analysis is informed by critical discursive psychology (Edley, 2001; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell, 1998). This argues that mental processes can best be observed through social and discursive activity, rather than by trying to discern an individual’s internal mental processes. Two key analytical tools for this method of theorizing how language and social realities interact are storylines and subject positions. Storylines are: “ … a family of related plots which carry with them recognizable characters, expected situations and anticipated outcomes” (Jones, 2002, p. 6). When narrators speak about a phenomenon, they draw upon various storylines in combination. This interactive process results in different subject positions, here defined as: “locations within a conversation. They are the subject positions made relevant by specific ways of talking” (Edley, 2001, p. 210).

Consequently, critical discursive psychology aims to capture the relationship between the discourse and the subject who is speaking; which is paradoxical, because people can be seen as both the product and the producers of discourse (Edley, 2001). When narrators give their own accounts, they can both draw upon and resist various storylines. Not all storylines have the same status. Some formulations reflect more culturally dominant ways of understanding society, and therefore these formulations are more available than others in a particular context (Jones, 2002). Accordingly, some subject positions carry negative cultural associations, while others carry positive ones.

We draw upon this understanding to explore how postfeminism manifests in Swedish welfare workers’ talk about gender and intragroup conflict at work. In this context, we use Gill et al.’s (2017) conceptualization of a postfeminist sensibility at work in order to capture the storylines and subject positions supporting and underwriting the metatext that gender inequalities no longer exist and women are free to choose what to do and how to behave. According to Gill et al. (2017), postfeminism at work might emerge as four interrelated sub-themes or storylines about gender: 1) gender inequalities are a thing of the past; 2) othering, i.e. gender inequalities may be acknowledged but, if so, they are located in other places or contexts; 3) women are the advantaged sex; and 4) acceptance of the status quo. We will use this analytical framework to explore how postfeminism expresses itself in the sense-making of gender and intragroup conflicts among Swedish welfare workers, and the consequences of this way of thinking and acting for gender equality.

Methods and data

This article is part of a larger study, which explored conflict at work in a broad sense and its interactions with the work environment and health (e.g. Tafvelin, Keisu, & Kvist, 2019). The study focused on conflicts in a specific organizational and societal context; namely, conflicts in women-dominated workplaces in the Swedish welfare sector. In other words, the study explored conflicts at work in relation to jobs characterized by arduous working conditions, high levels of ill health (FORTE, 2016) and high degrees of manual, intellectual and affective relational work (Storm & Stranz, 2021). Consequently, the importance of the category “women” was the clear focus of our study, as we were explicitly exploring conflicts in women-dominated organizations.

This article is based on 26 interviews with four first-level managers (three female, one male) and 22 employees (20 female, two male) at three different workplaces: a school, a geriatric care ward and a social work office. Altogether, the informants included a variety of different occupations: registered nurses, assistant nurses, teachers, teaching assistants, school welfare officers and social workers. The informants’ work experience varied from one to 20 years. Although we considered questions related to the sociodemographic backgrounds of the informants, such as age or country of birth, to be irrelevant to the purpose of this study, we did observe some notable differences between the welfare workers at the three workplaces. For example, most informants were white and Swedish-born. The average age of the informants was lower at the social services office (who primarily consisted of recent graduates in social work) and higher on the geriatric care ward and at the school. However, the dataset was small and therefore we are unable to draw any conclusions on the basis of these differences.

The interviews followed a semi-structured topic guide that included the themes of education and training, personal experiences of constructive and destructive conflicts related to their work, the organization of management and conflict management, the work environment—such as job demands, resources, support and the organizational culture—and finally how the informants perceived their future in the workplace and within their occupations. The analysis revealed that the informants addressed three different types of “intragroup conflict” (see e.g. De Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012) at work, such as: “task conflict”- disagreements about the content or outcomes of the tasks being performed, which were characterized by animated discussions; “process conflict”- disagreements about the logistics of task accomplishment; and, finally, “relationship conflict”- conflicts that involved personality differences and/or differences in norms and values.

The data was gathered on-site at the three workplaces during the period 2017–2019. This paper analyses responses to the themes of intragroup conflict, work environment and conflict management, which included questions such as: Do you think the gender distribution in this workplace has any impact on the work environment? There are many women in your workplace, do you think this affects conflicts at work? If so, in what ways? Do you think the fact that there are many women in this workplace influences how managers handle conflict?

The interviews were transcribed verbatim and MAXQDA2020 software was used to facilitate the analysis. Our analysis of the interviews proceeded in four steps. Firstly, the transcripts were coded and then revised as appropriate after repeated reading and rereading of the data. Secondly, the coding was used to find storylines and subject positions arising from the individual interviews. Thirdly, these storylines and subject positions were compared across the interviews. Fourthly, the analytical framework was used to generalize how postfeminism manifests in the welfare workers’ talk about gender and interpersonal conflict, and the consequences for gender equality of this way of thinking and acting.

In each of these four steps, we used Gill et al.’s (2017) conceptualization of a postfeminist sensibility at work in order to capture the storylines and subject positions supporting and underwriting the metatext that gender inequalities are a thing of the past and women are therefore empowered and free to choose what do to and how to behave. This analytical procedure resulted in the construction of the three storylines presented below: Supporting the gendered meanings of conflict, Unawareness of conflict’s gendered meanings and Counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict.

Findings

Supporting the gendered meanings of conflict

The first storyline, supporting the gendered meanings of conflict, was the most common way of speaking about gender and conflict amongst our interviewees. The majority of the informants who expressed this opinion worked at the school or on the geriatric care ward. Accordingly, only a few who articulated this opinion worked in the social work office.

To a great extent, this storyline overlapped with dominant gender stereotypes of how men and women behave during conflicts, such as the idea that women are emotional and vague, and men are straightforward and confrontational (Keisu, 2009). Consequently, in this storyline, women and men were considered to be different when it came to intragroup conflict. Women were described as displaying behaviours such as “a lot of whispering and talking behind each other’s backs” and to be afraid of expressing what they believed and felt. In contrast, men were described as honest and straightforward. Women’s behaviours were also considered to be problematic. For example, when we asked whether the fact that the majority of the workforce was women had had any impact on the work environment, one manager working on the geriatric ward reported:

IP:

[Thinking] Sometimes I don’t think it’s positive, [ironically, heeeh] that there are so many women here. I think women are … and we’ve been working with the culture, to be straightforward and honest, to say what you really think, but it’s difficult, very difficult, when there are a lot of women and they tend to talk with each other instead … in smaller groups.

Similarly to the manager in the quote above, the majority of informants argued that women-dominated workplaces are characterized by everyday tensions and minor conflicts because women “dwell” (e.g., they whine) and turn against each other. Furthermore, women were described as engaging in a lot of backstabbing. As a consequence, conflicts were reported as continuing over a long period of time and a lot of time and effort had to be invested in restoring trust between colleagues and teams. In contrast, as reported by one social worker in the quote below, men’s way of handling conflicts was described as direct and confrontational, which was believed to resolve developing conflicts then and there:

Conflicts between women are probably more … it’s not always resolved instantaneously. They can be mad at each other for a long period of time instead. Er … while men are maybe more, for example, when I quarrel with my friends, it’s more: “Yes, but now we have to be frank with each other and articulate what’s been bothering us.” Then it gets resolved directly, in the moment, not like we have to build our trust again over a month or so.

The informants provided different explanations for the gender differences they perceived in relation to conflicts at work. For example, one informant drew upon evolutionary theory to argue that, from childhood, women are more dependent on relationships to gain support and protection from the group for their future descendants, making conflicts more emotional and important for women than for men. Another explanation related to social constructions, according to which men were regarded as more impulsive than women, while women were considered to be more inclined to talk and discuss issues with others in order to gain support for their opinions or emotions. These different behaviours were believed to result in women having less courage and self-confidence than men, and also to contribute to creating more difficulties for women seeking to express their true opinions. Consequently, women’s behaviours, whether they were believed to be a result of evolution or social constructions, were considered to have a negative impact on the work environment and on conflict.

In this context, some informants also described how perceived gender differences could create difficulties for male managers in dealing with conflicts with female members of staff. For example, one male manager at the school reported that he felt it was easier to have a conflict with a male member of staff, because:

IP:

I feel like I can be more honest … male to male. And it’s not something I’ve really thought about before, but when I think about it now, you know … Maybe to another male staff member I can be like “Ah … come on, this isn’t working, is it?” It’s much easier to do that. Whereas, I feel like if I try to do that with a female member of staff, it … it might explode.

According to this informant, women have more difficulties taking criticism and cannot control their feelings in the same way as men can. Later on, the same male manager continued to reflect upon his concerns, explaining that he generally skirted around the subject and: “I think what’s become really clear is that … there i … there’s, like, a gender … subconscious difference that happens in my mind. You know … ” Consequently, he preferred to interact with men in a conflict situation, because he believed that men could identify the core problem and therefore better understand each other.

The difficulties perceived by this male manager in relation to dealing with conflicts with women at work were also described by other informants. For example, according to another welfare worker, women are more sensitive to male managers’ behaviour and misuse situations in “dreadful ways”; for instance, by arguing that they are being exposed to harassment or discrimination if a male manager wants to discuss attitudes or rules of behaviour. Therefore, some informants held the opinion that it was more difficult for men to be managers in a women-dominated workplace. Consequently, they also believed that the problems related to the differently perceived behaviours of women and men during conflicts would decrease if the workplace were to have an equal gender distribution.

To summarize, in the storyline presented in this section, the narrative not only reproduced gendered meanings of conflict and gender, it also supported them. The informants talked about conflict as gendered overall, sometimes due to inherent gender differences caused by evolution and sometimes due to socially constructed differences. Regardless of the type of explanations provided, men’s and women’s behaviours during conflicts were portrayed as stereotypical, oppositional and unchangeable. Although this was not explicitly articulated by all the informants who shared this opinion, this storyline also privileges men in relation to women, because men’s way of dealing with conflict at work was perceived as more constructive and more beneficial to the psychosocial working environment. Consequently, in line with Gill et al.’s (2017) framework of a postfeminist sensibility at work, we interpret this storyline as “acceptance of the status quo”.

Unawareness of conflict’s gendered meanings

In the second storyline emerging from the interviews, unawareness of conflict’s gendered meanings, the informants stated that they did not know about and/or could not answer or discuss the gendered meanings of conflict. If the first storyline was the most common way of looking at gender and conflict, then this storyline was the second most common. However, in contrast to the first storyline, informants who articulated this second storyline represented all three of the workplaces included in the study.

This second storyline materialized when it became noticeable that the interview theme on gender and conflict created an uncomfortable atmosphere between us as interviewers and interviewees. Some of the reactions of the informants included annoyance, anger and/or ignorance, or, as in the quote below, the informants rhetorically returned the question to us as interviewers when we attempted to probe the theme of gender and conflict, like this social worker:

I:

Er … Quite a lot of women work here, do you think this has any significance for the work environment? In general.

IP:

[Thinking] I don’t know, so … you mean that it would contribute to more conflicts, right?

I:

It’s just a question.

[Both laugh]

Other informants said that they had not heard or understood the question, even though it was obvious that they had. Hence, the informants created more time and space to think about their answers, while we repeated the question. Often when we did so, the informants chose not to discuss the theme with us, saying: “I really don’t know.” Consequently, it can be seen that the theme of gender and conflict made many of the informants uncomfortable and, in some of the interviews, we therefore had to rephrase the question, as illustrated in the quote below:

I:

Again, there are a lot of women in this workplace and there are norms in society about women and men and conflict. Do you know what these norms consist of?

IP:

[surprised] Oh … er . I prefer not to think like that … I reject gender roles, the binary way of thinking, that we’re different, and I hang out with friends where we question the two pronouns, and that one shouldn’t even ask about pronouns when talking to people, that one shouldn’t take it for granted that I identify myself as a woman or that someone who looks like a man identifies as one … a queer context … still, I have to relate in some way to these norms.

As articulated by the social worker in the quote above, some did not want to embody any binary discourses about gender; hence, these informants’ ways of speaking about gender and conflict did not explicitly involve descriptions of dichotomous traits or behaviour among women or men. Instead, these welfare workers explicitly stated that they preferred not to think about gender, that they did not know or did not have any special thoughts about gender. However, dichotomous opinions were often implicitly visible in the informants’ speech, as the quote below on gender balance and the work environment demonstrates:

IP:

[sigh] It’s hard, and … I don’t know. I haven’t, to be honest I haven’t thought about it, and … [sigh] I … I’m not generally a deep thinker, and I don’t normally think “well this is a … this is a moaning environment because we’ve got more men and we’ve got more women or vice versa.” I don’t ever think that deep, I just see everybody as the same, and that’s kind of, uh … So I don’t know.

According to this school principal, on the one hand the moaning environment does have something to do with gender composition, but on the other hand this is not explicitly attached to the bodies of women or men. This ambivalence reveals that the informants who expressed this opinion were aware of the dominant societal discourses on gender and conflict, but did not want to articulate them explicitly. Furthermore, in this storyline, women were assumed to have the same opportunities as men. According to the informants who shared this opinion, the gendered power system is non-existent, as illustrated by a teacher in the quote below:

IP:

I haven’t really … I haven’t thought about it. It’s like … you just expect, in a school there’s gonna be lots of female colleagues, um … but here we’re actually a fairly good balance. Um … I think … all the women here would say the same thing. I don’t think they feel neglected or marginalized or anything like that. I feel, they feel part of it and they just have a … just a normal workplace, I don’t think gender comes into it.

As indicated in the quote above, informants who articulated this second storyline argued that a “normal workplace” has nothing to do with gender, and women are not in any way neglected or marginalized at work. This lack of awareness of gender inequalities could also, in some cases, surface as othering: for example, in some informants’ talk about gender and conflict, they reported that their workplace was gender equal, but that they were aware that problems existed in other workplaces.

In contrast to the first storyline, this second storyline about gender and conflict was more implicit and ambivalent, illustrated by the fact that the welfare workers who expressed this opinion often reported that they were unable to articulate any gendered meanings of conflict. However, beneath this seeming unawareness or ambivalence, gendered norms surfaced as normal and therefore invisible at their workplace. This was illustrated by the fact that the welfare workers who articulated this second storyline located gender inequalities either in the past or in other places or contexts (cf. Gill et al., 2017). The metatext attached to this second storyline is therefore that women are free to choose what to do and how to behave in specific workplaces, although they might encounter marginalization and discrimination in other workplaces or areas of society. Accordingly, this second storyline encapsulates the postfeminist beliefs in empowerment, personal choice and individualism.

Counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict

In the third storyline, counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict, the informants at first appeared to challenge the societal meaning of conflict and gender through actively turning the questions around, looking at situations in the opposite way. This storyline was only employed to a limited extent by the welfare workers, and by informants who had a common background as recent graduates in social work.

When we asked whether the fact that there were many women in the workplace had affected the work environment in any particular way, one social worker said:

IP:

Yes, I think it gives a more positive work environment. I love women, I love working with women. I’m very happy that I have a job where I work mostly with women. I think it’s certain that it can to some extent cause grand conflicts as a result of it … but I also think it has to do with being good at conflict, at resolving conflicts too, one is good at paying attention to them, one is good at noticing “okay, what happened here really?” and “what will happen when that person says this to that person, how will it be perceived?” Thus, you’re good at … seeing the relationships, perhaps also due to the fact that it’s a bit like what we work with. I think this is a good foundation to accept quite different types of individuals and let people be who they are.

This informant reported that she loved working with women, because women were assumed to be good at handling conflict. Moreover, this generated a capacity to be preventive in one’s relations, knowing and reflecting upon colleagues’ emotions and needs, even though dwelling on issues could have negative effects. When we asked about their reflections concerning the stereotype of men as straightforward and honest and women as vague and prone to quibbling, another social worker argued that, in reality, it is the other way around:

Hmm … I probably think that women are generally able to handle conflict better than men [laughs]. So, in relationships … if I think of my friends’ partner relationships, then it’s often the woman who’s the one who lifts something up or responds, while the man often, like this, just chews on it and ignores conflicts as well, shuts down. But, practising being empathic and talking about problems increases the opportunities to meet other people.

According to this informant, practising empathy and talking about problems increases the opportunities to see and interact with other human beings, and this behaviour is embodied by women in general but not by men, who instead ignore conflicts and turn off their feelings. Consequently, in this storyline, women were perceived as better than men in dealing with conflict at work, as emphasized by another social worker:

The negative side could be some dwelling before it’s resolved … the conflict feels so alive all the time. The other side brings so many upsides, such as being nuanced, being responsive, sharing responsibilities … mutual respect for each other, and that you work hard / … /The result of reasoning in this way is that women are generally more nuanced, relationship-oriented, and skilled at conflict management. And I’m happy to get the benefits of working in a women-dominated workplace … it’s characterised by an intellectual conversation at a meta level.

Another characteristic of this storyline was that the informants discussed gender differences explicitly in relation to socialization theory, and from feminist perspectives in which power in different forms is central to an understanding of the gendered meanings of conflict. This is illustrated in the quote below, where, instead of talking about the workplace, one social worker addressed aspects of the gender-divided labour market:

IP:

[Thinking] The only thing I can think of is that women-dominated professions are generally just that they’re not very high-paying jobs, they’re often these human-related professions with high levels of stress. AND THAT [said with emphasis] affects us as individuals I think, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m biologically a woman. We have a different position in the labour market and in society.

As reported by this informant, women are employed within a relational field of work, with high levels of stress and relatively low wages, which affects them as individuals. Furthermore, women are not taken as seriously as men within society. As argued by the informants who articulated this storyline, it is these gendered inequalities that have an impact upon conflicts, not women’s bodies or their sex. From this perspective, it was also perceived as easier to handle conflict in women-dominated workplaces, as another interviewee stated: “it’s easier to talk and resolve conflicts with a woman.” Hence, in relation to conflict, it was perceived as an advantage to have women as colleagues or employees, because power is more equally distributed in women-dominated workplaces than in male-dominated or gender-balanced workplaces.

In contrast to the other storylines, this third storyline illustrates at first hand the resistance to gendered meanings of conflict at work. The narratives challenge and counteract the culturally hegemonic gendered and societal understanding of conflict that characterizes women as emotional, vague, prone to conflict and complaining, unable to work in teams and gossipy (Keisu, 2009). It also represents a subject position that is less available than the subject positions of the other two storylines (cf. Jones, 2002). However, although the informants presenting this third storyline questioned gendered stereotypes and highlighted gender inequalities in society, rather than inherent sexed differences, as being at the root of the problem, this storyline also reflects a postfeminist sensibility at work (Gill et al., 2017). In this third storyline, women are considered to be the advantaged sex. Mostly, the informants articulated this idea by emphasizing women’s competence at resolving intragroup conflicts. Furthermore, although the informants drew on power dimensions in their representations of why women might be better at handling intragroup conflicts than men, this third storyline also mirrors some of the central features of what McRobbie (2009) defines as the postfeminist masquerade. The informants explicitly argued that women should confirm the values associated with traditional femininity, such as being emotional, caring and empathic, at the same time as these competences were characterized as having low value outside of women-dominated workplaces due to persistent gender inequalities.

In a broader context, this ambivalent approach towards gender in the third storyline generates two possible meanings. On the one hand, this storyline could be seen as yet another indication of the pervasiveness of the postfeminist sensibility and its superficial understandings of women’s agency. On the other hand, it could be interpreted as a narrative of resistance against gender inequalities, although informed by the language of postfeminism.

Postfeminism as coping strategy?

This paper has used Gill et al.’s (2017) concept of postfeminism as a sensibility to explore how workers in three women-dominated workplaces located within the Swedish welfare sector represent gender and intragroup conflict in relation to their field of work. The first storyline, supporting the gendered meaning of conflict, draws upon the postfeminist narrative that Gill et al. (2017) identify as acceptance of the status quo. Accordingly, this storyline not only reproduces, but also supports, gender differences. In this storyline, men and women are portrayed as occupying oppositional roles associated with stereotypical and unchangeable behaviours. Furthermore, this storyline also privileges men in relation to women, because men’s way of dealing with conflict at work is considered to be constructive and better for the psychosocial working environment. From this perspective, gender differences are attached to male and female bodies and should be appreciated, because men and women are complementary. Hence, this way of speaking and acting risks the reproduction of gender inequalities, rather than being a way of challenging unequal gender relations at work (see an overview in Table 1).

Table 1. Summary of the analytical approach, the data, storylines and postfeminist sensibility.

Data	Storylines	Postfeminist sensibility
Explicit talk about biological/socially constructed differences in relation to conflicts	Supporting the gendered meanings of conflict	Acceptance of the status quo
Implicit and/or unwilling talk about gender differences in relation to conflicts	Unawareness of conflict’s gendered meanings	Othering, gender inequality located in other places
Celebration of women and/or feminized behaviour in relation to conflicts	Counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict	Women as the advantaged sex

In contrast, the second storyline, unawareness of conflict’s gendered meaning, is implicit and ambivalent about gender. Consequently, the informants who represented this view mostly reported that they were unable to articulate any specific meaning attached to gender. However, beneath this seemingly gender-neutral surface, gendered inequalities were recognized as being both normal and invisible. Therefore, the postfeminist narrative that Gill et al. (2017) define as othering is characteristic of this storyline; that is, gender inequalities are located either in the past or in other places or contexts. Accordingly, this storyline portrays women as empowered in specific workplaces, at the same time as it recognizes the possibility of gender inequalities in other contexts. In this vein, women are believed to have the same opportunities as men in specific workplaces, although they might be disadvantaged in other (cultural or historical) contexts. Consequently, in this storyline, there is no need for gender equality at work; however, it might be needed elsewhere. Therefore, this way of speaking and making sense of gender and intragroup conflict, like the first storyline, does not have any ambition to change the gender relations at work and, hence, inequality regimes remain the same.

The third storyline analysed in this paper, counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict, could be interpreted both as an expression of postfeminist sensibility and as a narrative of resistance to gender inequalities. On the one hand, this storyline celebrates women and characteristics associated with femininity. In this sense, it follows the postfeminist portrayal of women as the advantaged sex (Gill et al., 2017) and reflects what McRobbie (2009) defines as the postfeminist masquerade. This storyline celebrates women for their feminine qualities, such as being caring and empathic, at the same time as it reproduces binary understandings of gender by arguing that qualities such as care and compassion are inherent to the female sex. However, this storyline also tries to counteract gender inequalities by arguing that the poorly valued competencies associated with women and women-dominated jobs in the welfare sector are not rooted in biological differences, but in competences developed within the gender-segregated labour market. An important question is therefore: will the consequences of this way of speaking and acting challenge or reproduce gender inequalities at work?

Altogether, the three narratives presented in this paper visualize an interesting finding, which is the paradox that welfare workers simultaneously acknowledge the role of gender in intragroup conflict and at the same time construct their own workplace as gender neutral, a workplace with no imbalance of power such as gender inequalities. In line with Kelan (2009), we see this sort of reasoning as a symptom of the gender fatigue characterizing contemporary work organizations, which both silences experiences of gender inequalities and disarms resistance to these inequalities (see also Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill et al., 2017; Lewis, 2018; Lewis et al., 2017).

In this context, we interpret the three postfeminist storylines about gender and intragroup conflicts identified in this paper as coping strategies, ways to make sense of the false promise of gender egalitarianism that characterizes the Swedish labour market. Explicitly, we see these postfeminist storylines as coping strategies enabling people to endure the persistent gender inequalities that characterize emotional labour in the women-dominated Swedish welfare sector, including arduous working conditions, high levels of stress, an increasing burden of ethical dilemmas and low pay (cf. Härenstam & Nyberg, 2021; Nyberg et al., 2021; Selberg et al., 2021; Strandell, 2020). Although these coping strategies may help individual workers to navigate and survive an increasingly difficult working environment, they also limit what it is possible to say about gender inequalities at work (cf. Bacchi, 2009), at the same time as they contribute to creating a false image of women’s empowerment.

On a slightly different note, the findings presented in this article also raise some concerns about the conceptualization of postfeminism as a sensibility. Although several studies point to similarities in how postfeminist understandings of gender have infused both policy and practice across different welfare states (Ahl & Marlow, 2021; Gill, 2007; Gill et al., 2017; Lewis, 2018; Lewis et al., 2017; Litosseliti et al., 2019; McRobbie, 2009), there is also a risk that this sort of reasoning might contribute to the pervasiveness of postfeminism and the individualized understandings of gender inequalities associated with the concept. Instead of exploring postfeminism as one monolithic discourse, we therefore suggest that future research could explore nuances and ambivalences within postfeminism. For example, the trade unions in Sweden compared to the UK could have various impacts due to the number of affiliated members. We, therefore, recommend a focus on women’s role in the trade union movement in Sweden and on potential differences in welfare workers situation within the public and the private sectors. Possibly, this could contribute to showing that, as in any other discourse, there are always contradictions leading to openings and changes of meaning.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by The Regional Ethical Review Board at Umeå University, Sweden, dnr. 2017/55-31.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the welfare workers who took part in this project, who so generously engaged with us and shared their experiences of gender and conflicts in their workplaces. We also thank Elin Kvist for conducting the interviews together with Britt-Inger, and Elin and Susanne Tafvelin for being part of the larger research project, and being valuable discussants throughout the process. Additionally, we want to thank Eva Magnusson for her support and constructive reading of the manuscripts. Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to Forte, which funded the research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was financed by FORTE: Swedish Research Counsil for Health, Working life and Welfare; dnr. 2016-07176; dnr. 2016-07176; dnr. 2016-07228 and dnr. 2019-0129

Notes on contributors

Britt-Inger Keisu

Britt-Inger Keisu is an associate professor of Sociology and is employed as a senior lecturer. She works as head of department at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies. Her main research interest is focused at the intersection of gender and organization theory. Currently, she manages the research project: Fit for fight? A study of conflict and mental health in women-dominated workplaces from a gender perspective. The relationship between conflicts, gender and well-being is explained by differences in working conditions, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Keisu has participated in several research projects, has received research grants and has published her work in prestigious journals, including Educational Research and BMC Health Services Research.

Helene Brodin

Helene Brodin holds a PhD in Economic History and is associate professor of Social Work at Stockholm University. Her main research interests concern gender, care policies and care work, with a special focus on how New Public Management (NPM) has affected working conditions and the distribution of services in the welfare sector. She has participated in several national and international projects. Currently, she leads the project Workplace violence in home-based social services: Approaches, responses and reporting of client-initiated threats and violence in four different fields of social work, funded by Forte. Brodin has published her work widely, including in journals, e.g. Gender, Work and Organization.