Farewell to the organization man

The feminization of loyalty in high-end and low-end service jobs

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2402247
AutoresKarla A Erickson (0000-0003-3964-2345, Twin Cities Orthopedics, autor de correspondencia), Karla Erickson (Grinnell College, Iowa, USA), Jennifer L Pierce (0000-0002-8407-7499, University of Minnesota)
Año2005
Volumen6
Número3
Páginas283-313
Fecha de publicación2005-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEthnography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1466138105060759
OpenAlexW2090847964
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas47

Utilizing data from two ethnographic case studies, one of high-end service workers in a powerful corporate law firm (paralegals) and another of low-end service workers in a small family-run restaurant (food servers), this article presents a comparative analysis of the consequences of the transformation of the US economy and accompanying changes in the culture(s) of work for women and men and specifically of the meanings of loyalty in our contemporary service society. Drawing from the cultural repertoires available, women and men make gendered sense of loyalty. Women, the vast majority of workers in these two jobs, tell stories of investment in their jobs and personal loyalty to their co-workers, customers, and bosses. But men mobilize their masculinity to detach their sense of self from perceived feminized work, seeing themselves as occupational transients who are on their way to more appropriate careers or, in the case of waiters, rejecting narratives of professional masculinity in defiance of the unsatisfying occupational landscape available to them as working-class men

Business · Ethnography · Loyalty · Masculinity · Political science · Public relations · Service (business · Sociology · Work (physics · Emotional Labor in Professions · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Marketing