labor

Strip Club: Gender, Power and Sex Work

gwen — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In Strip Club: Gender, Power and Sex Work, sociologist Kim Price-Glynn analyzes the organizational structure of a strip club to explore whose interests strip clubs serve and how. To gain an insider’s perspective, Price-Glynn spent fourteen months working as a cocktail waitress in a strip club. During this time, she observed, analyzed, and interviewed strippers, employees, and patrons.

Price-Glynn seeks to demonstrate that the strip club she researched, like the majority of others in the U.S., is organized in a way that benefits male employees and patrons while socially and economically marginalizing strippers. She weaves her research with sociological and organizational theory, along with other scholarship on sex work, such as Wendy Chapkis’ Live Sex Acts and Katherine Frank’s G-Strings and Sympathy. In an attempt to situate sex work as an occupation that entails intense emotional labor, Price-Glynn also draws heavily on the works of Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild.

Price-Glynn argues that the strip club perpetuates gender inequalities. She distinguishes, however, from a generalized argument that stripping and sex work inherently contribute to gender inequality and posits instead that strippers were marginalized by the organizational structure of the strip club. She notes that there were no women in positions of authority and that employees, who were explicitly told to always supervise the strippers, believed that strippers were never to be trusted, had low self-esteem, and used drugs excessively. In a fascinating portion of the book, Price-Glynn highlights the differences in how strippers and other club employees receive their wages. Employees have fixed wages while strippers receive money solely from tips; they also pay the strip club for their use of the club and are required to tip other employees, like the deejay. This system decreases their profits and creates a paradigm where the strippers appear to depend on the club (even if the club profits solely because they feature strippers).

Price-Glynn highlights the ways in which strippers’ safety is compromised by an intense culture of masculinity, a lack of physical boundaries between strippers and patrons, and the fact that a club’s revenue is often boosted if patrons think they can have physical access to strippers. She recounts stories, told to her by strippers during interviews, of being digitally raped on stage, of being expected to perform oral sex, and of club employees looking the other way when patrons touched strippers. Building on past scholarship, she also focuses on the intense emotional labor, such as flirting, that strippers are expected to perform. Private dances, she argues, are not prized for their extended dance, but because of the (false) intimacy it creates.

Price-Glynn’s work is an important reminder of the dangers of sex work. At times, however, I questioned whether she excessively focused on the negative aspects of stripping. A section devoted to the women’s rituals when they returned home (one bathed in bleach) and the effects of stripping on outside relationships (such as an inability to enjoy sex) was profoundly sad. It also implies that none of the strippers were able to disengage themselves from their work and that they were all negatively affected, even “damaged,” by stripping. When strippers said they enjoyed stripping or found it empowering, Price-Glynn hints that this is simply a mask or coping mechanism. This is, of course, plausible, but diverges from other scholarship on sex work and comes close to supporting arguments that stripping categorically harms women.

Strip Club offers important insight for those strippers and advocates of sex worker rights who want to improve the environment of the strip club and increase opportunities for women to be empowered within sex work. Price-Glynn’s choice to use organizational theory allows the reader to find concrete examples, such as wage reform, that could have very immediate and positive results. This method also distinguishes her book from other recent scholarship on sex work and stripping. I recommend the book, therefore, for those interested in learning more about the culture of the strip club or to sociology students interested in a unique application of organizational theory.

Written by: Shannon Hill, December 19th 2010

Militant Women of a Fragile Nation

mandy — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

By Malek Abisaab

Syracuse University Press

This account of women’s central role in the industrial history of Lebanon adds another valuable title to Syracuse’s outstanding series of books on Middle Eastern history and culture, “Beyond Dominant Paradigms.” In stark contrast to images of women as helpless victims that pervade much of the depiction of the region consumed by the Western press, Malek Abisaab’s Militant Women of a Fragile Nation shows women’s transforming role in colonial and postcolonial industrialization, in the labor struggles and resistance to colonial rule, in the work of trade unions and the Arab Feminist Union, and in the modern Lebanese economy.

From the “silk economy” at the center of industrialization in the nineteenth century through the rise and dominance of the tobacco industry, women have largely negotiated and renegotiated their own position in industry. The author rejects the subaltern view of these women and their identity within the social and economic history of Lebanon: through active participation and protest, women have resisted exclusion from power and have contributed to a culture of changing alliances and class and gendered identities that are constantly in play. Through various power structures and economic models, women demonstrated, in Abisaab’s view, that “patriarchy cannot endure for long or unchangingly,” and that the women he studies are not “passive victims of capitalism” but strategically engaged in a resistance that has played a major role in shaping the modern economy.

Militant Women of a Fragile Nation begins with an account of the region known as Mount Lebanon in the later nineteenth century, and women’s involvement in silk production. As women moved into the workplace, they struggled against patriarchal control of their sexuality and an exploitative wage system that paid them half as much as men—whose work was gendered as “skilled” labor. As the silk economy declined, women dominated the “unskilled” part of the workforce in tobacco—and again earned subsistence wages while exposed to toxic chemicals in the factories.

During the period of French colonial rule of Syria-Lebanon, the French imposed the Régie, a monopolistic cartel governing tobacco production. It was during this time that women had a definable target for social action and struggled for improved conditions and resistance to colonial control. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Syrian-Lebanese “New Woman” emerged as a cultural phenomenon, and by the 1930s the Arab Feminist Union was organized to campaign against the Régie.

While there are differences in attitudes among women of different classes, the data the author accumulates shows a consistently remarkable level of women’s participation in the work force over the past 130 years. While women of the elite classes actively resisted colonial dominance, they tended to denigrate women’s participation in paid labor. “Factory women,” on the other hand, identified profoundly with their gender roles in the work place, and the factory became a site for active participation and reconsideration of their roles and identities. For both groups, women’s radicalism has had a shaping role in the economic history of the region.

Written by: Rick Taylor, September 8th 2010

Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women's Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Hester Eisenstein

Paradigm Publishers

I have been waiting for a book to tell me how things went wrong, how we ended up with lady cops and mothers in combat zones, how “feminist” became an insult. Did we women do it to ourselves, or were we pushed? Hester Eisenstein, professor of sociology at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, has offered Feminism Seduced, which, as promised and despite its flaws, does map elements of the neoliberal project to some “feminist” initiatives, but it is not the book I have been wanting, the one that explains, not so much the academically popular theory of “recuperation,” but how the radical women might have kept the momentum of the women’s movement going and in the right direction.

Let’s get the most obvious major flaw of the book out of the way: the near total omission of lesbian-feminism, a powerful influence in the radical wing of the women’s movement in the 1970s. Though it is like blaming a reporter for the headline on her story to blame Eisenstein for the judgments of her indexer, the lack of an index entry for lesbianism reflects the extreme once-over-lightly she gives to the historical role of this feminist tendency, which cannot be subsumed under “queer theory” or dismissed with “conflicts over suppression of lesbian influence... eventually faded.”

Eisenstein’s nuanced concern about the limitations of the “women of color” construct apparently does not extend to the inability of the category “GLBT” to comfortably incorporate Rita Mae Brown’s “woman-identified woman.” This is a glaring oversight from an author who rightfully chastises a movement which often alienated women of color and working-class women.

Eisenstein’s argument or rather arguments are directed, she insists, mostly at hegemonic, state feminism (an approved version of reform feminism). She views feminism as driving out what she calls “labor feminism,” the initiatives for women within the labor movement that resulted in laws protecting women. Essentially she argues that women’s demands for wage equality, while benefiting professional women, put working- and lower-middle class women into poorly paid service jobs and undermined the expectation of a “family wage.” These feminist demands served to facilitate more direct anti-union activities begun by big business at the same time. (She seems less interested in the exclusion of women from trade unions in the higher paying blue-collar occupations like plumbing and carpentry.)

Moreover, feminist emphasis on paid labor undermined women’s work in the home and thus “welfare” programs. On a global level, feminism linked with modernity destroyed traditional societies and allowed access to markets to the forces of globalization, by focusing on such issues as “genital cutting,” which Eisenstein comes close to defending. She charges that the empowerment of individual Third World women through measures such as microfinance has taken the place of state-led development. She then recounts the use of feminist ideology in the promotion of imperialist initiatives, such as President George W. Bush crowing about liberating the women of Afghanistan from Taliban oppression, and in encouragement of Islamophobia.

The author presents a not entirely trustworthy account of feminist history and its continuance in women’s studies and a fairly standard leftist rendition of the neoliberal project—a lot of ground to cover. The reader is left to piece together her thesis from topic-based chapters that operate as silos, disrupting both the narrative history and the argument—without the aid of a Venn diagram.

In the end, she presents a post hoc analysis that stops short of proving her case against even mainstream feminism. Her solutions—maternalism, a socialist state, ACORN, and the California Nurses Association—seem neither particularly feminist nor radical. Perhaps that feminism is best that doesn’t take a gendered view of all the evils of the world but rather gives women the power of agency to uproot them.

Written by: Frances Chapman, April 9th 2010

A Community Organizer's Tale: People and Power in San Francisco

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Mike Miller

Heyday Books

A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco is a radical history with a heap of theory folded in and a touch of imagery. It would be fascinating and informative to anyone interested in community organizing, housing issues, ethnic and labor struggles, civil rights, the history of San Francisco, or community-friendly city planning. The author, a San Francisco native, has been deeply involved in community organizing in the area for most of seventy-two years. He has a long resume of primary and supportive positions with communities, many central to famous movements and connected to famous organizers in San Francisco and other cities. He touches on details of his experience during the '60s in significant famous events in the civil rights and labor movements and the climates that developed into one another consecutively.

Major connections are revisited several times, which was helpful for me since I am a reader without a lot of previous understanding of the timing or significance of all the events, as well as terms like urban renewal and model cities. Strategies of urban renewal and model cities, for example, have had different outcomes for each city, depending on how the greater number of individuals and cohesive organizations in the communities responded. If you are wondering what Miller’s opinion of those strategies is, it’s not all good, at least not historically. He presents the simple, logical, and real reasons why.

In addition to describing what was going on nationally and how the top organizers worked, Miller tells of his experience as an organizer, emphasizing his various organizations goals and what political and economic decisions meant for middle class workers, minorities, unemployed, and homeowners and tenants in various communities. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, you might be tickled or heartbroken by truths revealed about causes of change in particular neighborhoods. Individual churches, blocks, restaurants, and business people are painted in a favorable light. One of my favorite lines depicting neighborhood politics is where he states, “We were regulars there, so the owner didn’t mind his cook taking breaks to be a community leader.” My other favorite line is a quote before the introduction, a former New York Governor on community organizing: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer... I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

This would be a great educational piece for interested students, or workers in the field. That is, anyone wanting to get up to speed on what has happened in community organizing in San Francisco, Chicago, and nationally. I recommend it to anyone wanting to be part of the future of this movement, because history really does inspire greatness.

Written by: Heather Irvine, December 23rd 2009

China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:17:00 +0000

By Serge Michel, Michel Beuret

Nation Books

In China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa, Serge Michel and Michel Beuret invest a lot of time and energy in examining China’s presence in African countries. They travel to various places to interview different people in order to find out what affects Chinese business has across the continent. China is quickly colonizing African counties with a speed that must make Western colonizers like America, England, and France (to name a few) burn with envy.

The environment doesn’t matter, the people don’t matter, and future generations certainly don’t either. What is important is the almighty dollar—er, yuan. Nobody and nothing is indispensable. Even the average Chinese laborer who travels from the mainland to work the fields, factory, pipelines, and mines is expendable. He makes more money in the Congo than he ever could in China, and as an added bonus, if he dies in a work-related accident, it will net his family back home a few extra yuan—so his death isn’t seen as a complete waste, but an honorable sacrifice.

It isn’t just the natural resources that China is trying to take as it competes with Western countries for contracts. African governments favour doing business with China and give construction contracts to Chinese companies. In return, all these nations have to do is hand over a bit of oil, which then increases the need for construction of more pipe lines. (More contracts for China!), or other enviable resources—like Niger's uranium. China may give out loans to build dams and highways, but the money comes with a cost: Chinese labor is preferred instead providing jobs for local people, the construction quality is poor, and there are no unions to protect the workers.

Also, Chinese businesses have made, and continue to make, a lot of money off of selling their cheap manufactured goods to African consumers. Whatever the consumer needs, from Islamic prayer mats to plastic souvenirs sold by the Nile River to rifles and handguns for regional warring, China makes all of the items at a cheaper cost than its competitors.

The information China Safari offers about the Chinese exploitation of African (and Chinese) workers is a hefty wake up call for those in the pursuit of global fair trade and environmental and human rights. The bleak reality of industrial “progress” in places across the African continent are well-documented in this book__. The authors leave no stone unturned. The amount of research they did for this book is staggering, and I was shocked to read just how deeply China has sunk its claws into the world's poorest continent.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, October 13th 2009

24 City

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Directed by Jia Zhangke

Cinema Guild

24 City, a film that expertly mixes documentary footage and fictional reenactments, follows several generations of women living and working in Chengdu City for Xinda Machinery’s Chengfu Group. Factory 420, a not-so-well-kept state secret, has since been turned into residential housing. The film chronicles the lives of several women whose personal and professional lives are inextricably linked to the longstanding behemoth factory cum apartment complex, a throwback to Mao’s communism.

Director Jia Zhangke is perhaps best known stateside for his 2004 film, The World. He is also one of the leaders of Chinese cinema’s Sixth Generation movement, a loosely connected group of independent filmmakers responsible for some of the more innovative works coming from China’s underground and state-sanctioned mainstream.

To add to the striking archive footage in 24 City, the film stars several well-known actresses, including Joan Chen. Best known for her role in TV’s Twin Peaks, Chen also starred in 2007 films Lust, Caution and The Sun Also Rises. Zhao Tao, Zhangke’s longtime muse and frequent star of his films, also has a leading role.

As beautiful as 24 City is, it overwhelming appeals to film buffs and cinema theorists. It’s also helpful to have working knowledge of Chinese history and communist labor. The necessity of knowing so much back story left me and my viewing partner a bit confused at times, as though we’d missed an introductory interview or establishing footage. The film was nominated for the 2008 Palme d'Or at Cannes, and knowing this going in, I hesitated to find fault. Yet 24 City moves slowly and sometimes lacks audio precision. It is a truly gorgeous film, expertly framed, but no one should expect an action-packed adventure from the docu-narrative piece.

More than mainstream appeal, or relying on special effects, the film offers a meditation on dystopian modern life in post-Mao China. After 4,000 workers were laid off from the factory, many tried to make ends meet with odd jobs. One seamstress profiled explains that more than income, she believes, “If you have something to do, you age more slowly.” One unemployed worker illegally sold flowers on the street. Another tells of gathering old work gloves from the factory, only to unravel them and send the thread to her sister so new clothing could be made from the remnants.

An important, visually stimulating film, 24 City tells a meditative, multi-layered story about work, personal space, home, and gender across generations. Its uneven pace likely won’t charm mainstream movie lovers, but it’s worth a viewing for cinema geeks.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 18th 2009

Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:32:00 +0000

Edited by Marilyn Fischer, Carol Nackenoff, Wendy Chmielewski

University of Illinois Press

Jane Addams and the Practice of Democracy is not light, bedtime reading. The book is a compilation of ten academic essays discussing the influence Jane Addams had on democracy, the definition of socialism, and on the concept of cooperation. It ends with the most important question of all: “Can Jane Addams Serve as a Role Model for Us Today?”—a question a bit insulting to even ask.

For those unfamiliar with Jane Addams, she was the founder of Hull House in Chicago. Hull House was a settlement house that gave support, lessons and residence for women during the influx of immigrants during the turn of the century. As Hull House founder, she helped create women’s labor unions, supported educators’ rights, mentored the next generation of labor leaders and gave shelter and compassion to many young women as they figured out life in America. She was also influential in the creation of the NAACP. Her beliefs as a pacifist, Christian, socialist, and feminist were hard won and felt throughout her life by those she touched.

As a book of essays, it is uneven. Some essays, such as “The Sermon of the Deed: Jane Addams’ Spiritual Evolution” and “A Civil Machinery for Democracy Expression: Jane Addams on Public Administration” are fascinating examinations of her influence on areas not commonly associated with her image today. Other essays, such as “New Politics for New Selves: Jane Adams’s Legacy for Democratic Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century” are less interesting but touch on important components of her legacy. One essay in particular, “Toward a Queer Social Welfare Studies: Unsettling Jane Addams” is a fascinating look at Addams’ influence on the definition of gender roles and of the family, and its influence on queer theory and gay rights. The topic is a novel approach to a woman who worked for equality to all for her life, and who would no doubt be proud to know her influence was felt in this arena as well.

The book ends with the question of Jane Addams’ ability to serve as a role model for today. The essay argues that, yes, in this society, her work as an advocate for peace is more important than ever. A worthy discussion, it seeks to understand the struggle Adams’ had with her decision to stay passive during World War I. Still, the idea seems a bit insulting. Even with that struggle, to question whether the vast influence she had is still valid today is unfair. The question of whether someone is a role model is perhaps one that should come up more with historical figures, but to end this book with that explicit question seems to discredit Addams. Essays on Lincoln or Roosevelt don’t ask if they should still be considered role models today, though maybe they should. To ask that question, whether it is because she is a woman or not—which I do not believe is the case—comes across as insulting.

Overall, I recommend the book, with the caveat that it is an academic book, intended for a scholarly audience. However, if you would like to see a modern review of an influential woman, this is an advanced but interesting look.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, April 22nd 2009

Orgasmic Birth

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Directed by Debra Pascali-Bonaro

As an aspiring doula and having grown up with a mother who was a licensed midwife, I have seen a myriad of birth videos. I would honestly say, however, that Orgasmic Birth is the best and most enjoyable birth video I have ever seen.

The overall purpose of the film is to encourage women to view birth as an organic process in which they are able to exercise complete control. Stories of several couples are presented to provide proof that this is indeed a possibility. Orgasmic Birth does a wonderful job of including stories and labor experiences that are as intriguing as the title.

The first couple we meet is having their baby in their backyard. In the post-labor interview the father explains how much he enjoyed telling his friends that his baby was born “On the deck, 3:00 p.m., on a Sunday.” I was instantly intrigued.

Although the birth scenes in the film were idealized in that they happened in pleasant circumstances (imagine that), I appreciated that the filmmakers did not hide the reality of the process; it can often be long and, yes, painful. Despite these dynamics, birth is something that most women are capable of.

By this point you are perhaps wondering about the orgasmic connection to the film. While I do not want to ruin any of the particularly climatic portions, I assure you that the title is not just for shock value (as some people I have spoken to have assumed). The professionals in the film tastefully describe the manner in which birth is simply a part of a woman’s sexual life. There is more to this than mere theory; women experience the highest levels of oxytocin during labor, and as a result, twenty percent of women have an orgasm sometime during the birth process.

The film does an extraordinary job providing an alternative perspective to the traditional view of birth in the United States and does emphasize natural home births. However, this is done in a very nonjudgmental way, which is evidenced by the variety of birth professionals in the film, including some hospital practitioners.

As is common in current birth videos and literature, the issue of cesarean sections was thoroughly explored in the film. This is done not so much to criticize specific practitioners or women who have had the procedure, but to promote the empowering ideology on which the film is based. The information given is also clearly meant to educate first time parents, and I found it valuable.

Orgasmic Birth is a groundbreaking film exploring that is sure to not only change the way birth is portrayed in educational films, but also the experience of expectant parents who have the opportunity to view it.

Written by: Janice Formichella, April 10th 2009

Maquilapolis: City of Factories

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:22:00 +0000

Directed by Vicki Funari, Sergio de la Torre

California Newsreel

Who made that pen you’re using? Who put your television together? Who sewed your pants? And what does any of this have to do with women in Mexico? Well, thanks to the initiation of NAFTA in 1994, big US corporations can make maximum profit off of the cheap labor of women in other countries. In the brand new documentary Maquilapolis, two female maquiladora workers document their lives and struggles as factory workers in Tijuana, and show why and how women are exploited for their cheap labor in the border towns of Mexico.

Following the daily routines of Carmen and Lourdes, the film depicts every feature of their lives. From having to pick their steps carefully as they walk through their shanty towns - because life-threatening, shoddy electricity zaps and sizzles near polluted water, to sending a son to buy a five gallon jug of water that costs the same price that these women are paid at the maquiladoras for two hours of work - the film doesn’t leave out one aspect of these women’s personal lives. The film, however, never asks for the viewer’s pity. Just as you think it’s going to turn into a commiseration about the harsh life realities of the marginalized Other, Maquilapolis weaves in another narrative—that of these women’s political life.

Carmen and Lourdes are both aware of how their bosses treat them. Viewed as ignorant women who do not understand what human rights are, the patrons of the maquiladoras overwork the women, underpay them and provide unsafe working conditions for the young female workers. Carmen’s political battle with her former bosses is over denied severance pay. When the company decided to move their operations to Indonesia, because of cheaper female labor overseas, all of the women working for the company in Tijuana were fired without being given any severance pay. Carmen understands that “in globalization, woman worker is like a commodity,” but that due to the multiple injustices slapped upon her by the hands of big corporations, she “can’t stay quiet anymore.” With these powerful words Carmen organizes her fellow workers. After a large legal battle the women are finally paid the thousands of dollars that was owed to them.

Lourdes also understands how, through globalization, women are “just objects, objects of labor.” Her battle, however, is one about the aftermath of a factory closing. One corporation that left Tijuana did not take any of the necessary precautions with demolishing their factory, so all of the metal and factory bi-products were left to rot and corrode. This abandoned factory sits on a hill above the maquiladora workers’ neighborhood. All of the chemicals from the corroded building, as well as those from the factories that are still functioning near by, run off into a creek that flows through the workers’ neighborhood. The entire shantytown is polluted with harmful chemicals, and the effects of these pollutants can be seen on the workers’ bodies in the form of the rashes and spots. Lourdes’ battle against the government and corporations to clean up its waste is a long battle that has yet to be fully won. But the incessant Lourdes and the environmental group that she organized have made small victories in this overwhelming war.

Maquilapolis is a film that does not attempt to create any pity. While it does show the horrific living situations that female maquiladora workers have to negotiate along with their physically stressful and low-wage jobs, it is also a film of angst, rebellion and unrelenting political action. Maquilapolis is both a call to action and an eye-opener for anyone who has never considered what, exactly, goes in to making their pens, their television, their clothes and all of the cheap, plastic crap that no one really needs. In a world where globalization is seen by the privileged as a blessing, Maquilapolis exposes how globalization functions in the lives of marginalized women.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, July 3rd 2007