Gauging visibility: how female clerical workers manage work-related distress

Our aim was to explain how female clerical workers manage work-related distress, using a feminist grounded theory method. Thirty-seven interviews were conducted with 24 female clerical workers. They engage in the process of gauging visibility to manage a recognition-vulnerability paradox. To gauge visibility, they take the lay of the land by attending to threats, resources, and supports within withering or flourishing work conditions. When distressing events occur, they select tactics of taking it in, taking it on, or letting it go, which are influenced by the quality of their work conditions. Their efforts to manage distress affect their workplace visibility, potentially enhancing their recognition or exacerbating their vulnerability. Gauging visibility can either diminish or enhance employees' health and well-being. Our findings emphasize social processes and structural conditions, shift attention to organization-wide efforts to alter workplace conditions, and suggest initiatives that enhance employees' opportunities for recognition, safety, and collective actions.