No comments about In Search of Sunlight: Burmese Migrant Workers (Asian Portraits.).

No comments about Gender in Practice: A Study of Lawyers' Lives.

2 comments about Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops.

1. ross's 337 pages is seemingly daunting with charts, statistics, historical and conceptual overview, until you read it. it is very accessible even for someone like me who is a new comer to the issue. it is written simply and non-technically. i didn't know anything, not really, about sweat shops. but from the beginning ross takes on a very personal approach by stating his reasons for writing this book - his parents were garment factory workers!
   
   he doesn't blame the re-introduction of sweatshops in the states and around the world on a single issue like global capitalism, which he does cite as the greatest contributor to it, but maps out a complex web of lack of uninization, lack of law-enforcement, and political philosophies.
   it is an extensively researched book that has helped me to understand the scope and the nature of the problem, that is violation of human dignity through unethical practice of power.
   
   the title is a bit misleading. it doesn't have much to do about the asthetics, marketing, or the cultural psychology of fashion. fashion is used in much more literal way.



2. This is the most comprehensive and up to date book I know of about sweatshops in the U.S. and worldwide. It is must reading for anti-sweatshop activists and anyone else interested in this ugly seamy side of globalized capitalism.
   
   Ross endorses the U.S. Government Accounting Office's definition of a sweatshop as "a business that regularly violates both wage or child labor and safety or health laws." Employing that definition, he concludes that there are about a quarter million sweatshop workers in the United States. Many are immigrants in the apparel industry.
   
   He shows that sweatshops were rampant in the U.S. economy at the beginning of the twentieth century. As a result of the 1937 Fair Labor Standards Act, they declined greatly from the 1940s to the 1970s. But then a confluence of factors--including globalization and industrial deregulation--resulted in the resurgence of sweatshop employment in the 1980s that has continued to today.
   
   He blames the international expansion of sweatshops on deregulated global capitalism that has produced a competitive race to the bottom among low wage countries. The last part of the book focus on the anti sweatshop movement and the development of effective labor standards.

No comments about You Don't Have to Take It: A Woman's Guide to Confronting Emotional Abuse at Work.

No comments about Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939 (Wilder House Series in Politics, History, and Culture).

No comments about Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts (Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern History).

5 comments about Why So Slow?: The Advancement of Women.

1. If you're interested in the empirical findings which back-up many often dismissed feminist claims that women have a raw deal...then read this book.
   
   Easy to read with some engrossing anecdotes (included only to illustrate, not prove, her points as pointed out by Valian herself), this book is a convincing tour guide of women's achievement in male-dominated professions.
   
   My advisor in graduate school actually recommended this book with only one warning: don't read it when you're already depressed about the plight of women! By the middle of it, you might be ready to throw your hands up in the air and think the situation is hopeless...but luckily Valian includes a careful analysis of possible solutions. By googling her I also found out that she's making some proactive efforts (as a professor at CUNY) to put theory into practice. Bravo.



2. I waited too long to read Prof. Valian's book. Had I been armed with the knowledge offered in it earlier, I might have been spared some of the most unpleasant experiences and obstacles in my professional life. The breadth of the research covered, on everything from how young girls are channeled into certain careers or non-careers to the publishing patterns of men and women in academics, is its most impressive quality. I find myself referring to it often in everyday conversation, and recommending it to female friends and family members of all ages and levels of employment. If I have more confidence and a more positive outlook on my life's work now, it is in large part due to Prof. Valian's superb mega-study and her suggestions for moving forward.



3. Valian is a cognitive psychologist. I saw her speak at a local university and was impressed by the breadth of evidence she presented re: how ingrained gender discrimination is in the thinking of both men and women, but also with her logical suggestions for addressing this problem. (She, as a matter of fact, was invited by women students and faculty to help them strategize how to get more women into higher positions.) In her convincing talk, I was struck by the evidence that discrimination is not something "done" by men to keep women down, but is, in fact, "done" equally to women by both men and women. So I got her book and was more impressed when I read it.
   
   Valian presents experiment after experiment showing that women are held back by psychologically ingrained ideas held by both men AND women. She calls these gender schemas, which are a way for the brain to organize complex information. (They are close to stereotypes, but schema is a more neutral term). The evidence is fascinating and convincing. Examples: if a man and a woman of identical height stand in an identical height door frame, viewed separately and then rated, both men and women perceive the man to be taller. Or how a woman can make a suggestion during a meeting and no one hears it, but later a man makes the exact same suggestion and everyone hears it and thinks it's great. (Example after example you will all recognize and be disgusted by!) While the knowledge presented in this book is depressing, Valian ends with suggestions for ways to become aware of these fallacies in thinking and then actively counteract them within organizations.
   
   I LOVE this book and it is a true eye-opener. It has really opened my eyes to what women have to surmount to get ahead when there are so many hidden negative assumptions ingrained in our culture. While it is written in an academic style and perhaps less accessible than a pop-psychology type or journalist-written book, one could read the introduction and conclusions to the chapters and skim parts of the in between text if it gets too heavy. (Like all academic writers she says her main points in the chapter intro, then presents evidence, then summarizes at the end of the chapters.) I highly recommend this book!



4. Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, by Virginia Valian, is a book with a mission. It is not Professor Valian's objective in writing this book to discuss the issues of women in leadership positions with the limited number of other academics studying the issue. It is her objective to shake the people responsible for "the accumulation of disadvantage" of women, and to make them, or their supervisors, accountable for the recruitment and retention of women.
   
   I know this is particularly acute, and action needed, at our nation's universities, where women tend to be recruited less often than men, especially in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, and are promoted at a rate slower than equally qualified males. The book reviews relevant research, discusses the psychological issues involved in our development of "gender schemas," and discusses remedies.
   
   I have heard Professor Valian discuss the issues raised in her book, and she speaks (and writes) with authority and conviction. This book, while not light reading, is written for the educated non-specialist. You can't read it and not be disturbed at how qualified and competent people can be considered unqualified or less competent.
   
   This is a book to read, then get to work.



5. "Why So Slow" is the most useful book I've ever read on gender issues. It is packed with evidence from psychology and sociology of the ways in which gender affects the way we judge and the way we're evaluated. I took an entire course on the sociology of gender, I found Valian's book more thorough and detailed. And while readable, it's meticulously credible, including citations for every fact. There's no soapboxing or ranting -- just reason and data.
   
   I read the book 5 years ago, ended using it heavily for a thesis I wrote, and still end up referring back to the book every 6 months or so to retell some particularly interesting fact or study to others I know.

5 comments about Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart.

1. "Selling Women Short" by Liza Featherstone is an engaging book about the historic 'Betty Dukes vs Wal-Mart Stores Inc' class action lawsuit that alleges Wal-Mart's institutionalized discrimination of its female employees. Skillfully weaving anecdotes and profiles of key plaintiffs and their claims of sexism with research about Wal-Mart and its Orwellian corporate culture, the book provides an excellent critique of the company's numerous illegal behaviors and a humane narrative of its female employees' struggle for justice.
   
   Interestingly, Ms. Featherstone's analysis suggests that the company's paradigmatic success is attributable to its parasitical relationship with the declining fortunes of the working class. Wal-Mart cynically promotes itself as a pro-family, pro-American company even as it offers poverty-level wages and imports most of its wares from foreign, low-wage countries. In this manner, Ms. Featherstone explains that Wal-Mart both contributes to and profits from the exploitation of marginalized female laborers.
   
   Ms. Featherstone is careful to discuss the limitations of the lawsuit as a tool to effect systemic change at Wal-Mart. She contends that it is probably equally important for the public to become educated about the inequities at Wal-Mart in order to create a media firestorm that might pressure the company to change its ways. However, Ms. Featherstone describes the difficulties that unions and interest groups have had trying to organize labor and shoppers in the struggle with Wal-Mart, contending that our consumer culture tends to set aside worker's rights issues in favor of shopping expediency. Nevertheless, as the lawsuit moves forward the author is hopeful that Wal-Mart may soon feel the need to make significant changes in order to avert a court-imposed solution and/or a public relations catastrophe.
   
   I highly recommend this outstanding book to everyone.



2. Anyone living in the 21st century will be amazed at the content of Selling Women Short; the anecdotes shared by current and former Wal-Mart employees are like something out of Gloria Steinem's worst nightmare circa 1975. Even in the current litigious climate of corporate America, Wal-Mart manages to succeed at completely indoctrinating its "associates" to believe in the "values" of the company, which are as "good ole boy" as they can get. Liza Featherstone's account of the Dukes vs. Wal-Mart class action lawsuit (now certified, still unresolved), the largest in U.S. legal history, makes up for in content what it may lack in an elegant writing style (it's a bit bare bones and stilted at times). The women involved in the lawsuit aren't the typical bleeding-heart liberals that would be easy for Wal-Mart to discredit; they are by and large very religious, relatively conservative women who are trying to get by on very low wages and zero respect. The consistency with which women have been kept to the lowest paying, lowest power positions within the company is nothing less than appalling; using both ample statistics as well as countless personal interviews, Featherstone assaults the reader with a barrage of terrible realities. Many of the employees at Wal-Mart cannot afford to spend 50% of their income on the company health plan, so they end up on state or federal assistance. Women are discouraged from applying to management positions. If this reading this book does not convince you to boycott Wal-Mart, it would be surprising.



3. This is the central question in Featherstone's treatment of the Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. class action lawsuit. Focusing on depositions, sworn testimony and direct personal interviews, Featherstone gets right to the heart of her subject in the first chapter. The anecdotal evidence, supported by ample statistics, demonstrates that something is, indeed, awfully wrong with Wal-Mart and the disparate ways in which it treats its workers.
   
   As important as the gender discrimination issue is the consideration of how Wal-Mart has, and will continue to, build its fortune off the backs of the working poor. Given enough time, it is entirely possible that certain areas of the country will be economically drained, committed to an addiction of buying at and working for Wal-Mart. It is the low-price panties version of a Super Size Me world. Worst of all, however, is the company's documented practice of referring its own workers to social service agencies, to apply for benefits they need because Wal-Mart neither provides sufficient benefits nor pays employees enough to afford them. Puts a whole new spin on the phrase "corporate welfare." Where is the politicians' indignation over this abuse of the welfare system?
   
   Well researched and well documented with references and notes. One latter chapter does tend to slow down with emphasis on legal citations and stats, but this is necessary to put a factual basis behind the personal stories. Whether you are against Wal-Mart, a Wally-World fan or a blissfully unaware consumer, you cannot read this book and remain unaffected in some manner. If it does not turn you completely away from shopping there, it should at the very least give you pause before opening your wallet.



4. It's so unfortunate that a book like this has to be written. It's even more upseting that every word is true. The book, strictly speaking, is awesome! Why isn't every newspaper and TV show talking about it? The situations in the book are true I'm sure. The reason I'm sure is because I'm an Assistant Manager and I've lived every one of those situations during my short term in management, and more. Oh the horror stories I could tell! I can't even count how many times my husband has had to be restrained from leaving the house to go have a "chat" with my Store Manager out back of the store. The treatment of women, actually associates in general and especially female managers, by this company is wrong. It's downright criminal. It's also why I'm resigning and giving up. Is Liza writing another book or an update? Is there a way to join the lawsuit? Is there a way to contact Liza? I would really like to know these things because I also have a story to tell. My email is walmartassistantmgr@yahoo.com.



5. How is it possible that this book (and this class action suit) hasn't made a bigger impact in the American people? My eyes were opened and I accepted the Wal-mart propaganda and brainwashing for what it was. But I believe boycotting will only hurt these women- instead join the grassroots campaigns and unionizations Featherstone talks about. Once you've purchased this amazing book, pass it on to a friend. Or better yet, walk into a Wal-mart and hand it to a female employee. This *should* be required reading.

2 comments about Peasants in Distress: Poverty and Unemployment in the Dominican Republic (Series in Political Economy and Economic Development in Latin America).

1. The Dominican Republic government has allowed most of the agricultural land to be concentrated in the hands of large landowners, including the state itself.

   The GINI index shows the D.R. as one of the most unequaled ownership structures in the World. Vargus-Lundius spends 350 detailed pages supporting the accusation that "poverty and unemployment [in the D.R.] are mainly the result of a land policy that concentrates the best lands in a few hands, a credit policy that mainly benefits the large producer, a pricing policy that tends to discourage agricultural production and a labor policy that encourages labor imports [for Haiti].

   Her well documented research is a scathing incitement on a government that purposely remains indifferent to the plight of the peasants. She has done a great service to all those who are interested in economic justice in the Dominican Republic.

   Yet, for all of her critical analysis she fails to deal with four critical aspects that keep people in poverty: lack of education, transportation[ie paved roads], electricity and tele-communication.

   The irony to these omissions is that Rosemary was raised in the D.R. in a very poor home. Her own portage out of poverty came via education; "Dona Diga, my first teacher used to say 'education is the answer to everything".




2. The Dominican Republic government has allowed most of the agricultural land to be concentrated in the hands of large landowners, including the state itself. Its GINI index shows the D.R. as one of the most unequal ownership structures in the World.

   Vargus-Lundius spends 350 detailed pages supporting her accusation that "poverty and unemployment [in the D.R.] are mainly the result of a land policy that concentrates the best lands in a few hands, a credit policy that mainly benefits the large producer, a pricing policy that tends to discourage agricultural production and a labor policy that encourages labor imports [for Haiti]. Her well documented research is a scathing denouncement on a government that purposely remains indifferent to the plight of the peasants. She has done all those who are interested in economic justice in the Dominican Republic a great service.

   Yet, for all of her critical analysis she fails to deal with four critical aspect that keep people in poverty: lack of education, transportation [paved roads included], electricity and tele-communication. The irony to these omissions is that Rosemary was raised in the D.R. on in a very poor home. Her own portage out of poverty came via education; "Dona Diga, my first teacher used to say 'education is the answer to everything'. Recommend

No comments about Bound by Our Constitution.