Introducing Intersectionality by Mary Romero

Author:Mary Romero
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2017-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

Masculinity and Employment

Areas of employment and labor are important sites for the construction of gender identity, particularly in affirming, challenging and negotiating masculinity (Kimmel 2000; Padavic & Reskin 2002; Messerschmitt 2004). Construction, coal mining, policing and firefighting were working-class male-dominated occupations. As union jobs, these occupations provided workers with decent pay, benefits and job security. The histories of unionization among these trades document the fight to keep men of color out – aimed at holding on to white male privilege (Roediger 1999). One structural mechanism was “father and son unions,” where boys followed their fathers into the occupation and the labor union – essentially closing the shop to men of color and sorting occupations by ethnicity. This is how, in big Eastern cities like New York, there were Irish police and firefighters; there were German and Irish butchers in Back of the Yards, Chicago. Most unions, including the powerful American Federation of Labor (AFL), did not admit Blacks or women. However, in 1925, Black sleeping-car porters organized the first African American Union. It was a strong brotherhood on the US rails when there was a passenger service. While the social construction of masculinity would seem to favor working-class men for their physical strength, the occupational hierarchy placed them in vulnerable and precarious employment. They are perceived as “dumb brutes” or “working stiffs” with a career that was meaningful but limited. Unlike white middle-class fathers who hope to serve as role models for their sons, working-class fathers sometimes wanted more for their sons and frequently viewed themselves as negative role models (Coston & Kimmel 2012). In an oral history of western coal miners, one old Welsh miner said he'd scoop manure in hell before he saw his son go into the mines.

A memorable illustration of this point appears in Studs Terkel's (1974) opening interview in Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. Terkel interviewed Mike LeFevre, a steel-mill worker, who told a story of hard work, tiredness, and being treated with little respect. After showing where injuries had left black and blue marks on his arms and legs, he says, “You know what I hear from more than one guy at work. ‘If my kid wants to work in a factory, I am going to kick the hell out of him,’ I want my kid to be an effete snob. Yeah, mm-hmm. (Laughs.) I want him to be able to quote Walt Whitman, to be proud of it” (Terkel 1974: xxxii). He described his dream of a 20-hour working week that would allow him time to be with his family and to go to college. This tension between a working-class life and an intellectual life is a theme throughout the interview: “If my kid ever goes to college, I just want him to have a little respect, to realize that his dad is one of those somebodies” (Terkel 1974: xxxv). Lefevre described an interaction with a college student who expressed surprise that he read books instead of just the sports page in the newspaper like the other workers.

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