From 'career woman' to 'home maker', 'mother' and 'tai tai'. Constructing and negotiating gendered identities by trailing spouses in Hong Kong

Abstract

Globalization and the increasing migration of the professional workforce around the globe have been the topic of much sociolinguistic research which has explored, among other topics, some of the effects of these trends on people's professional and social identities (e.g. Schnurr & Zayts 2012). However, most of this research has predominantly focused on the effects of globalization on professionals and has largely ignored those accompanying them in their move(s) around the globe. Although these so-called trailing spouses have been the topic of some research in organizational and management studies (which has repeatedly pointed out that the success of oversees work assignments largely depends on the satisfaction of accompanying family members), they remain under-researched from a sociolinguistic perspective. This paper aims to address this gap by exploring some of the processes though which trailing spouses, or more particular, women who have left their jobs and their social networks behind to follow their husbands on their overseas work assignment, construct and negotiate their various identities. Drawing on a corpus of more than 15 interviews with and five online blogs of trailing spouses in Hong Kong, and using a constructivist approach we analyze some of the discursive processes through which these women draw on and respond to various gendered stereotypes (for example those of 'mother', 'homemaker' and 'tai tai') in their attempts to re-define and re-invent 'who they are' following their move to Asia. In their stories, these women carve out a space for themselves in between the (sometimes competing) discourses of feeling isolated and useless (often due to linguistic and cultural barriers) and enjoying a privileged expatriate lifestyle. They manage to successfully maneuver through this tension by sometimes drawing on explicitly gendered stereotypes while at other times vehemently resisting and making fun of them.