83 GENDER STUDIES – Contributions by Helena Reis
After working in Tourism for many years, I decided to go back teaching at the University. For that, I had to complete a Master’s Degree. So I chose Women’s Studies and, for my dissertation, I decided to make use of my practice in tourism. Then, I found my life was written in the books…
1) Male-dominated culture of the organisations: Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors
Organisations in society are frequently male dominated structures (Kanter, 1979; 1997), entire departments where the work is assured by women: receptions/front desks; restaurants/administrative/accountings, but where the person “in charge”, “responsible for” is always a man, often less qualified, with less studies or experience than the women he is leading, getting a better wage and perks (Hultin and Szulkin, 1999; Reis and Correia, 2013b). Often these men occupy the position because “women are not natural leaders, they are not fit for leading” (Reis, 2000).
What I learnt at the master’s in Women’s Studies made me understand what had puzzled me along the 16 years I worked in tourism. The more I studied, the more clearly I could identify the male-dominated cultures of the organisations I had worked for: The Casinos of Algarve, where the presence of women was restricted to the reception and housekeeping; you would not find any women in the Gambling rooms, Slot machine rooms, restaurants, bars or even in the kitchen. No wonder that my entrance as a Public Relations (PRs) in the 1980s, with a lot more power over some departments than PRs have today, was so difficult to accept, I was seen as a “huge intrusion”. By definition, the Casinos are very private worlds with rules of their own, but things have changed and now-a-days you can find various female PRs – the great difference is that, I could take decisions, introduce changes, and give orders to several departments, as long as I showed positive results. Today, teams of female PRs are normally under a male manager, who owns the power of decision.
Still in the 1980s, I worked for a British tour operator (T.O.) with one of the largest operations in the Algarve; this T.O. worked in a close relationship with many hotels. The functioning of these hotels unveiled another reality that has been researched and confirmed over and over again: the Glass Ceiling1 paradigm (Moore and Buttner, 1997, among many) – according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the American Magazine World/Adweek, March 15, 1984: “Women have reached a certain point – I call it the glass ceiling. They’re in the top of middle management and they’re stopping and getting stuck.” (http://womeninpower.org.au). In those hotels, women could be find as middle managers but not as top. More commonly, they would help their direct boss, not defying him, in order to maintain what could be considered a privileged job (Reis, 2000).
This metaphor complies with another aspect that affects even more women in the workplace: the Sticky Floor2, th