Abstract

The article focuses on the narratives of women secretaries regarding their work experiences in private business in Latvia, and aims at understanding the barriers that prevent the formation of women’s political subjectivity in Latvia, by looking at why sexual harassment does not become a political issue for working women in Latvia. Using Hayden White’s theory of trope analysis, the article analyses the dominant tropes and the political results of their use in secretaries’ articulations and narratives about their experiences of sexual harassment. Additionally, the article provides a critical trope analysis of Western feminist theories of sexual harassment, thus pointing out their usefulness for women’s politics in Latvia. Finally, the article outlines the discursive strategies that women in Latvia could use in order to claim their own distinct and transformative political subjectivity in the newly independent, capitalist and highly nationalist post-Soviet Latvia.