Integrating barriers to Caucasian lesbians' career development and Super's life-span, life-space approach

Career Development Quarterly, March, 2004 by Chloe J.C. House

Participants identified other barriers, including fear of others' attitudes and guilt and stigma due to sexual orientation. Tracey, a 55-year-old nurse, reported, "I'm a terrible person. There's no way I will ever be an acceptable person in society. My very best behavior will never be sufficient to overcome my state of being." Three participants were reluctant to develop personal relationships, keeping others at a distance so that they would not find out about their sexual orientation. Tracey changed jobs or careers every 2 to 3 years so that no one would find out that she was a lesbian.

Conflict with coworkers about issues of lesbian sexual orientation was another barrier to career development. Sarin said,

      If I don't come right out and say, "I'm a lesbian, I'm queer, I'm
      gay," then they can question, you know, or make assumptions or
      whatever, and it's a hassle and I have to say something. And I
      have to deal with it no matter what job I'm in.

Sarin also reported confronting one coworker's homophobia and said, "It's trying to walk that line between being confrontational, and educational, and standing up for myself and all the other queers out there, and not being a pain in the ass."

Maintenance stage. During this stage, participants noted barriers such as an employer making an issue of the participant being lesbian, lack of economic security due to nonacceptance of lesbian sexual orientation, and fear of moving up the job ladder because increased scrutiny might lead to identification of one's sexual orientation, therefore challenging one's position. From Establishment and into Maintenance, increased scrutiny was a concern. Kelly did not apply to be a judge for a long time. She stated, "There was that constant fear that someone would try to use it [lesbian sexual orientation] against me and humiliate me." She believed that

      it was dangerous to get too high in terms of promotion because
      there'd be more people who'd have reason to bring you down, and
      being gay was one of the pieces of ammunition that people could
      use to bring you down.

Three women believed that working in jobs that attracted attention could increase discrimination.

Heidi, a 44-year-old engineer said,

      I think, you know, just some of my own internal problems with it
      [sexual identity] has probably kept me from going further in some
      of my jobs.... It's almost as if I tried not to get promoted. It's
      like I would try to get promoted to a certain level, and then it's
      like once I got up to more of a management level where I could
      even go further (you know, it's not like I've quit a bunch of
      jobs), but, I mean, I was feeling like, okay, it's time for me to
      move on. I guess I'm getting more and more involved with this
      particular job, and I don't feel comfortable being who I am being
      in this job. So I'd switch to another job and kinda start over....
      Then I don't feel quite as exposed as I would at the more upper
      level.