Walking Mannequins by Joya Misra, Kyla Walters

Walking Mannequins How Race and Gender Inequalities Shape Retail Clothing Work

by Joya Misra (Author), Kyla Walters (Author)
February 2022
First Edition
Hardcover
$85.00, £71.00 Paperback
$29.95, £25.00 eBook
$29.95, £25.00
Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide
Pages: 308
ISBN: 9780520384668
Illustrations: 18 b/w illustrations, 2 tables

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About the Book

In malls across the United States, clothing retail workers navigate low wages and unpredictable schedules. Despite these problems, they devote time and money to mirror the sleek mannequins stylishly adorned with the latest merchandise. Bringing workers' voices to the fore, sociologists Joya Misra and Kyla Walters demonstrate how employers reproduce gendered and racist "beauty" standards by regulating workers' size and look. Interactions with customers, coworkers, and managers further reinforce racial hierarchies. New surveillance technologies also lead to ineffective corporate decision-making based on flawed data. By focusing on the interaction of race, gender, and surveillance, Walking Mannequins sheds important new light on the dynamics of retail work in the twenty-first century.

From Our Blog

Store credit cards generate corporate profits and disgruntled workers

This essay was originally published on The Conversation. By Joya Misra and Kyla Walters, authors of Walking Mannequins: How Race and Gender Inequalities Shape Retail Clothing Work Clothing retailers sell their shoppers …

About the Author

Joya Misra is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She studies inequality from an intersectional perspective, including within workplace organizations. She has published in an array of journals and had coedited three books.

Kyla Walters is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. She studies race, gender, labor, and education politics using qualitative methods. She has published in journals such as Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and in several edited volumes.

Reviews

"This is a major contribution to the research on work, consumption, and aesthetic labor in the modern economy. It's a compelling read that will have a significant impact on how we think about the racial and gendered dynamics of workplace inequality."—Adia Harvey Wingfield, Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts and Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis

"Joya Misra and Kyla Walters offer important, unprecedented insights into work and inequality in an often overlooked sector: fashion retail. The book casts a bright light on how status-infused workplaces thoroughly discipline low-wage workers to promote sales and maintain the image of the brand, paying consistent attention to race. Walking Mannequins updates our knowledge of how technology and accelerated product cycles affect work processes in fast-fashion."—Eileen Otis, author of Markets and Bodies: Women, Service Work, and the Making of Inequality in China

"This outstanding book is essential reading for anyone interested in interactive service work. It offers new theoretical insights and rich empirical data in an accessible and engaging text, highlighting how gender, race, class, and sexuality intersect to illuminate the stark reality of working in clothing retail."—Dennis Nickson, coauthor of Aesthetic Labour

Contents

Acknowledgments

Part I Introduction

Introduction
“If They Could Put You in the Store as a Mannequin, They Would”

1. Low Wages, Little Training, and Unpredictable Hours
  “It Makes You Realize How Awful These Retail Jobs Are”

Part II Managers, Coworkers, and Customers

2. Multilevel Management and the Service Panopticon
  “We’ve Only Had One District Manager That Was a Normal Human Being”

3. Coworkers and Belonging
  “We Are Like a Family”; “If It Weren’t for Work, I Wouldn’t Talk to You”

4. Customer Expectations and Emotional Labor
  “It’s All about the Customer’s Experience”

Part III Aesthetic Labor

5. Beautiful Bodies on the Sales Floor
  “They Basically Look for People That Look Like the Posters”

6. Modeling the Merchandise
  “They Always Check You, from Head to Toe”

Conclusion

Appendix: Research Design and Methods
Notes
References
Index