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“I made myself small like a cat and ran away”: workplace sexual harassment, precarious immigration status and legal violence
Abstract
This article examines the intersection between workplace sexual harassment, immigration status, and insecure employment status (‘precarious work’). Although a rich body of literature explores how gender impacts all three fields independently, less is known about how they interact. Drawing on narratives from migrant women with precarious immigration status in Toronto, Canada, I propose that experiences of sexual harassment illuminate the workings of migrant illegalization through ‘legal violence’. Furthermore, findings demonstrate that precarious status migrant women do not experience sexual harassment in isolation; other axes of oppression interlock to exacerbate it. Despite this, precarious status migrant women negotiate their experiences, sometimes enduring sexual harassment; referred to here as aguantar, and sometimes resisting it explicitly.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Villegas, P. E.
- Affiliations
- California State University, San Bernardino (US)
- Corresponding author
- Villegas, Paloma E.
- ORCID
- Villegas, Paloma E.
- Venue
- Journal of Gender Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-04-19
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 674-686
- ISSN
- 0958-9236 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-3869
- OpenAlex
- W2939519720
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 6.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Gender Studies (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Gender, Health, and Social Inequality
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Labour Market and Migration
- Keywords
- workplace sexual harassment, precarious employment, immigration status, migrant women, legal violence, illegalization, intersectionality, gender oppression, resistance, Toronto
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