Gender and Race

This week readings explore the idea of race and gender, and the impact technology has had in their working lives. Two different examples present the impact of technology in the working force: in the first one we have women working at the AT&T company, and in the second women working at home, specifically farm women.

For long I had heard that technology displaces workers, but had never read of a real case. Green (1995) presents the case of African American women working at AT&T between 1945 and 1980, giving insights of how this shift was made. New developments in telephone technology were changing the whole industry. Changes were happening and would have affected the workers in general, but in this particular case the presidents and managers of the company choose it to be mainly Black women. As Walter Straley reported in October 1969,

It is therefore perfectly plain that we need nonwhite employees. Not because we are good citizens. Or because it is the law as well as national goal to give them employment. We need them because we have so many jobs to fill and they will take them. (p.264).

These jobs were not going to last long, and the administrators of AT&T knew about it, but still they employed mainly black women to later lay them off. Green makes a point to describe the work force before and during this process. This is, the unemployed army available for cheap work, because there is nothing else. It made me think of how many negative stories and comments I have heard of “that” people, those that had to move to the big cities; those that are also “my” people, Puerto Ricans who migrated to the United States because media and sometimes even the government promised them a better life. But the truth is that work is just that, work; that many times what is available is what nobody else wants to do, the low paid job, the job with the worst working conditions (physical and mental), and many times with very little or no compensations. And then the stereotypes reproduce themselves. “They are lazy.” “They are stupid, they don’t learn fast enough.” “They talk another language. I wonder what they are saying.” “They are dirty.” “Be careful, there they come.” “They are moving into our neighborhood; they are changing the community’s composition.” “They are loud.” Well, you have heard these and many others, I’m sure of that.

For the people at the end of the social stratum, say women or minorities, options are not available, like they are for others.* I think Green makes it clear, that racism and prejudice is not as easy to overcome, as we (or some) would like. The government could seem to try, but many times it looks like it is just putting up a cover-up. The worst is when the Unions take the wrong side, which could be the side of men, the side of white men, or the side of white women, leaving out the black women in Green’s case, leaving out minority groups in general, forgetting they exist to protect them.


Farm women

Too little I know about my grandmothers and their lives as farmwoman. I wish I had known them, but life was very hard and they died very young.

Kleinegger present the lives of farmwomen and the different types of jobs they used to do. Many farmwomen not only worked as house and family keepers but also as entrepreneurs in the poultry industry (eggs), cattle industry (milk, cheese, butter), gardeners and more. This did not make their lives easier; instead they had more responsibilities to take care for.

This article then goes on to talk about the relationship between husband and wife and how man tools (or technology) were more important than those needed by women to complete the household tasks. This also had to do with who was in charge of the home finances, which usually was the man.

Technology for women was portrayed as “labor-saving devices” in the first half of the twentieth century, including: running water, electricity, washing machines, and ‘fireless cooker’. Newly acquired devices where intended to save time, so that other chores could be completed (p. 185).

Prejudice and racisms is all over us. We grew with it and we learnt it not only in our home but also throughout the cultural expressions of the community where we lived in. Becoming aware of it and working toward a more just society could seem an ideal goal, but it is very much real to me. Respecting others includes respecting their culture and cultural expressions, because these are part of each human being.

The stories we read of women being undermined by husbands and supervisors are not a new story in our days. We have heard hundreds of similar stories and might have even been in similar situations. What makes these stories important is that they are based on historical facts, tools that can be used to sustain an argument.

As long as there are positions of power of one group over another (because of gender, race, nationality, social status, …) there will be some kind of prejudice. It is sad to say this, but I believe it is true. Although education seemed to be the perfect place to change this, the truth is that it all depends of individual. I wish to be very wrong about this.

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*If you are interested in reading more about racism and prejudice, you might want to look at Alice McIntryre’s book, titled Making Meaning of Whiteness. In this book the author presents her research with pre-service teachers, a group of students that turn out to be all middle to upper middle class, white, in the early twenties. Together they try to examine “what it means to be white” in the United States, the stereotypes, misconceptions, and prejudices we grow with, and how they shape who we are and how we conduct ourselves. It also presents new ways of working with these feelings that could lead to overcome prejudice and stereotypes, different ways that change hundreds of years of misconceptions. There are no solutions presented in this book, the solution remains inside of each one of us. We need to be aware of what we say and how we act; eventually this would lead the way to a more just society.


References:

Green, V. (1995). Race and technology: African American women in the bell system, 1945-1980. Technology and Culture, 36, 101-143.

Kleinegger, C. (1987). Out of the barns and into the kitchens: Transformations in farm women’s work in the first half of the twentieth century (162-181). In B. d. Wright, et al. (Eds.) Women, Work, and Technology: Transformations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

McIntyre, Alice. (1997). Making Meaning of Whiteness. NY: State University of New York Press.