Executive Summary:
Dealing With the Stigma of Occupations Considered “Dirty Work”
Although people may view some forms of dirty work as not only necessary but even noble and heroic—as in the jobs of firefighters and social services counselors—they tend to remain psychologically distanced from the work, glad that others are doing it. Many of these occupations are often devoid of affirmation. The study “Normalizing Dirty Work: Tactics for Reducing the Salience of Occupational Stigma” explores how dirty work is addressed by the people doing the jobs—how they normalize the extraordinary rendering it seemingly ordinary, less prominent and less problematic. Management and Organizations Professor Mel Fugate of SMU Cox School of Business and co-authors Blake E. Ashforth of Arizona State, Glen E. Kreiner of University of Cincinnati, and Mark Clark of American University interviewed 54 managers in occupations that are physically, socially and/or morally stigmatized called in this study “dirty work”.
Defining Dirty Work
More than fifty years ago, Hughes, a pioneer in industrial occupational research, defined dirty work as occupations that are viewed by society as physically, socially, or morally tainted. One form of this taint can come by virtue of being physically tainted, for example in the occupations of janitors, funeral directors, or exterminators. Another form of physical “taint” comes from being dangerous like a firefighter, miner or soldier. Socially tainted occupations could be considered those associated with close contact with groups or people that are themselves stigmatized, e.g., correctional officers, welfare aid workers or psychiatric ward attendants. Occupations having a servile relationship could also fall into the social taint category—shoe shiners, customer service representatives and limousine drivers. The morally tainted occupations are such because they are regarded as somewhat sinful or dubious, e.g., exotic dancers, personal injury lawyers. This category of taint can also include occupations that are “thought to employ methods that are deceptive, intrusive, confrontational, or that otherwise defy norms of civility” (e.g., bill collector, tabloid reporter, bouncer). Some occupations can be tainted on multiple dimensions.
Motivations
The richness found in this study comes forth from the interviewees’ articulation of their experiences and ways to cope with and address the stigma of their occupations. “We all sought to understand how it is that entire industries comprised of legions of workers reconcile their work with important personal elements, like the identity associated with being a parent, and how they negotiate their stigma when interacting with others, for example during social events,” explained Fugate. “Moreover, we wanted to conduct a broad-based study that would give a wider, if not generalizable, view of the phenomenon.” This research study is an extension of prior research from co-authors Ashforth and Kreiner. “We included many different occupations that embodied both varieties of taint and relative prestige.
Major Findings
The majority of those in dirty work occupations (39 of the 54) mentioned that society misunderstands their occupations, and another majority of interviewees suggested that the perceptions were unjust. Other findings suggest that managers of morally tainted work are more likely to feel unfairly persecuted.
Prestige attached to an occupation may act as a partial status shield for those in higher prestige jobs such as personal injury lawyers, funeral home staff, internal affairs police officers, and animal researchers. Those in high prestige occupations were able to speak more openly about their occupations than those in lower prestige occupations; they were also more likely to mention the importance of the role their occupation played in society. However, even those in occupations considered more prestigious, they do not fully escape the slings and arrows of stigma.
While most of the dirty workers were aware of stigma, five tactics emerged as the means through which to normalize and neutralize the impact of stigma: through occupational ideologies, social buffers, confronting clients and the public, individual defense mechanisms, and institutional defense mechanisms.
Using Occupational Ideologies
Through adopting occupational ideologies, dirty workers reframed, recalibrated, and re-focused their job’s stigma. The workers reframed or recast the very meaning of the nature of the work by infusing the work with positive value and/or neutralizing the negative. An ideology of re-calibrating occurred whereby perhaps seemingly trivial tasks become more important. An example is illustrated by the exterminator’s job to control pests becoming a quasi-professional occupation through his use of an extensive technical vocabulary associated with the job. Re-focusing refers to emphasizing elements of the job lacking tainted overtones like the association with important people inherent in say a limousine driver’s day. Of the three categories of taint—physical, social, and moral—the different groups displayed similar tendencies in their coping through adopting ideologies. Managers also focused on the help to others that their occupation provides as a way to re-focus their perspective.
Social Buffers
To buffer oneself socially, dirty workers tended to form social networks for purposes of validation. In one interview, a drag queen related how she has a circle of people who were like her. A convention of funeral home directors provided a community of people encountering the same difficult issues associated with their work. These social support networks help maintain a sense of higher occupational esteem. Excerpts from the comments of an animal control officer further explains:
‘The [animal control] officers, when they come in, they’re always talking, and that’s a release valve for them. They talk about what they saw, how they dealt with it…Each officer does the same thing that the other ones are talking about, but they’ll sit and listen to each other because they know that’s therapeutic. And it helps them a lot to get that out of their system.’
Confrontation
Some workers at times take more proactive stances to change people’s perceptions of the stigma by confronting public perceptions of taint and confronting clients’ perceptions and inappropriate behaviors. Workers adopt rebuttals to the stigma through humor to soften the taint, making light of their occupations or tasks. An internal affairs officer described how he explains the value of what he does, in fact mostly clearing officers names in cases. In the case of the manager of funeral home staff, by treating the body with dignity, the stigma of death is somewhat muted. In the case of the manager of limousine drivers, the insistence on being treated with respect helps mute the stigma of servility. Successes on the job help reinforce manager’s faith in individuals and their capacity to transcend the stigmatized.
Individual Defense Mechanisms
Individuals used a variety of defense mechanisms to cope. Some workers simply avoid others’ casting of taint or the elements in the job considered difficult. The majority of interviewees were open to others about their jobs or occupations while over one-third were vague to those asking what they did for a living. Using gallows humor, cynicism, was a tactic to overcome problematic attributions, relieving stress and distancing oneself from the tainted elements. Other dirty workers simply accepted what was and moved on. Some dirty workers compare themselves to those with jobs they perceive to be worse off as a way to affirm and/or restore self-esteem.
Other dirty workers, especially those in occupations which received more public hostility, the morally tainted occupations like abortion clinic workers or animal researchers, tended to use the mechanism of condemning their condemners more readily. A few other mechanisms included distancing themselves from clients and the role itself: ‘I am not the role.’ These individual mechanisms may become enshrined in a subunit of workers or an occupation as a reflexive way to deal with identity threats. However, managers themselves generally refrained from distancing themselves from subordinates as they are in the same boat.
Institutional Defense Mechanisms
Some institutional defense mechanisms were also found, particularly in groups with moral taint that is hostilely received by the public. When there is more potentially aggressive public sentiment toward the tainted work, it is more likely that organizational if not industry-wide tactics will exist. Tactics that were mentioned that may be common to many organizations employing dirty workers are stress management training, employee assistance programs, institutionalized socialization, public relations officers, and informative websites. More unique organizational tactics that were mentioned include: rotating individuals out of stigmatized work after one or two years (Internal Affairs department); posting occupationally-relevant cartoons and sayings to a “humor board” (ER nursing); and labeling the occupation in more edifying terms (i.e., referring to limousine drivers as “chauffeurs”).
Limits of Normalizing
Sometimes even normalizing behaviors cannot fully overcome the incidences inherent in the job, like the social worker encountering the emotionally challenging situations from the criminal and negligent behavior of a client. Situations arise in the jobs of dirty workers that can simply be temporarily overwhelming to any attempt to minimize through the various tactics.
Implications
Managers are well positioned to recast the meaning of dirty work to enhance dignity and self-esteem. They can emphasize the collective nature and common individual forms of normalizing rather than implicitly putting the onus on the individual, as if the taint were his or her unique problem rather than the system level issue that it really is. Managers can erect institutionalized defense mechanisms and encourage social buffering among members. Managers can also provide training in the appropriate use of individual defense mechanisms along with guidance on when and how it is appropriate to confront the identity threatening behaviors of clients and the public. Managers must, however, walk the fine line of increasing occupational esteem while not decreasing respect for clients and the public. Respect is central to dirty work ideologies, and respect should not be cast as a zero sum game between workers and clients/public.
While society may fairly or unfairly brand certain occupations as physically, socially, or morally tainted, the managers of such occupations articulated an impressive array of techniques for normalizing the taint. It is through normalizing that occupational members are able to derive pride and identification from jobs that society necessitates but then sanctimoniously disavows.
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