The Feminization of Body Work
本文探讨为何涉及身体接触的付费工作主要由女性承担，认为女性化并非源于养育本能或家务分工延续，而是解决亲密接触转化为劳动时的文化及组织困境，并以美发和护理行业为例。
This article explores the relationship between ‘body work’ and gender, asking why paid work involving the physical touch and manipulation of others' bodies is largely performed by women. It argues that the feminization of body work is not simply explicable as ‘nurturance’, nor as the continuation of a pre‐existing domestic division of labour. Rather, feminization resolves dilemmas that arise when intimate touch is refigured as paid labour. These ‘body work dilemmas’ are rooted in the material nature of body work. They are both cultural (related to the meaning of inter‐corporeality) and organizational (related to the spatial, temporal and labour process constraints of work on bodies). Two sectors are explored as exemplars: hairdressing and care work. Synthesizing UK quantitative data and existing research, the article traces similarities and differences in the composition of these sectors and in how gender both responds to and re‐entrenches the cultural and organizational body work dilemmas identified.