How frustrating it is to step out of that suffocating Closet only to find yourself in a hall of two-way mirrors—undoubtedly, a common experience for queer women who “come out” in the workplace. This paper will attempt to tease out some of the regulatory forces that inform the coming out process for queer women in western states. Access to resources in the workplace takes on specific gendered and heteronormative consequences for those queer women who choose to cross this boundary and disclose their sexuality to their co-workers, subordinates and bosses. While this paper does not purport to be an exhaustive account, it intends to offer steps towards theorizing about queer women in the workplace; and hopes to raise the relevant questions that will inform further analysis into the experiences of these women. Using the Foucauldian notions of the “normalizing gaze” and “self-surveillance”, this paper will explain how the heteronormative paradigm constrains and shapes the coming out process. It will begin with a brief introduction of the theoretical groundwork that informs my examination of the dynamics of coming out. The paper will move into an explanation of how the heteronormative “gaze” (re)positions the queer woman as an objectified “other”, thereby reducing her to a spectacle. By invoking Foucault’s concept of “self-surveillance”, this essay will then theorize about queer women who negotiate this objectified status, and ultimately police their own behaviour. The discussion will then move into the gender-specific social, material and physical consequences that result from deviating from the heterosexual norm. Finally, this essay will conclude with an examination of the workplace, as a third space caught between the public and private spheres, in which contemporary liberal discourse paradoxically creates safety, and violence, for queer women.

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Lesley Vaage
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