Emotional Labour

and Sexual
Difference in the
Airline Industry
S.Taylor & M. Tyler
Presentation by: Danilo Zivkovic

Some Working Definitions

Emotional

Labour

Surface acting vs deep acting

Sexual

Differentiation
Sexual Difference

3 Main Arguments
1. Competitive pressures and managerial
initiatives are intensifying demands for
female employees to produce:

Emotional labor
Subject commitment to organizational
aims
Sexual difference

3 Main Arguments
2. Despite the power of the managerial
branch, spaces still exist where
employees can either comply, consent or
resist
3. The process of gendering exists inside
class relations so there is a need to
empricially investigating lived
experiences of gendered power relations
(the notion of patriarchy not sufficient)

Methods and Research

Sites
Study

conducted between 1994-1996

Looked at 2 aspects of the airline industry:

Telephone sites of airline services by

telephone sales agents (TSAs)
Airline services delivered by flight attendants

STSs,

STLs, TSAs, Unit Managers

U
M
STS/STL
TSA

Methods Comparison
TSA employment
Nonparticipant

observation
Semi-structured,
taped interviews
Looked at:

Flight Attendants

3 main phases all focusing on:

Recruitment
Training
Supervision

Phase 1: Analysis of
documentation and observational
flights
Phase 2: Semi-structured, taped
recruitment,
interviews
training and
Phase 3: Content analysis of
ways in which quality
airplane documentation (e.g.
mission statement, recruitment
management program
had affected their work lit, advertisement using flight
attendants.

Quality Service vs Emotional

Labour

Conflict exists between managerial programs

aimed to shape feeling management

Managers perceive active monitoring and

management as the best strategy for delivering
quality service.
Yet stress the importance of flight attendants
autonomy, spontaneity and natural
personality through empowerment practices

Creates space for resistance since this

empowerment equates to control on any level
of structural analysis

Results
Women judged more on soft and hard targets, men just
on hard targets
Individualized surveillance and remuneration system
encourages positive divergence and discourages
negative divergence
But asked to act naturally, so they are essentially
coerced into deploying emotional labour
Level of quality service directly related to cost of
service
Gendered managerial control of emotional labor is not
total
Flight attendants have more space because their pay is
not related to performance

Discussion Questions
Do

you think emotional labour is needed

and should it simply be better
compensated for? OR do you think
institutions that profit of emotional labour
should be regulated differently?
Provide an example from your own
personal or professional life where you
were laboring emotionally?
(Think of examples of surface and deep
acting)