1. Identity and
Institutions in the
Workplace
Jason Tuttle
University of Southern Maine

2. Identity
Discovering the self and the other via the workplace

3. The Birth of Intersectionality
 Intersctionality, the idea that
rather than being the sum
of various identity parts we
are instead the
multiplicative of various
identites, was first
developed in the workplace.

4.  The notion of intersectionality came about primarily because
African-American Women found themselves the victims of
not only sexual discrimination but racial discrimination as
well. So their experiences differed from African-American
males and Caucasian Females and thusly their identity could
not be simply lumped in with members of those
demographics.

5. “ A man is not a real man unless
he is gainfully employed (202)”
 This quote appearing in the text, Communicating Gender
Diversity, has far reaching implications. It implies that men
who reach out and ask for help from social services like
unemployment benefits are somehow emasculated.
 This is not only untrue and unfair to men but to women as
well as it suggests that asking for help is something only
women do.

6. The masculine makeup of the
abstract worker
 Defransisco and
Palczewski write, “ a vision
of the abstract worker
persists-a bodiless,
sexless, emotionless
worker who does not
procreate. This sex and
gender neutral worker is not
actually neutral but is
instead a man.(208)”
 Think about the word
worker, what do you picture
in your mind?

7. The Empowerment and
Resistance of African-American
Women
At the beginning of this
section I discussed the
emergence of
intersectionality as Now lets end this section
response to the unique by discussing the five
experiences they have ways Patricia
had in the workplace Parker(2003) identified as
ways that African-
American women have
resisted the practices that
brought about
intersectionality in the
first place

8. The five ways Parker identified are:
1. Developing and using Voice
2. Being Self-defined
3. Being Self-determined
4. Connecting to and Building
Community
5. Seeking Spirituality and
Regeneration

9. Institution
The framework in which we exist

10. Work
is Ritualistic
 As the authors allude to work is inherently ritualistic despite
the nature of work shifting from agriculture to service more
than 25% of the population still work the Monday-Friday 9 to
5 shift.
 Even those whose work schedules do not fit this dynamic still
view work as a daily ritual: the commute, the giant cup of
coffee, getting the kids up and dressed.
 Work is an institution in our lives because our lives tend to
revolve around the hours we spend doing work whether paid
or unpaid.

11. The Public and Private Dichotomy
of Work and Family
 Like the previous slide
stated, work is a constant
institution in our lives that
dominates much of our time
 This has a great effect on
the choices we make
regarding work and family
 The authors cite Arlie
Hochschild’s 1997 study
which found, “that the
rapidly increasing time
stress in U.S. culture
induces more persons to
choose work over family
because of the rewards
work promises(203)”

12. The Origin of Power Imbalances at
the Workplace Begin in the
classroom…

13. Are Teachers
and Guidance
Counselors to
Blame?
Parker(2003) thinks so when
she writes that teachers and
guidance counselors often steer
people, African-American
women in particular, towards
occupations they feel are more
attainable for them and away
from the occupations they spent
their childhood dreaming about

14. Care Work: Job Segregation
Manifest

15. What is Care Work
 Sociologist Mignon Duffy (2005) defines care work to include
domestic service, health care, child care, teaching, food
preparation and cleaning services(210)
 It has been historically overrepresented as being the
segmented part of labor occupied by women and more
prominently by African-American women.
 The authors point to the fact that with the advent of
globalization the segregation in the care work sector has
grown beyond the borders of the united states

16. The Intersection of Care Work, Job
Segregation and Race
 The idea of job segregation  Defransisco and Palczewski
still very much permeates (2007) broach the subject by
our way of thinking. When writing, “White women assume
someone says the word the public face of care work,
firefighter we as a society populating those jobs that call
almost immediately picture for the most interaction with
a white male. Conversely others, that are more
when someone says nurse professionalized, and that pay
we do the same process more. In contrast, women of
but picture a white female. color are disproportionately
represented in the dirty, back
room jobs such as maids and
kitchen workers(210)”

17. Works Cited
 DeFrancisco, Victoria L., and Catherine Helen Palczewski.
Communicating gender diversity: a critical approach. Los
Angeles: Sage Publications, 2007. Print.