The Embodiment of Women in Wine: Gender Inequality and Gendered Inscriptions of the Working Body in a Corporate Wine Organization

Abstract

This paper problematizes media representations that suggest women working in the traditionally patriarchal wine industry are no longer subject to structural constraints according to gender. It contributes theoretically driven empirical insights concerning the ways in which gender inequality is produced and embodied within a multinational wine organization. The paper draws onAcker's framework for understanding inequality regimens andFoucault's theorization of discourse and the body together with empirical data from interviews with women working at different hierarchical positions in the organization. The analysis examines the discursive inscription of the ideal body, weak bodies, reproducing bodies and home bodies to reveal the ways in which women's working bodies are problematized and constituted as deviant in relation to masculine norms for working bodies. The analysis develops the argument that naturalized and normalized gendered discourses of the body conceal the structural relations of power that constitute an inequality regimen within the organization.

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