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Gendered Work Meets Gendered Goods: Selling and Service in Clothing Retail
Author(s) -
Pettinger Lynne
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
gender, work and organization
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.159
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0432
pISSN - 0968-6673
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2005.00284.x
Subject(s) - clothing , consumption (sociology) , sociology , work (physics) , service (business) , tertiary sector of the economy , industrial sociology , service worker , gender studies , business , marketing , labour economics , social science , economics , political science , law , engineering , mechanical engineering
This article explores the way retail work entails a complex form of gendering. Three distinct, but related, forms of gendering interweave in this sector of the service economy. These are the gendering of the work tasks, the gendered structure of the occupation and the gender of the retail environment. Using insights from the sociology of consumption and expanding the notion of aesthetic labour to incorporate insights from Bourdieu's sociology, the article explores how retail workers manifest particular forms of gendered embodiment, enacting a different sort of feminine performance according to the brand strategies of the organization they are employed in. The gendered objects of consumption are thus shown to be critical to understanding the nature of retail service work.