Working in a neon cage: Bodily labor of cosmetics saleswomen in Taiwan

Feminist Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 21-45

  Lan, Pei Chia ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 26444534900     PISSN: 00463663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (51)

1. See Brian Turner, "Recent Developments in the Theory of the Body," and Mike Featherstone, "The Body in Consumer Culture," in The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, ed. Mike Featherstone, Mike Hepworth, and Brian Turner (London: Sage, 1990), 1-35, 170-96.
2. Sandra Bartky, "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," in Feminism and Foucault: Reflection and Resistance, ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 61-86; Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
3. Sandra Bartky, "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," in Feminism and Foucault: Reflection and Resistance, ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 61-86; Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
4. Lauren Langman, "Neon Cage: Shopping for Subjectivity," in Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject of Consumption, ed. Rob Shields (New York: Routledge, 1992), 40-82.
5. Linda Nicholson, "Interpreting Gender," Signs 20 (spring 1994): 79-105.
6. Judith Butler asks herself in the introduction of Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993): "If everything is discourse, what happens to the body? If everything is a text, what about violence and bodily injury?" (28).
7. Nancy Fraser, "Pragmatism, Feminism, and the Linguistic Turn," in her Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (New York: Routledge, 1995), 160.
8. The making of sexual objects in the production process is discussed by Leslie Salzinger in her study of a Mexican export-processing factory, "Manufacturing Sexual Objects: 'Harassment,' Desire, and Discipline on a Maquiladora Shopfloor," Ethnography 1 (spring 2000): 67-92.
9. Joan Acker, "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations," Gender and Society 4 (summer 1990): 139-58. Also see Barbara Reskin and Irene Padavic, Men and Women at Work (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge, 1994); David Knight and Hugh Willmott, Gender and the Labour Process (London: Gower, 1986); and Jennifer Pierce, Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
10. Joan Acker, "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations," Gender and Society 4 (summer 1990): 139-58. Also see Barbara Reskin and Irene Padavic, Men and Women at Work (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge, 1994); David Knight and Hugh Willmott, Gender and the Labour Process (London: Gower, 1986); and Jennifer Pierce, Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
11. Joan Acker, "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations," Gender and Society 4 (summer 1990): 139-58. Also see Barbara Reskin and Irene Padavic, Men and Women at Work (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge, 1994); David Knight and Hugh Willmott, Gender and the Labour Process (London: Gower, 1986); and Jennifer Pierce, Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
12. Joan Acker, "Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations," Gender and Society 4 (summer 1990): 139-58. Also see Barbara Reskin and Irene Padavic, Men and Women at Work (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge, 1994); David Knight and Hugh Willmott, Gender and the Labour Process (London: Gower, 1986); and Jennifer Pierce, Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
13. Candace West and Don Zimmerman, "Doing Gender," in The Social Construction of Gender, ed. Judith Lorber and Susan A. Farrell (London: Sage, 1991); Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Robin Leidner, Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
14. Candace West and Don Zimmerman, "Doing Gender," in The Social Construction of Gender, ed. Judith Lorber and Susan A. Farrell (London: Sage, 1991); Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Robin Leidner, Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
15. Candace West and Don Zimmerman, "Doing Gender," in The Social Construction of Gender, ed. Judith Lorber and Susan A. Farrell (London: Sage, 1991); Arlie Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Robin Leidner, Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
16. Debra Gilman, Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
17. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1977).
18. Taiwan's "economic miracle" was grounded in the cheap labor force of women. In the early 1970s, only 18.6% of female workers were employed in manufacturing. By 1987, the percentage had jumped to 41.5%. See Ping-Chun Hsiung, Living Rooms as Factories: Class, Gender, and the Satellite Factory System in Taiwan (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).
19. The domination of Caucasian body images has a similar effect on Asian American women. Eugenia Kaw reported that a higher proportion of Asian American women pursue cosmetic surgery than any other ethnic group in the United States. Most choose nose implants or have double-eyelid surgery. See her article, " 'Opening' Faces: The Politics of Cosmetic Surgery and Asian American Women," in Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, ed. Nicole Sault (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 241-65.
20. Featherstone, 170; Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), 6.
21. Featherstone, 170; Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), 6.
22. For example, until 1987 high school students in Taiwan were required by school authorities to wear uniforms and particular hairstyles (no perms, no bangs, and no ear-length cuts for girls, and military-like cropped hair for boys). Even now, wearing make-up is not allowed at high schools. During the 19605 and 19705, the police often arrested long-haired men for "disrupting social morality."
23. Susan Porter Benson, Counter Culture: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 210.
24. Everett C. Hughes, "Professions" in his The Sociological Eyes: Selected Papers (Chicago: Aldine and Atherton, 1971), 375.
25. Gail Faurschou, "Obsolescence and Desire: Fashion and the Commodity Form," in Postmodernism-Philosophy and the Arts, ed. Hugh J. Silverman (New York: Routledge, 1990), 234-59.
26. See Leidner, 41-43; John Walsh, Supermarkets Transformed: Understanding Organizational and Technological Innovations (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Linda Fuller and Vicki Smith, "Consumers' Reports: Management by Customers in a Changing Economy," in Working in the Service Society, ed. Cameron Lynne MacDonald and Carmen Sirianni (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 74-89.
27. See Leidner, 41-43; John Walsh, Supermarkets Transformed: Understanding Organizational and Technological Innovations (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Linda Fuller and Vicki Smith, "Consumers' Reports: Management by Customers in a Changing Economy," in Working in the Service Society, ed. Cameron Lynne MacDonald and Carmen Sirianni (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 74-89.
28. See Leidner, 41-43; John Walsh, Supermarkets Transformed: Understanding Organizational and Technological Innovations (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Linda Fuller and Vicki Smith, "Consumers' Reports: Management by Customers in a Changing Economy," in Working in the Service Society, ed. Cameron Lynne MacDonald and Carmen Sirianni (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 74-89.
29. Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production: Factory Regime under Capitalism and Socialism (New York: Verso, 1985).
30. My typology of bodily labor is partly inspired by Arthur Frank. In his article, "For a Sociology of Body: An Analytic Review," in The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, 36-102, Frank proposes four types of body use with different media of body action: the disciplined body (regimentation), the mirroring body (consumption), the dominating body (force), and the communicating body (recognition). The difference between my argument and Frank's is that Frank aims to create a general theoretical scheme applied to all bodily action, and I situate my analysis in a particular social field (the labor process) and power nexus (labor control).
31. Richard Edwards, Contested Terrains: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1979); elsewhere, I provide more details on the multiple forms of labor control over the body. See my "Body Control of Service Workers: Cosmetics Retailers in Department Stores and Direct Selling," in The Critical Studies of Work: Labor, Technology, and Global Production, ed. Richard Baldoz, Charles Koeber, and Philip Kraft (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 83-105.
32. Richard Edwards, Contested Terrains: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1979); elsewhere, I provide more details on the multiple forms of labor control over the body. See my "Body Control of Service Workers: Cosmetics Retailers in Department Stores and Direct Selling," in The Critical Studies of Work: Labor, Technology, and Global Production, ed. Richard Baldoz, Charles Koeber, and Philip Kraft (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001), 83-105.
33. Elaine Hall, "Smiling, Deferring, and Flirting: Doing Gender by Giving 'Good Service,' " Work and Occupation 20 (winter 1993): 452-71; Foucault, 137.
34. Elaine Hall, "Smiling, Deferring, and Flirting: Doing Gender by Giving 'Good Service,' " Work and Occupation 20 (winter 1993): 452-71; Foucault, 137.
35. Dorinne Kondo, Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 87.
36. Edwards, 94-107.
37. Leidner, 122; Hochschild, 136.
38. Leidner, 122; Hochschild, 136.
39. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling 163; Leidner, Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life 127-28, 151.
40. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling 163; Leidner, Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life 127-28, 151.
41. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling 33.
42. Barkty, 75.
43. Benson, 233.
44. In some cases, wearing makeup may become an act of agency for women. For example, Page D. Delano found that American women during World War II used makeup to disrupt wartime's masculine code of power. See "Making Up for War: Sexuality and Citizenship in Wartime Culture," Feminist Studies 26 (spring 2000): 33-68. Also see Kristen Dellinger and Christine Williams, who discuss how employed women transform the meanings of wearing makeup to subvert institutionalized norms in "Makeup at Work: Negotiating Appearance Rules in the Workplace," Gender and Society 11 (April 1997): 151-77.
45. In some cases, wearing makeup may become an act of agency for women. For example, Page D. Delano found that American women during World War II used makeup to disrupt wartime's masculine code of power. See "Making Up for War: Sexuality and Citizenship in Wartime Culture," Feminist Studies 26 (spring 2000): 33-68. Also see Kristen Dellinger and Christine Williams, who discuss how employed women transform the meanings of wearing makeup to subvert institutionalized norms in "Makeup at Work: Negotiating Appearance Rules in the Workplace," Gender and Society 11 (April 1997): 151-77.
46. My analysis here is limited to a supplementary analysis of the gendered construction of bodily labor. For a more detailed discussion on men in predominantly female occupations, see Christine Williams, Still a Men's World: Men Who Do Women's Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); on professionalization as a gendered social process, see Anna Witz, Professions and Patriarchy (New York: Routledge, 1992).
47. My analysis here is limited to a supplementary analysis of the gendered construction of bodily labor. For a more detailed discussion on men in predominantly female occupations, see Christine Williams, Still a Men's World: Men Who Do Women's Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); on professionalization as a gendered social process, see Anna Witz, Professions and Patriarchy (New York: Routledge, 1992).
48. Instead of attributing gender discrimination to intentional bias or prejudice in employers, Cas Sustein argues that discrimination sometimes persists because it is economically rational to rely on a race- or sex-based generalization for saving information costs in surveying consumer needs; see Cas Sustein, "Why Markets Don't Stop Discrimination," Social Philosophy and Policy 8 (summer 1991): 22-37.
49. Kathy Peiss also found that U.S. male cosmeticians in the 19305, such as Max Factor, erased the taint of effeminacy and homosexuality by creating public images as articulate, lab-coated experts (115-16).
50. Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000), 179. The incorporation of masculinity into advertisements for male toiletries and shaving products was initiated in the United States in the 19205 and 19305 (Peiss, 160-66); for a contemporary example, see Pat Kirkham and Alex Welter, "Cosmetics: A Clinique Case Study," in The Gendered Object, ed. Pat Kirkham (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1996), 196-203.
51. Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000), 179. The incorporation of masculinity into advertisements for male toiletries and shaving products was initiated in the United States in the 19205 and 19305 (Peiss, 160-66); for a contemporary example, see Pat Kirkham and Alex Welter, "Cosmetics: A Clinique Case Study," in The Gendered Object, ed. Pat Kirkham (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1996), 196-203.