Las políticas públicas como respuestas a problemas sociales

Researcher reflexivity is necessary as it “rationalises the relationship between the researcher and the research setting, how the setting looks with an acknowledged researcher presence, and why it is important for this to be addressed within the written study” (Holliday, 2007, pp 137-138). Explicit knowledge about the background and positioning of the author in relation to the research is important for allowing the reader to assess the effect this may have had on the research. Feminist methodology contributes to the subjective experiences of the researcher and the researched, for example of gender, ethnicity and privilege. The researcher and her personal history becomes part of the process of the research, which is drawn in interpretations and conclusions reached (Maynard, 1998). In order to provide accurate analyses of my research, it is important to critically examine who I am and who I become in relation to the stages of the research process.

I was born a Malay Muslim female, raised by a middle-class family and was always being reminded to be grateful with whatever I have, well-mannered and respectful, particularly to elderly people. I attained my education from pre-primary to university level and at the age of 13 years, I already went to a boarding school. Despite doing well in my studies, the opportunities to go to a boarding school at a young age was due to my ethnic privilege as a Malay in Malaysia (see Chapter Two). My schooling experiences had developed my leadership and management capabilities in dealing with competing demands. For instance, I had to make decisions and efforts from preparing my bed, ironing my school uniform and managing daily schoolwork, to taking part in any school activities, all by myself. Since the age of 13, I had not grown up in front of my parents’ eyes and considered myself as an independent girl. After completing my first degree from the longest established premier university in Malaysia, I worked in one of the Government-Linked Companies for four years located in Kuala Lumpur as an Executive of Corporate Affairs. The previous company that I worked with had paid my master’ tuition fees as a reward for my excellent performance in the workplace, for which in return, I gained a distinction.

It should be noted that my interest in researching women’s advancement in their career trajectories rose partly from my own involvement in the corporate world in Malaysia. I was motivated by seeing how my former CEO, who was also a mother of two children, managed to juggle her work-life balance aptly. At that point of time, I was young, energetic and ambitious to climb up the career ladder. This motivation led me to question why there were not many women in senior management or in male-dominated areas, and why they seemed unable to endure longer in the supposedly level playing field. This later sparked a curiosity in me to know more about how senior female managers confront their career barriers and go on to succeed. My research interest is also triggered to see how women from three different ethnic backgrounds in Malaysia construct their gender and ethnicity in a country with a patriarchal system that is omnipresent in everyday lives. As a Malay woman, I wanted to conduct research involving other minority ethnic groups, I believe that it was crucial for me to be able to provide a sensitive account of ethnic minority experiences in Malaysia due to the Malay privilege.

Living in a multiracial country where there remain considerable racial tensions, I was aware that almost every single subject has a racial dimension. I have been careful to observe this in my data collection and analysis. My position as a Malay Muslim woman and later, researcher, has helped me to be mindful of topics that may be sensitive issues. I had prior knowledge about the structural patriarchal system that influences the lives of senior female managers in Malaysia based on my preliminary readings on women in management as well as personal corporate work experiences as a Muslim Malay woman. I have always had empathy to issues of privilege and I was aware that I needed to ‘ground’ the importance of sociopolitical background history. I originally indulged myself indirectly with post-colonial as well as ethnicity theory. Rather than covering everything on my plate, for the purpose of this research, I then felt it was necessary to only focus on the core historical background and ethnic privilege issues encountered by the non-Malays in Malaysian society and employing organisations.

This research involved some questions containing potentially personally and ethnically sensitive issues which led me to be more cautious when researching minority ethnic experiences in Malaysia. During the interviews, I shared my social position as a Malay woman with the Malay interviewees, but was more cautious with the non-Malays. This is because I feel that I am familiar with, and sensitive to, many of the issues concerning the Malay privilege in Malaysia. However, as I am currently a feminist researcher who wanted to empower more women to break the glass ceiling, I could not present myself as a Malay researcher per se. The issue of my ethnicity may be important for some respondents in terms of putting trust in me during the research process, so I included some information about my research background. Even more crucial, my research sought to include Chinese and Indian senior women who may not be open about their views on gender and ethnicity in the workplace due to political sensitive issues. Even if they were, I did not force the participants to answer any questions about their minority status. I took the approach of being willing to answer questions

about my ethnic privilege if asked by potential interviewees. As a result, my participants started to express their interest in my research, which portrayed their level of professionalism to the next level.

In terms of the rapport developed, it was expected that initially I would find it easier to establish a good connection with the Malay senior women due to the ethnic similarity compared with the non-Malays. Surprisingly, during the course of the interviews, I have been able to develop a rapport with the non-Malay senior women. This is perhaps due to my corporate work background as well as my experience studying abroad that enabled me to respect people from diverse backgrounds. However, when questions related to privilege were asked for example particularly in getting scholarships for their education as one of the career-success factors, Malay senior women were found to talk more freely about their lived experiences. This made me realise that I am also a Malay who has received funding from the government, hence, I was able to understand their views better. On the other hand, some challenges emerged when I addressed the same questions to the non-Malays. One of the non-Malay participants mentioned that I was racist for asking how she differentiated working with other ethnic backgrounds in Malaysia. I responded to her accusation calmly by saying that the question was asked for my research purposes only, with no intention to being racist against her as a minority ethnic woman. I then created a sense of openness with my participants to maintain awareness of enacting my own philosophical stance by giving them a voice during the research process (Broom, Hand and Tovey, 2009). The challenges of obtaining information from the non-Malay senior women by a Malay feminist researcher in itself portrays the strong political tension in Malaysian society.

When adopting social constructionist, individual constructivist, interpretivist as well as feminist approaches, I do not judge respondent’s point of view as better than others or even myself during the interviews (Young and Collin, 2004). My position as a researcher has enabled me to investigate the complexities of gender and ethnicity intertwined with privilege amongst senior female managers in Malaysia. My position inevitably gave me an advantage because I knew more about my research topic than my participants. Their lack of in-depth knowledge about this study meant that I was able to encourage them to talk about certain issues. For instance, none of the respondents had heard the term ‘intersectionality’ and they asked me to explain the meaning. Also, some of my respondents did not focus much onthe quotas debate and policies considered to have empowered women’s movement in Malaysia. They also suggested what the government could do to improve some of the policies related to career women (e.g. family-friendly facilities and work-from-home advantages). In the following section, I lay out in detail the specific steps taken for my data analysis.