 | Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality Subjects: Toy industry -- United States -- Employees; Clerks (Retail trade) -- United States; Discrimination in employment -- United States; Consumers -- United States; Equality -- United States; Williams, the editor of the journal Gender & Society and author of Still a Man?s World, takes the Nickle and Dimed approach to toy retailing by working as a cashier in a high-end and a big box toy store for six weeks each, turning the scrutinizing eye of a sociologist onto the sandbox. Other than the fact- and statistic-filled chapter on the history of shopping in America, Williams?s presentation is a mix of anecdotes and the sort of observations only a sociologist could make: a male co-worker acting flamboyant while selling Barbies is making ?his temporary assignment seem more palatable and less inconsistent with his masculinity?; male Asian-American clerks prefer to work in the electronics section, because ?Asian masculinity is often defined through technical expertise.? However, because her field work provided her with such a small sampling of material, it?s a tough sell that the conditions she observed in two stores can prognosticate industry- or culture-wide conditions, but her sympathy for the low-wage retail clerk?s plight, rendered in oddly touching clinical prose, is reason enough to pick this up. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. Williams Christine L. : Christine L. Williams is Professor of Sociology and the Elsie and Stanley E. (Skinny) Adams, Sr. Centennial Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas, Austin, and is coeditor, with Jeffrey Alexander and Gary Marx, of Self, Structure, and Beliefs (California, 2004), and the author of Still a Man's World (California, 1995) and Gender Differences at Work (California, 1989). |
