Sorting Women: The Gendered Work of Quality Control

• In Event: The Work of Gender

Abstract

This paper explores the labour of enacting quality control protocols as a crucial moment on the production line, arguing that the process of sorting the well-made from the substandard can be considered through the historical and conceptual lens of “women’s work” (Cohn 2018). We focus on the security printing industry and its manufacturing of official papers, such as stamps and banknotes, and draw on materials from the Bank of England archives, Library Archives Canada, and the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, to show women as the ultimate checkers, verifiers and examiners of such papers. We argue that the tasks of quality control precede and inform the office-based clerical duties that are today more commonly associated with “women’s work,” and reflect the repetitious and monotonous nature of feminized labour (Elson and Pearson 1981). We also account for the long standing role of women in the paper industry, including their work as rag pickers and sorters in the mills of the 19th century (Craig 2019). While integral to scientific management and efficient production, quality control has been understudied in fields such as STS, even while feminist STS has paved the way for exploring techno-social arrangements of women’s occupational roles and contributions to technology (Liparito 1994, Light 1999, Evans 2018). The activities of sorting and quality control show how women’s labour in information and technology production has been varied, historical, and continuous, and ultimately provide another case for considering the ongoing replacement of traditionally feminized roles and tasks with machine automation (Keilty 2017).

Authors

• Aleksandra Kaminska, U de Montréal

• Alysse Verona Kushinski