Examining communication conflicts between females in eThekwini gendered organisations as a long-term result of feminist resistance: a correlative, mixed method.

Abstract

Female oppression has been a component of injustice in society for centuries, dynamically moulding for each place in which it occurs, evolving despite movements challenging it. Despite feminist movements throughout history challenging all facets of female oppression in the social, legal, economic and political spheres, female oppression continues to be seen and experienced in the economic sphere. Females continue to experience oppressive challenges in the workplace such as unequal pay, harassment, glass ceilings, targeted conflict, and more. Over time, females have learned to resist and challenge this oppression through the form of feminist resistance. However, research shows that this feminist resistance could be leading to further oppressive occurrences such as the increased female adoption of masculine agentic communication traits, and the occurrence conflict with fellow female colleagues. This study aims to address these three phenomena to investigate if there is correlation between the female use of feminist resistance in gendered organisations, the female adoption of masculine communication traits, and the occurrence of female same-sex conflicts in the eThekwini workplace. Through a critical realist approach, this study employed a mixed method questionnaire, as well as descriptive statistics, qualitative descriptive coding, and inferential statistics to analyse the three phenomena. The results found that females in oppressive, gendered workplaces in eThekwini were employing feminist resistance and that those females were engaging in more female same-sex conflicts of a ‘Queen Bee’ nature. However, the findings did not show that females in those same environments were increasingly adoption masculine communication traits. As such, the results show that there is correlation between the female use of feminist resistance and the occurrence of female same-sex conflicts in gendered, eThekwini workplaces.