Do "Style Makeovers" Help Poor Women?: The Embodied Disadvantages of Gender, Race, Class & Body Size

• In Event: 342 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Paper Session. Embodied Labor and Intersectional Inequalities (co-sponsored with the Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work)

Abstract

What social and material barriers prevent disadvantaged women from entering the labor market? Drawing on 13 months of participant observation at a nonprofit organization aiming to help unemployed poor women through “style advice” and second-hand business attire, I examine the process through which volunteer "personal stylists" discursively train disadvantaged women to become successful aesthetic laborers, at least for the job interview. I find that nonprofit staff and volunteers – acting as “taste brokers” – distribute professional attire and services unevenly across their clients, such that gendered inequalities across race, class, and body size are reinforced rather than disrupted.

Keywords: aesthetic labor, gender, intersectionality, unemployment, embodiment, taste brokers

Author

• Kjerstin Gruys, University of Nevada, Reno