Kate Sullivans Arguments on Desexualization at Work Place - Massage Therapy - Case Study Example

Critical Perspectives on Management and Organization Student Name Course Tutor Date Introduction Desexualization is defined as a conscious mental process that aims at repressing the sexual response to the unconscious mind. It is a concept that is applied in work places so as to promote professionalisms and help curb problems that may be caused by sexuality in the workplace. However, desexualization is not as easy as it ay seem in some work places and attempts to maintain it poses a great challenge to workers of both genders. This essay looks at Kate Sullivan’s arguments on desexualization at work place, particularly in massage therapy. Her arguments are based on Burrell’s (1984) argument that attempts for desexualization, or the efforts to end sexuality from individuals or organizations ends up creating more gendered problems rather that mitigating them. Kate Sullivan looks at how attempts to desexualize workers in organizations end up in creating gendered subjectivities characterized by heteronormativity, discrimination and sexual harassment. To support her arguments, she conducted a research by use of feminist poststructuralist framework and feminist ethnographic methods to study desexualization in massage therapy in the United States. These methods included sourcing for information from scholars who are studying lives of men and women, existing feminist, interpretive and critical paradigms as well as ethnographic methods such as spending time observing and participating in massage classes and interviewing the massage therapists. Ethnographic methods are those methods where the researcher observes from the point of view of the subject (Sullivan 2014). This essay will therefore present Kate Sullivan’s view that pressures towards organizational desexualization in massage therapy maintain heteronormativity, sexual harassment and discrimination, in her article With(out) pleasure: Desexualization, gender and sexuality at work’ (2014). The essay also contains my own views on Kate Sullivan’s arguments about desexualization in massage therapy. Author’s arguments Sullivan’s main argument in the article is that pressures towards organizational desexualization in massage therapy maintain heteronormativity, sexual harassment and discrimination. Heteronormativity refers to a belief that people fall into distinct genders each with its natural roles; sexual harassment is the inappropriate handling of a person of asexual nature while discrimination is differential treatment of a person in this case, due to their sexuality. In the article, Sullivan states that gendered tensions in professions are more revealed when the drive to monitor and control sexuality rests on an individual. She explains that women are expected to control their bodies properly while men are expected to maintain their masculine status. According to her analysis using the case of massage therapists, pressure to desexualize is only on female therapists and clients and not so much on men. Sexuality in men is seen as natural and sexual arousal during massage is seen as obvious and that men get horny easily. Everything regarding male sexuality has been framed as potent and natural. An interaction between a student and the instructor implies that when male clients make sexual advances, the female therapists should understand that it is because they have not been adequately nurtured. The instructor also says that women might be the problem because they provoke men’s sexual behavior when they view them as problematic (Sullivan2014). This scenario is not creating an impression that men’s sexual response should be viewed as natural and women should not judge them nor resist because it is natural for men’s sexuality to dominate. This is what Sullivan explains as heteronormativity. She further explains that desexualization in the work place denies both genders their real sexual desire and their sexual advances have been labeled as resulting from some deficiencies. Female are viewed as victims of sexual abuse while men are seen as ‘boys’ (Sullivan 2014). In her conclusion, she states that desexualization has been reinforced as a key driver in creation of gendered and sexualized norms reinforcing that sexuality is dangerous. However, therapists take up this pressure so that they can develop a professional identity while on the other hand clients have been constructed as sexually vulnerable clients. This does not offer any assistance to the therapists’ struggle to maintain professionalism. It also does not make the massage conditions safe for therapists nor does it create any awareness to the clients and the public about the nature of massage experience (Katie 2014). Her argument is supported by Trethewey (1999) who states that both male and female employees usually control their emotions at work. However, pressure on women is faced with heteronormative double standards since while they are supposed control sexuality, they are also required to maintain some level of femininity so as not to become very ‘mannish’ and also remain attractive to the men. In her other article, “Producing professionals: Exploring gendered and embodied responses to practicing on the margins” (Sullivan 2010) carried out a similar research where she concluded that the ideas of professionalism that exist in western countries do not include spaces for sexuality. Therefore massage therapists are forced to construct their own professional identity mainly to defend their profession from that sexual image. In their efforts to create a professional identity through their conversation and behavior, a closer look may reveal hidden tension, anxiety and fear indicating that the professional identity is not easy for them. In another incident, Sulivan quotes a massage instructor informing the students that use of make up by therapists creates an indication that she want the client to see her as attractive and this is therefore interpreted as ‘asking for it’. Make up shows that the therapists are not able to control their appearance. He indicates that therapists should bear a generic professional look so that they can be trusted by the clients (Sullivan 2010). I tend to agree with the author’s argument on desexualization but I don’t see sexual harassment and discrimination in massage therapy. Looking at massage therapy as an emotional labor where the service provider must involve his or her feelings. The workers are therefore required to manage their emotions and the display so as to create an atmosphere that will allow for interpersonal transaction (Anderson, Provis & Chappel 2002). Organizations promoting desexualization such as massage parlors have set the professional requirements for their employees during interaction with the clients but the pressure remains on the employees to put effort, to plan and control their sexuality. However, the massage therapists have come up with ways of managing sexual responses from clients. Responses from male clients are viewed by female therapists as deficiencies of touch while male therapists view responses from female clients as victims of sexual abuse. This shows that the therapists accept the sexuality nature of the job and the clients also expect sexual results from the job. However, there are no efforts from the clients that may lead to sexual harassment. In another argument, Sullivan argues that “Desexualization is not doled out equally. Instead, it is developed in nuanced fashions that rest on gendered bodies and acts to further (re)construct sexual subjectivities”. Her argument at this point implies that female therapists carry the biggest burden of desexualization. Stories drawn from male therapists about their female clients indicate that according to them, they see sexual display by women clients as an indication of sexual abuse. They display women as victims and out to destroy the male therapists. In one of the interviews with a male therapists, Sullivan was told that he used to freak out and sometimes unable to continue with massage due to fear that a female client would seduce and sue him. During class time, one instructor tells the students that they must be careful of female clients who indicate signs of sexual interests. He gave an example of a female client who kept moving the sheet down to expose herself until he had to tell her that she is in a safe place. The tutor explained that behavior as likelihood of the client having been sexually abused. The woman’s reaction to massage touch is explained as a sign of abuse. This according to Sulivan’s argument implies that women, unless they have been victims of sexual abuse, should be able to control and should not show any signs of sexual desire during massage therapy (Sullivan 2014). On the other hand, men showing sexual interests should be taken as something normal since they are potent and sexually desiring agents. Female therapists also take it that when male clients show sexual desire it is because they have not experienced enough non-sexual touch. Female therapists interpret it that the client does not actually desire sex but he is behaving so because he has not had enough touch and closeness from the society. One female therapist supports this and says that she feels sorry for men because of the perversion in the society which makes men go untouched, and they only touch those whom they are in a sexual relationship with (Sullivan 2014). Another female therapist also supports this by saying that men who come from homes where there is no much close contact have their bodies so programmed that they are only touched during sexual contacts. Such men can get aroused even by simply massaging them on their shoulders. This is unlike those who are used to so much touching who can even fall asleep during massage and experience it as a healing touch. Their views shows that men’s sexualized response should be taken as normal unlike that of female clients which should be taken as a sign of sexual abuse. According to Sullivan’s argument, that is discrimination where women are expected to control their sexual response while in me it is normal and it shows a need for a healing touch (Sullivan 2014). In response to her argument, I believe that desexualization even if it would be doled out equally, women would be at greater pressure than men. This is because female sexuality has been so much encourage by the culture due to its expectations that carries abundant messages about sexualization of women. Girls therefore grow in such a cultural setting which they even carry in their professions. Sociocultural theories explain that choices about a person’s appearance and behavior exist within a cultural milieu with limited options. Feminist psychodynamic theories and socio construction theories explain the culture delivers messages about femininity that maintains gender relations. Therefore it the culture that has emphasized so much about femininity and therefore desexualization is more difficult to women who have grown under a sexualized cultural setting (APATask Force on the Sexualization of Girls 2010). This argument is supported by Kensbock, Bailey, Jennings and Patiar (2015) in their article “Sexual Harassment of Women Working as Room Attendants within 5-Star Hotels” who shares the experiences of female room attendants regarding sexual harassment by male clients. There is a clear indication that the female hotel attendants are supposed to know how to handle sexual demands of male guests which have been portrayed as inevitable. The hotel culture has a lot of tolerance to sexual harassment of female room attendants by requiring them to perform emotional labor. Emotional labor refers to a requirement that the room attendants should demonstrate unfelt emotions in the hotel context. This is what Sullivan refers to as gendered subjectivity where women are assumed that they should be able to respond to sexual advances from men. In the case of hotels, the workplace has rested the burden of controlling sexuality to the female attendants therefore making them the victims of desexualization. Sexual harassment has been rationalized as normal for men while female attendants are supposed to internalize it as part of the normal socio-cultural behavior therefore creating a dominant gendered culture instead of working to change it (Kensbock, Bailey, Jennings & Patiar 2015). In another argument, Kate Sullivan argues that “the male and female therapists’ strategies for managing a marginalized identity often reinforce sexuality as something women must work to monitor and control while men, no less impacted by the stigmatization, focus their attention on image management techniques meant to link massage to medicine”. In this argument, she implies that pressure on desexualization is felt differently by the massage therapists. This can be seen in the example she has given from the story by the tutor whose female client kept moving her sheet down to expose herself. The therapist in return told her that she is in a safe place. To explain the sexual behavior of that woman, he suspected that she had been a victim of sexual abuse. Also in another story, a female client who was acting in a seductive manner by trying to touch the therapist’s hand, the therapist managed it as a case of nervousness though he knew that the client was not nervous. The therapist wanted to send a message that the client’s actions were inappropriate and should control them. On the other hand, sexual response from male clients is viewed differently even by female therapists. They explain that sexual advances should be seen as normal in men since they happen to men who have not received adequate touch. This reaction by men is being explained in a medical way such that these are men who are experiencing touch deficiency. Seemingly, no role is placed on men to control their sexuality but to take the massage touch as a healing touch (Sullivan 2014). In further support of this argument, in her other article, “Producing professionals: Exploring gendered and embodied responses to practicing on the margins” Sullivan explains that both female and male therapists are being viewed as sexual suspects and they use their bodies and their workspaces to try create a medical identity. For example some decorate their offices with anatomical drawings while others wear medical scrubs as their uniform to create a more medical look. These are just efforts to desexualize the perceptions about massage. However due to heteronormativity, male therapists are often seen as sex predators because the society is not used to seeing men in tasks that involve nurturing, caring and working on other people’s bodies. This makes it difficult for them to get clients. Therefore their efforts to create a medical identity in massage is a way of trying to manage the tension associated with the profession which still does not succeed due to the rooted gendered ideologies associated with the profession (Sullivan 2010). I tend to agree that the feminine body is marginalized unlike the male body and that women have a big role to monitor and control their sexuality in their professions (Duschinsky 2010). The female body is naturally associated with abilities such as nurturance, passivity and dependence, while the male body is associated with strength, intelligence and ability. Therefore for women to be viewed as professionals, they must put on a less feminine look and a more masculine look. At the same time, they face various consequences if they appear too masculine. Therefore they must learn to navigate their bodies to fit in all these requirements. This is the same dilemma faced by female therapists who are under pressure to desexualize yet they must appear feminine to the clients. This is unlike for men who are required to maintain total professionalism so that female clients can also control their sexuality during massage sessions (Gettman & Gefand 2007). Own views about Kate Sullivan’s arguments I totally agree with her view that pressures towards organizational desexualization in massage therapy maintain heteronormativity, sexual harassment and discrimination. This is because an organization such as the massage parlor has itself created a sexualized culture based on what they want to offer to the clients, that is, healing inform of relaxation and pleasure. To be able to obtain this, the clients believe that it can be obtained if the massage is performed by a therapist of a particular sexual nature. Generally massage therapy is a highly gendered work and therefore desexualization efforts should not only be left o the therapists but also to the clients as well as the management. However, in most countries massage is a female dominated job and that is reason it is so gendered. Worse still, the organizations with such type of services subtly regulate their work practices and the organization’s social norms. Something that is well known to the clients. Any work that is female dominated has also been commodified rendering the women subordinates of organizational requirements (APATask Force on the Sexualization of Girls 2010). Just like in the case of hotel room attendants, bodied jobs puts more focus on customer service and therefore the clients have so much effect on the conduct of the attendants (Kensbock, Bailey, Jennings & Patiar 2015). This sometimes results in sexual harassment of female therapists. Nevertheless, the female therapists have labeled sexual advances by female clients different from sexual harassment and they have a different interpretation of it. Conclusion The relationship between professionalism and desexualization is a rather complex one. This is because some jobs are gendered and can therefore be properly done by people of certain gender. This therefore requires the person to maintain his or her sexuality so as to create the necessary impact in the profession. Massage therapy is a profession where desexualization is most difficult to achieve. This is because the embodied nature of the job which simply makes it sexual. Heteronormativity is hard to fight in massage therapy because it is rooted in culture as well. Female therapists are rather viewed by the clients as bearing the characteristics associated with feminism such as nurturance and passivity. This is perception that has been created and encouraged by culture. These characteristics tend top follow women in all their professions even if they uphold professional rules of whatever kind. This therefore makes it more complicated when they work in massage parlors where the clients want to feel the sense of being nurtured. Desexualization on the other hand requires that the female therapist hide these characteristics and appear as a professional to the client. This is difficult to achieve by both the female therapist and male clients who are expecting to experience the nurturance associated with women. I nevertheless believe that desexualization of massage therapy can work if integrated with medical fields. For example if massage therapists can be viewed in the same angle as physiotherapists whose work is more medical and healing rather that for relaxation and pleasure. Although on the other hand this would kill the profession since it would be integrated to medicine and it would only be performed for medical reasons. Massage therapists can also try to adopt the medical identity of dressing medically, speaking medically and also addressing massage needs as medical rather than pleasure (Williams, Giuffre & Dellinger 1999). List of References Katie R S 2014, With(out) pleasure: Desexualization, gender and sexuality at work, Organization, Vol. 21(3): 346-364 Kensbock S., Bailey, J., Jennings, G & Patiar, A., 2015, Sexual Harassment of Women Working as Room Attendants within 5-Star Hotels. Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 22(1): 36-50 Burrell, G 1984, Sex and Organizational Analysis, Organization Studies, Vol. 5(2): 97-118 American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, 2010, Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf Sullivan, K. R 2012, ‘Producing Professionals: Exploring Gendered and Embodied Responses to Practicing on the Margins’, ephemera 12(3) 273–93. Trethewey, A 1999, ‘Disciplined Bodies: Women’s Embodied Identities at Work’, Organizational Studies 20: 423–50. Anderson, B, Provis C & Chappel, S 2002, The recognition and management of emotional labour in the tourism industry, CRC for Sustainable Tourism Pty Ltd. Duschinsky, R 2010, ‘Feminism, Sexualisation and Social Status’ Media International Australia, Volume 135: 94-105 Gettman, H.J. and Gefand, M.J. (2007) When the customer shouldn’t be king: antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment by clients and customers, Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 3, 737–70. Williams, C., Giuffre, P & Dellinger, K 1999, Sexuality in the Workplace: Organizational Control, Sexual Harassment, and the Pursuit of Pleasure, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 25 (1999), pp. 73-93. Read More