Mobilities in the Labyrinth: Pressuring the Boundaries of Women’s Careers

• Autor(a) principal: Fraga, Aline Mendonça
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Rocha-de-Oliveira, Sidinei
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Cadernos EBAPE.BR
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/cadernosebape/article/view/82422
• topic: Women; Mobility; Career; Gender; Mujeres; Movilidad; Carrera; Género; Mulheres; Mobilidade; Carreira; Gênero

The contemporary world of work reveals a scenario formed by different contexts (global, society and culture, origin, and work) that highlight individual and collective career trajectories. All these contexts bring the historicity of gender constructions and are constituted by labyrinth mobilities that pressure the boundaries of women’s careers. Considering the gap of studies that articulate career, mobility, and gender, this theoretical article argues that mobility, mainly geographic and social, may have reduced availability for women due to boundaries that engender immobility, anchored by sociocultural, political, organizational, and biological relationships. These are manifested by restrictions on freedom in some countries; family arrangements; expectations related to maternity and care activities of children and the elderly, which are socially attributed to women; by the organizational glass ceiling and the low representation in power positions. These immobilities lead to involuntary sedentarism, which imposes symbolic and labyrinthic barriers in their professional career. Labyrinth mobilities are disoriented from the traditional and safe path of traditional careers and uncertain about the steps for new career models. Careers are historical, dynamic, and in constant transformation, similar to what occurs with gender. The imperative of mobile careers and the (im)possibilities from the point of view of social markers of difference are prone for critical debates and for theoretical and empirical in-depth action exploring their limitations.