Opara Victoria, Ryan Michelle K, Sealy Ruth, Begeny Christopher T
Bath Business School, Bath Spa University, Bath, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.
Front Sociol. 2023 Mar 23;8:820975. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.820975. eCollection 2023.
Professional British women of African, Asian, and Caribbean (AAC) ethnicities contend with unique challenges and experiences in the workplace. These challenges are often due to experiences that occur at the intersection of gender and ethnic identity, thus many professional white British women (of Anglo-Saxon decent), do not face the same challenges. AAC women are more often discriminated against, excluded from informal networks, and their contributions credited to someone else. We take an intersectional theoretical approach to better understand both the disadvantaged experiences and the possible advantaged experiences that British AAC women face, based on their experiences as AAC individuals, as women and as AAC women. The study seeks to 'give voice' to the experiences of AAC professional women, due to the limited amount of scholarship that adequately considers their workplace experiences. We consider the ways that their identity produces qualitatively different experiences determined by the context, by the nature of interpersonal encounters or by both the context and interpersonal encounters.
We conduct real-time online written interviews and utilize thematic template analysis to understand whether AAC women strategically flex identity at work. We present four major themes. These are (1) the benefits of identity flexing, (2) the role of specific stereotypes, (3) context specific opportunities, and (4) the costs of identity flexing. We draw on literature that suggests that AAC women's identity experiences are not exclusively oppressive.
We find that unique experiences, occurring at the intersection of facets of identity may also yield forms of relative advantage, wherein individuals are able to adaptively leverage opportunities. Our results demonstrate that where the facets of one's identity are more varied, there might be more chance that the particular identity will be valued in a given social context. As a result, the individual may try to assimilate with certain identity groups (through flexing), as the context directs.
Nevertheless, engaging in identity flexing strategies has costs for women's well-being, such as needing to perform increased amounts of emotional labor and heightened feelings of frustration. Overall, these costs (as well as benefits), evidence the complex nature of identity flexing and the likely negative well-being implications that could ensue for the individual.
来自非洲、亚洲和加勒比地区（AAC）的英国职业女性在工作场所面临着独特的挑战和经历。这些挑战往往源于性别和种族身份交叉时所发生的经历，因此许多英国白人职业女性（盎格鲁-撒克逊血统）不会面临同样的挑战。AAC女性更常受到歧视，被排除在非正式网络之外，她们的贡献被归功于他人。我们采用交叉理论方法，基于她们作为AAC个体、女性以及AAC女性的经历，更好地理解英国AAC女性所面临的劣势经历和可能的优势经历。由于充分考虑她们工作场所经历的学术研究数量有限，该研究旨在“表达”AAC职业女性的经历。我们考虑她们的身份在由背景、人际互动性质或背景与人际互动共同决定的情况下如何产生质的不同经历。
我们进行实时在线书面访谈，并利用主题模板分析来了解AAC女性在工作中是否策略性地灵活调整身份。我们呈现了四个主要主题。它们是：（1）身份灵活调整的益处；（2）特定刻板印象的作用；（3）特定背景下的机会；（4）身份灵活调整的代价。我们借鉴了一些文献，这些文献表明AAC女性的身份经历并非完全是压迫性的。
我们发现，身份各方面交叉时出现的独特经历也可能产生相对优势的形式，即个体能够适应性地利用机会。我们的结果表明，一个人身份的方面越多变，在特定社会背景下这种特定身份被重视的可能性就越大。因此，个体可能会根据背景的指示，试图与某些身份群体同化（通过灵活调整）。
然而，采用身份灵活调整策略会对女性的幸福感产生代价，比如需要进行更多的情感劳动以及产生更强烈的挫败感。总体而言，这些代价（以及益处）证明了身份灵活调整的复杂性以及可能对个体产生的负面幸福感影响。
