Women, Gender Dynamics, and Harassment in Hospitality
Authors: Turkoglu, H., Brown, L.
Conference: The Mediterranean Tourism Knowledge Exchange and Policy Conference
Dates: 26/11/2025
Journal: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/145261/1/Proceedings_of_the_Mediterranean_tourism_knowledge_exchange_and_policy_conference_2025.pdf
Publication Date: 26/11/2025
Abstract:Employees are the foremost driver of an organisation’s success in the business world, and each employee can make a notable contribution to sustain growth and development (Cheung et al., 2018). This is particularly evident in the tourism and hospitality sector, which is highly diverse and labour-intensive, and women employees constitute a considerable portion of the sector’s workforce, accounting for nearly 40% of the total employment (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2024). Although the sector has long employed large numbers of women, the existence of a gendered division of work, occupational segregation, and power inequalities gives rise to significant disparities between female and male employees in the hospitality and tourism sector (Morgan & Pritchard, 2019). Moreover, the existence of high levels of interactions between employees, customers, and third parties in the workplace (e.g., suppliers and business contractors), combined with tough working conditions, can trigger misconduct towards employees in the form of abusive and harassing behaviours (Ram, 2018). Given that one in three women experiences sexual misconduct and harassment in their lifetime, either at work or in their social life, and it costs $8 trillion to the global economy (The Womanity Foundation, 2019), the economic and social impact of harassment cannot be ignored. However, workplace sexual harassment is still a hidden, overlooked, underreported, silenced and unchallenged matter in the labour market and in the tourism and hospitality context. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap in knowledge and critically explore how harassment affects the lives of women employees, including their lives outside the workplace.
Source: Manual