This article uses 18 months of ethnographic observations with formerly incarcerated black women to contend that they are subjected to what I term rehabilitation labor—a series of unwritten state practices that seek to govern the transformation of formerly incarcerated people from criminals to workers. I reveal that employment is subjectively policed by state agents and must meet three conditions to count as work: reliable, recognizable, and redemptive. I find that women who are unable to meet these employment conditions are framed by state agents as failing to demonstrate an appropriate commitment to their moral—and therefore criminal—rehabilitation, and consequently experience perceived threats of reincarceration. Building a theory of intersectional capitalism, I argue that rehabilitation labor is situated within a broader historical project of making black women legible to the state through the labor market.

Working for Redemption: Formerly Incarcerated Black Women and Punishment in the Labor Market:

Using mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA), this paper investigates the effects of a subtle simulated increase in adiposity on women’s employment chances in the service sector. Employing a unique simulation of altering individuals’ BMIs and the literature on “aesthetic labour”, the study suggests that, especially for women, being heavier, but still within a healthy BMI, deleteriously impacts on hireability ratings. The paper explores the gendered dimension of this prejudice by asking whether female employees at the upper end of a healthy BMI range are likely to be viewed more negatively than their overtly overweight male counterparts. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings.

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Subtle Increases in BMI within a Healthy Weight Range Still Reduce Womens Employment Chances in the Service Sector

In the context of precarious post-Fordist urban labour markets, Dress for Success in the Netherlands, a non-profit working in the context of the welfare state, provides dress advice to a majority o...

/pdf/precarious-masculinities-and-gender-as-pedagogy-aesthetic-3lfpzn16xj.pdf

Precarious masculinities and gender as pedagogy: aesthetic advice-encounters for the Dutch urban economy

Volunteer management is an expert practice which aims to maximise the productivity and efficiency of volunteers’ activities, by adapting Human Resource Management (HRM) approaches to voluntary work...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038026120938291

Unwaged labour intensified: Volunteer management and work targets at a UK charity:

in 1997 the women-run nonprofit organization dress for success opened its first location with the aim of empowering low-income women by providing gently used suits for job interviews. drawing on eight months of fieldwork in an affiliate office, we analyze crossrace and cross-class interactions between privileged volunteers and low-income clients to demonstrate the emergence of what we term “neoliberal maternalism.” Historical forms of maternalism—the mother-centric voluntarism aimed at assisting indigent families a century ago—emphasized women’s domesticity and promoted the earliest welfare provisions. We suggest that neoliberal maternalism, instead, works alongside welfare retrenchment by insisting that single mothers become self-sufficient workers. similar to earlier maternalisms, the benevolence of affluent volunteers serves to reinforce class and race superiority while producing moments of genuine care and connection. We argue that while all forms of maternalism come with a related body politics aimed at disciplining the bodies of othered women, neoliberal maternalism carries a distinct body politics that, rather than regulating the home and reproduction, intrusively enforces ideals of aesthetic labor required for the postindustrial service economy. Finally, we suggest that retaining mater nalism as an analytic framework is particularly important for investigating the influence of neoliberalism and the eroding social safety net on interactions between women.

Emily R. Cummins

Papers

Dress for Success and neoliberal Maternalism