Workplace identitiesOctober 17th: Who Are We?

10th: transitions

Tensions: Role of “parent” versus “advisor/critic”

Coping with difficult relatives

“Do-over”: repeat past roles

Attempt to fix past problems

Versus “letting go” to define new identities/relationships

values: what’s IMportant?

New roles/identities: Larger meaning/significance of life

List three things that are most important to you now--things that you value in life

Work experiences

What are your prior work experiences--in your job, your family, organization, or community?

What roles did you assume in this work? How did you learn to adopt these roles?

What was satisfying/rewarding about those experiences and/or roles?

What was challenging about those experiences and/or roles?

Status and work

Gendered construction of work

“Women’s work”: “Pink-collar jobs”

Female versus male pay (.81)

Varies by occupation and region

Women CEO’s: 3.2% of Fortune 500 companies

Your experience as a woman/man??

Male vs. female education

Women: Higher college attendance/graduation in shorter time period

Varies by race and class

Romney’s appointment of women

First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about -- and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women.

Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)

Waitress’s work

Mike Rose’s mother as waitress

“...how central that work was to her sense of self and engagement with the world”

“Both waitress and management work by the clock.”

“The basic goal, then, is to manage irregularity and create an economy of movement.”

“...the mix of strategies and processes: imagistic, spatial, verbal, and the role of emotion.”

Vigilant attention

...attending in transit to requests, empty cups, plates moved to the edge of the table.”

“Mindfulness”: “...who ordered what and when and knows how long a specific item should take to prepare given the time of day.”

“She organizes takes by type or location...what tasks can be grouped and executed with the least effort.”

“Emotional labor”

“‘Even if they’re rude to you, you still smile and just go on, because that’s your living.’”

Gendered identities: “servant, mother, daughter, friend, or sexual object.”

“how difficult it is...to capture the complex meaning work has in the lives of people like Rose Emily Rose.”

Always learning: “your ability that makes everything work right; you are instrumental in creating their satisfaction.”

Competencies

What activities constituted your role in your job?

What did you become good at doing in your job?

How did you learn these competencies?

How were you recognized for your competencies?

Negotiating work versus non-work demands

Job and family demands: conflicts in roles??

How did you negotiate conflicts?

How did you distinguish “family” versus “job” time?

Job and family: positive transfer?

Identification: Negotiating competing worlds

workplaceworkplace school school

peer peer groupgroup

family/family/communcommun

ityity

Representation as Re-presentn Media do not simply reflect/mirror “reality”n Media create or re-present a new reality

n DisneyWorld as an artificial realityn “Reality” shows as a television “reality” drama

n Media “mediate” how we construct our livesn Adolescent females in “Merchants of Cool” who are

preparing to be “supermodels”n Fashion magazine models mediate how they define

their identities

Stereotyping: Fixes/limits Meaning n Stereotypes limits meanings assigned to groups

n Shapes perceptions of that groupn Leaves out/over-generalizes meaningn “Scientists as nerds”/ “Native Americans as alcoholics”

n Contesting stereotypes by increasing diversity of images that open up new possibilities of identity

n “Where do images come from?”n “Who produces images?”n “How is meaning closed down in representation?”n “Who is silenced in the production of images?”

Construction of Femininityn Social practices: nurturer/helper roles: teaching, nursing,

mothern “Beauty industry”: appearance, slimness, or attractiveness

as central to identity n Identity constructed through heterosexual relationships n Romance novel: legitimacy of nurturer as transforming

traditional male hero

Representation of Classn People’s desire to be perceived as “middle class” by

adopting class markers of dress, language, social practices

http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/n Representations of “working-class”: categorized serving

to demonize people

Exhibits: Magazine ad images: Representations n Categories: each table: race, class, gender, age,

region or place (suburban vs. urban), entertainment, etc.

n Identity patterns: create subcategories, including interactions across categories

n Reflect on how images influence your identity construction

n Reflect on limitations of categories