Appearance as Strategy: How Female Perform Aesthetic Labor in Real Estate Sector to Attract clients and for Organizational Survival

Abstract

The real estate sector in Pakistan is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, but it is still structurally male-dominated and socially conservative under this framework, female real estate agents find themselves caught in a double bind they have to operate under the deeply deep-rooted patriarchal conventions, while at the same time using their appearance, demeanour, attire, and interpersonal style as professional resources. To build a corporate image and attract clients, organizations hire, select and train people on the basis of their physical appearance, grooming, posture, voice and general style, a process sociologists term 'aesthetic labor'. This paper argues, using this framework that female agents in the real estate market in Pakistan engage in strategic aesthetic labor as a multilateral mechanism, to attract clients and to sustain occupational presence in a hostile gendered environment, and to secure higher commissions and earnings. The analysis builds on Warhurst and Nickson’s (2009) notion of aesthetic labor, Bourdieu’s (1984). Our findings reveal aesthetic labor as a strategic resource demand in Pakistan’s real estate industry, a ‘visible paradox’ in which women agents are empowered by their looks but constrained by them, visible but not authoritative, economically mobile but always objectified.