Marching Through Silicon Valley’s Gamified World

Posted on August 21, 2024 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Tongyu Wu, author of Play to Submission, writes about her “Triple Cultural Outsider’s Adventure.”

Play to Submission stems from a research adventure by a Chinese-educated female graduate student and explores the enigmatic gamified culture of Silicon Valley’s tech firms. When I began my graduate studies in the U.S. in 2010, I never imagined that Silicon Valley would become the focus of my PhD study. However, as I gradually established my academic identity, two things became clear.

First, as an antinomian Chinese scholar, I resisted the notion that researchers from developing countries should focus solely on their home country. I wanted to explore “Western world” issues just like scholars from the West. Second, as a sociologist, I knew early on that I wanted to devote my work to labor studies. But  my rebellious nature pushed me to break from the conventional focus on service work prevalent in 2015 and instead explore understudied work and occupations—types of work representing the future.

After a summer of hesitation, in 2012 Silicon Valley came into the picture. After spending another one to two years reading, I entered the tech world, thinking I was well prepared. I joined Behemoth (pseudonym), the tech company I studied, with the notion that fun perks like gaming TV stands, video game consoles, pinball machines, and Nerf guns were mere gimmicks, a facade of corporate culture meant to distract. Drawing from previous ethnographers, I expected engineers to be weary of this “fun” environment. But when I encountered the Code Review Roulette game, my assumptions were shattered.

Picture this: engineers, faced with the dreaded task of code review, devised a game reminiscent of Russian roulette. The rules were brutal: “Whoever gets the bullet does the CR!” Watching Jay load a toy revolver, spin the cylinder, and pull the trigger against his temple was nerve wracking, but he survived the empty chamber. Peter was next, nervously mumbling about the odds being in his favor (“Can’t be me…. The odds are low! Only one in six.”). Charlie, ever the analyst, calmed Peter through math: he turned to the whiteboard wall and wrote Peter’s odds as an equation: “(5/6) * (1/6) = 5/36.” In spite of his anxiety, Peter too escaped the bullet. But when Charlie took his turn, the game ended with a bang and he took on the code review task.

This moment was my wake-up call. The chaotic fun I had dismissed was far more spontaneous and authentic than I had realized. It wasn’t just a corporate gimmick; it was deeply embedded in their work process. Behemoth had transformed reality into a game. The question then becomes, what is really going on behind the ludic gaming scenes?

To unpack this cultural puzzle, I leaned into my double cultural outsider status as both  a Chinese and  a gaming amateur. When I saw a “Dungeon Master” hat and “A Dungeon Master’s Guide to Software Development” manual being passed around during a software design meeting, I asked Jack, “What is a Dungeon Master, and why is it relevant here?” Jack’s reaction was sheer incredulity. “You don’t know D&D?” he asked, puzzled. For an American, this might be surprising, but as a Chinese, the world of Dungeons & Dragons was foreign to me. Jack, of course, couldn’t accept that there were people on Earth who didn’t know Dungeons & Dragons, so he explained D&D and its parallels with software development in detail to me.

Under Jack’s guidance, I saw the software development team in a new light. The D&D framework transformed their routine work into an epic narrative. The team members, now metaphorical warriors, wizards, and oracles, navigated the unpredictable terrain of code with the same determination found in a fantasy realm. This narrative reframed the constant pivots and uncertainties of software development as adventurous detours filled with surprises and excitement. This gamified lens turned the drudgery of “crunch mode” into a narrative of triumph and adventure. Engineers stayed up nights, battling “pirates” (error spikes) and commandeering “ferries” (ingenious algorithms) to keep their projects afloat.

Through this exposure of my cultural naivety, I began to crack the code of Behemoth’s culture. The D&D narrative was merely the entry point into a world saturated with gamification. Rampant games dominated the engineering floor. Racing games pitted engineers against machines (and each other) to swiftly recover systems, spiced up with leaderboards. Completing scattered tasks within the minimum viable products was turned into a badge collection game. Pranking games injected hacking humor into routine tasks.

As I familiarized myself with Behemoth’s gaming narrative, I became an attentive audience. Yet I knew I would never be a true player, lacking deep immersion in gaming culture. But why did these engineers invest so deeply? The answer emerged through conversations where the term “gamer” was frequently invoked. It became clear that most engineers were born between 1979 and 2000, aligning them with the rise of the video game industry and likely self-identifying as the “gamer generation.”

Seeing these engineers through their gamer identity revealed a harsh truth in the tech world. For these gamers, the gamified environment wasn’t just entertainment; it was a necessity. Behemoth’s world was their reality, contrasting starkly with their sparse personal lives, usually confined to a bedroom with four walls and a $30 inflatable bed. This escapism drove them to immerse themselves in the company’s constructed wonderland, to the point of addiction. Ben’s story was particularly telling. He always expressed how fortunate he felt for having this job at Behemoth, as he got to make money by doing what he was passionate about and could hang out with like-minded friends all the time. However, right after I left Behemoth, I was told that Ben abruptly quit, just standing up one day from his desk, handing his badge to the manager, and leaving. He may have reached his limit—records show that Ben logged into the work system almost twenty hours every day.

My adventure in the tech world added another layer of unpredictability, as I married a Chinese software engineer in the midst of my research. This marriage brought me two new identities: an engineer’s wife and a friend to many Chinese immigrant engineers. In the engineers’ terminology, I now had the opportunity to play two new characters and explore even more intriguing detours.

As an engineer’s wife, I saw firsthand how gamified work relationships invaded our family life. Almost every night, my husband would rush to log into his STEAM account, joining his software development team in virtual battles late into the night. Our interactions shrank to mere minutes before bed. When I asked if he enjoyed the game, he explained he did not only play out of fun but also out of obligation—to build rapport with his development team.

As I became friends with many Chinese engineers, I saw their struggles in the gamified tech world. My friends, puzzled by their white colleagues’ obsession with these games, often got together to discuss strategies for participation and fitting in. When I asked if they really needed to engage in these games, their response was clear: “Of course.” They understood that their gaming outsider positions seamlessly transitioned to peripheral work status in the team. So they had to overcome all obstacles to participate. Such is the nature of this work culture.

Filed under: asian american studies, Asian Studies, cultural studies, economics/business, Education, ethics, gender studies, Labor Studies, Mass Media and Communications, race and ethnicity, sociology, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

All Work and No Play—Or the Reverse?

Posted on December 13, 2023 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Paul Gagliardi, author of All Play and No Work, writes about the contradictory attitudes towards work.

 

Like most people, when I first think of the word “work,” my mind goes to my career as an English professor. I take a great deal of pride in my career and it provides me with a sense of self-worth. But  “work” extends far beyond a 9-to-5 job and can, at times, feel all consuming. Recently I spent a considerable amount of time explaining to my youngest child that my wife, a middle-school teacher, and I often need to spend our weekends trying to catch up on work, doing everything from answering emails to grading to doing research. He couldn’t quite process why people needed to do work on the weekends, a time that he felt “should be for playing.”

Our professional work has become so pervasive that we might not consider how many other types of work—or markers of success—we encounter.  I might be reading an email about my retirement plan while checking out at the grocery store while the person ahead of me purchases a bunch of lottery tickets. I can believe in the value of an honest day’s work, but I cannot help but root for a swindling character on a television show who is able to outwit an unscrupulous businessperson for a small fortune. I might watch that television program—itself full of a range of visible and invisible labor—while attending to everything from laundry to cooking in an endless loop of home labor.  

These views of and contradictory attitudes about work compelled me to write All Play and No Work: American Work Ideals and the Comedies of the Federal Theatre Project. Our complicated relationship with work in all its forms is not just of the current moment. People have been wrestling with these ideas for decades, as seen in one of the unlikeliest of places: theater produced by the federal government during the worst economic crisis in American history. 

During the Great Depression, a New Deal program entitled the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was charged with producing plays across the country to provide both entertainment to Americans and jobs to unemployed theater workers. Working under the guiding principle of “free, adult, and uncensored,” the FTP often performed plays that challenged theatrical norms and audiences. Given that most New Deal programs were, at their heart, concerned with working and employment, it should not be a surprise that many plays produced by the FTP addressed those issues, including several s, such as Power or Triple-A Plowed Under, that have been analyzed at length by other scholars.

The discussion of work in the plays I analyze in All Play and No Work is unique. Radically, at a time when seemingly everyone from the Roosevelt administration to everyday Americans were concerned about work, these plays critique the dominant views of working and, at times, question accepted pathways to success. And perhaps even more surprising, these plays were comedies, a mode that is often downplayed by critics and the public as incapable of addressing serious issues. A common refrain was that comedies during the Great Depression simply served to distract audiences from their economic troubles. Yet I have found  that these plays—rather under the radar—connect to larger conversations about work, security, and social status happening in economics, government, and culture at large during the Great Depression. And perhaps more important, these plays pose questions that extend to contemporary experiences with working. They include, how much work should determine our daily lives, what lengths will we go to in order to gain security, and how much are we willing to risk to achieve success. 

Filed under: american studies, cultural studies, drama, economics/business, Education, History, Labor Studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, political science, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

What Workers are Striking For: A View from Detroit

Posted on November 6, 2023 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Michael McCulloch, author of Building a Social Contract, writes about the importance of labor power to create broad-based prosperity.

The 2023 “Summer of Strikes” has continued into the fall, and while the UAW and the Big Three are nearing a deal, Detroit’s casino workers remain on picket lines. Though union membership has declined for decades in the U.S., the Motor City still carries powerful associations as a post-WWII labor stronghold. In September, Joe Biden conjured that historical memory while visiting UAW strikers in suburban Detroit, becoming the first modern American president to take part in a labor protest. “The middle class built the country,” Biden argued, “and unions built the middle class. And that’s a fact. So, let’s keep going.”

News coverage of Biden’s visit emphasized an exchange that followed his remarks. Asked whether he supported the 40% pay increase the UAW initially sought, the President replied, “Yes. I think they should be able to bargain for that,” which prompted public debate about the appropriateness of such a large raise. Yet to reduce this or any labor negotiation to a number, considered in the abstract, oversimplifies the stakes. A more tangible way to think about the significance of workers’ pay would be to consider the places where the rewards of labor are most intimately experienced: workers’ houses. Detroit has a different historical memory to offer in that regard.

Before the founding of the UAW, the Motor City emerged in the 1910s and 20s as a mass-production innovator and a rising economic powerhouse. Amidst that rapid growth, the city gained a prominent role in the national conversation about work and its rewards. High turnover in city factories, and the threat of strikes, hung over Detroit industrialists’ efforts to build more and better cars and other products. To attract and retain the best workers, despite the difficulty of modern industrial labor, employers—lead by the Ford Motor Company—determined that they needed to offer more.

In 1914, Ford famously doubled the company’s effective wage to five dollars per day, and reduced the work day to eight hours, curbing attrition and causing a general increase in wages city-wide. Yet this raise was not an end in itself—what gave it meaning was a concurrent effort to build modern houses in Detroit. Facing a housing shortage in the 1910s, business leaders, lenders, government agencies, developers, and workers themselves contributed to widespread effort to increase the volume and quality of houses available for workers. It was a flawed project—marred by racial segregation—but it did begin to establish the principle that in modern America, hard work should be respected and well rewarded. This housing transformation, which occurred in Detroit and many other industrial cities, brought increased privacy, indoor bathrooms, and electric lighting to many for the first time.

The story of Detroit’s Model-T Era housing boom can serve as a reminder that the current labor crisis, though often conceived of as a problem of wages, is also a housing problem—a shortage of affordable, aspirational dwellings that work can put within reach.

In the 1910s and 1920s, as today, wages were not enough to secure workers’ gains. Before the rise of industrial unions, and before government programs such as unemployment insurance and social security, workers’ economic gains were continuously at risk. Vulnerable to layoffs, illness or injuries—and lost work that could drain hard-earned savings or even lead to eviction—workers found that the front porches of their newly-built bungalows could be places to sit with gnawing worry about the economic future.

Amid the crisis of the Great Depression, workers in Detroit and elsewhere took to the ballot box and the streets to demand security for their hard-earned gains, and in particular, for their houses. Today, amid a wave of twenty-first century strikes, this history points to the importance, beyond wages in the abstract, of work’s lived rewards, and of the urgent need for policies and contracts that can secure workers houses today and into the future.

Filed under: american studies, economics/business, History, Labor Studies, political science, race and ethnicity, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Listening to What Workers Say

Posted on August 10, 2022 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Roberta Iversen, author of What Workers Say, provides stories and voices from the labor market on the chronic lack of advancement.

A common question when meeting someone new is asking them, “What do you do?”

People’s work, and the labor market more broadly, occupy millions of people’s lives in the U.S. and around the globe. But why is “What do you do?” often the first question? Of course it’s partly because most people need the money that work provides—and often need more money than their particular labor market job offers. It’s also because what we “do” is often shorthand to others for “who we are.”

Yet “who we are” does not begin to touch the lack of opportunity in many of today’s labor market jobs, whether in manufacturing, printing, construction, healthcare, clerical work, retail, real estate, architecture, or automotive services. These are occupations and industries that have employed nearly two-thirds of the U.S. workforce since 1980, as workers in these areas since the 1980s until today vividly describe in What Workers Say. I talked to 1,200-plus people at length for this book since the early 1980s, some of them repeatedly, regardless of what occupation they hold or industry their job is in. They have all recognized that there’s little to no opportunity for promotion or advancement in their jobs, despite the fact that people, their communities, their families, and their country as a whole, need what these workers do. At the same time, too many of them are also not paid a living wage.

The workers in the above-mentioned occupations and industries—regardless of socioeconomic characteristics—typify the types of struggles, discouragement, and on-the-job injuries that continue to affect millions of workers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Just as Studs Terkel’s Working (1972) valuably introduced the populace to what many jobs and occupations were like across the U.S. up to the early 1970s, the workers in What Workers Say describe their jobs and occupations from 1980 to today—a period of rapid and tumultuous labor market change. For example, Tisha [a chosen pseudonym, like all of the worker’s names] in manufacturing, Joseph and Randy in construction work, and Kevin in a printing job, are among those workers who vividly illustrate the shift to service occupations from the earlier, higher-paying manufacturing occupations.

In one of the most dramatic examples of this shift, 40-year-old, African American, Hard Working Blessed, experienced multiple eye injuries on his manufacturing job, which resulted in demotion and severe wage reduction. He ended up as a Fast Food Manager, with lower pay and a job that did not make use of his extensive work experience in manufacturing. Clerical workers, such as Roselyn, Wendy, Ayesha, Susan and others similarly describe struggling with frequent recessions and layoffs over the period. Others, including Noel, Tom, and Shanquitta (for a period), describe frequent job disruptions and store closures from the increase in offshoring jobs to countries that pay workers even less than the U.S. does. And many healthcare workers, such as Laquita, Tasha, Martina, and Annie and others experience “credential creep,” where higher-level education became a hiring requirement, even though the demands of the job were suited perfectly to these applicants’ current credentials. This, of course, resulted in new forms of inequities in hiring.

In short, the workers tell the real story about today’s jobs so others can know what these jobs are really like. The richness and depth of the workers’ words help readers to understand that the formal definition of “unemployment” is very strict and does not cover many people who have been laid off or who aren’t able to look for work. Their words also illustrate the fact that since the 1980s there often haven’t been enough jobs for all who want labor market work, and that the default social policy response to low pay has been person-oriented: that more education and more skills are what is needed for greater equity in the labor market. In some cases, the coronavirus pandemic has illuminated the low-pay issue, to the benefit of current workers, but not in all cases and not necessarily to the level of a living wage. These workers also vividly describe what they’d really like to be doing, which leads in the final chapter to a solution that I call “compensated civil labor.” 

Drawing on German sociologist, Ulrich Beck’s idea of civil labor, I add “compensated” to the idea of civil labor. Compensated civil labor expands what we think of as work, how we do work, and particularly, how we do paid work. Compensated civil labor would allow the many people like Teresa to work at her rental car company part-time and satisfy her “heart-string” (aka her passion) of part-time food catering to her church, children’s school, and community and also be compensated for doing it. Compensated civil labor could also enable expansion of the notion of “work” well beyond the labor market in ways that can tap into today’s workers’ desire to engage in environmental protection activities, broader family participation, community contribution, and the like. In short, compensated civil labor would mean compensating people for their non-labor-market work, whether by actual money, exchange, or other forms of compensation. Data in the 2000s from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics Survey and the Current Population Survey, together with numerous existing civic examples, aim to stimulate civic leaders, philanthropic foundations, educators and others to consider compensated civil labor, which could benefit workers, families, communities, and countries alike.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, Anthropology, cultural studies, economics/business, Education, History, Labor Studies, Mass Media and Communications, political science, sociology, Urban Studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Announcing Temple University Press’ Spring 2022 Catalog

Posted on December 1, 2021 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, we are pleased to present our forthcoming Spring 2022 titles (in alphabetical order).

Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures, edited by Grant Farred
A provocative collection committed to keeping the dynamism of the Africana Studies discipline alive

Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China, by Jennifer Lin, with a foreword by Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin

An eye-opening account of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s unprecedented 1973 visit to the People’s Republic of China

Before Crips: Fussin’, Cussin’, and Discussin’ among South Los Angeles Juvenile Gangs, by John C. Quicker and Akil S. Batani-Khalfani

A historical analysis of South Los Angeles juvenile gang life as revealed by those who were there

Elusive Kinship: Disability and Human Rights in Postcolonial Literature, by Christopher Krentz

Why disabled characters are integral to novels of the global South

Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, and War Cinema in Bangladesh, by Elora Halim Chowdhury

Illuminates how visual practices of recollecting violent legacies in Bangladeshi cinema can generate possibilities for gender justice

Exploring Philly Nature: A Guide for All Four Seasons, by Bernard S. Brown, Illustrations by Samantha Wittchen

A handy guide for all ages to Philly’s urban plants, animals, fungi, and—yes—even slime molds

If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress: Black Politics in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia, edited by James Wolfinger, with a Foreword by Heather Ann Thompson

Highlighting the creativity, tenacity, and discipline displayed by Black activists in Philadelphia

It Was Always a Choice: Picking Up the Baton of Athlete Activism, by David Steele

Examining American athletes’ activism for racial and social justice, on and off the field

Just Care: Messy Entanglements of Disability, Dependency, and Desire, by Akemi Nishida

How care is both socially oppressive and a way that marginalized communities can fight for social justice

Letting Play Bloom: Designing Nature-Based Risky Play for Children, by Lolly Tai, with a foreword by Teri Hendy

Exploring innovative, inspiring, and creative ideas for designing children’s play spaces

Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth, by Mrill Ingram

Providing a new vision for the ignored and abused spaces around us

Model Machines: A History of the Asian as Automaton, by Long T. Bui

A study of the stereotype and representation of Asians as robotic machines through history

Public Schools, Private Governance: Education Reform and Democracy in New Orleans, by J. Celeste Lay

A comprehensive examination of education reforms and their political effects on Black and poor public-school parents in New Orleans, pre- and post-Katrina

Regarding Animals, Second Edition, by Arnold Arluke, Clinton R. Sanders, and Leslie Irvine

A new edition of an award-winning book that examines how people live with contradictory attitudes toward animals

School Zone: A Problem Analysis of Student Offending and Victimization, by Pamela Wilcox, Graham C. Ousey, and Marie Skubak Tillyer

Why some school environments are more conducive to crime than safety

Warring Genealogies: Race, Kinship, and the Korean War, by Joo Ok Kim

Examines the racial legacies of the Korean War through Chicano/a cultural production and U.S. archives of white supremacy

Water Thicker Than Blood: A Memoir of a Post-Internment Childhood, by George Uba

An evocative yet unsparing examination of the damaging effects of post-internment ideologies of acceptance and belonging experienced by a Japanese American family

What Workers Say: Decades of Struggle and How to Make Real Opportunity Now, by Roberta Rehner Iversen

Voices from the labor market on the chronic lack of advancement

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, animals/society, Anthropology, art, asian american studies, Asian Studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Disability Studies, drama, economics/business, Education, environment, ethics, gender studies, health, History, immigration, Labor Studies, law & criminology, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Music, Philadelphia, philosophy, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sociology, sports, transnational politics, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Announcing Temple University Press’ Fall Catalog

Posted on July 7, 2021 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes we showcase the titles forthcoming this Fall from Temple University Press

“Beyond the Law”: The Politics of Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain, by Charles Upchurch, provides a major reexamination of the earliest British parliamentary efforts to abolish capital punishment for consensual sex acts between men.

Are You Two Sisters?: The Journey of a Lesbian Couple, by Susan Krieger, authored by one of the most respected figures in the field of personal ethnographic narrative, this book serves as both a memoir and a sociological study, telling the story of one lesbian couple’s lifelong journey together.

Asian American Connective Action in the Age of Social Media: Civic Engagement, Contested Issues, and Emerging Identities, by James S. Lai, examines how social media has changed the way Asian Americans participate in politics.

The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction, by Shamira Gelbman, investigates how minority group, labor, religious, and other organizations worked together to lobby for civil rights reform during the 1950s and ’60s.

Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration, by Rachel Schreiber, tells the remarkable story of a Jewish activist who joined her imprisoned Japanese American husband and son in an American concentration camp.

Fitting the Facts of Crime: An Invitation to Biopsychosocial Criminology, by Chad Posick, Michael Rocque, and J.C. Barnes, presents a biopsychosocial perspective to explain the most common findings in criminology—and to guide future research and public policy.

From Improvement to City Planning: Spatial Management in Cincinnati from the Early Republic through the Civil War Decade, by Henry C. Binford, offers a “pre-history” of urban planning in the United States.

Gangs on Trial: Challenging Stereotypes and Demonization in the Courts, by John M. Hagedorn, exposes biases in trials when the defendant is a gang member.

Invisible People: Stories of Lives at the Margins, by Alex Tizon, now in paperback, an anthology of richly reported and beautifully written stories about marginalized people.

Islam, Justice, and Democracy, by Sabri Ciftci, explores the connection between Muslim conceptions of justice and democratic orientations.

The Italian Legacy in Philadelphia: History, Culture, People, and Ideas, edited by Andrea Canepari and Judith Goode, provides essays and images showcasing the rich contribution of Italians and Italian Americans to Global Philadelphia.

Making a Scene: Urban Landscapes, Gentrification, and Social Movements in Sweden, by Kimberly A. Creasap, examines how autonomous social movements respond to gentrification by creating their own cultural landscape in cities and suburbs.

Making Their Days Happen: Paid Personal Assistance Services Supporting People with Disability Living in Their Homes and Communities, by Lisa I. Iezzoni, explores the complexities of the interpersonal dynamics and policy implications affecting personal assistance service consumers and providers.

The Many Futures of Work: Rethinking Expectations and Breaking Molds, edited by Peter A. Creticos, Larry Bennett, Laura Owen, Costas Spirou, and Maxine Morphis-Riesbeck, reframes the conversation about contemporary workplace experience by providing both “top down” and “bottom up” analyses.

On Gangs, by Scott H. Decker, David C. Pyrooz, and James A. Densley, a comprehensive review of what is known about gangs—from their origins through their evolution and outcomes.

Pack the Court!: A Defense of Supreme Court Expansion, by Stephen M. Feldman, provides a historical and analytical argument for court-packing.

Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities, by erin Khuê Ninh, considers how it feels to be model minority—and why would that drive one to live a lie?

Pedagogies of Woundedness: Illness, Memoir, and the Ends of the Model Minority, by James Kyung-Jin Lee, asks what happens when illness betrays Asian American fantasies of indefinite progress?

Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania, by Beverly C. Tomek, highlights the complexities of emancipation and the “First Reconstruction” in the antebellum North.

Vehicles of Decolonization: Public Transit in the Palestinian West Bank, by Maryam S. Griffin, considers collective Palestinian movement via public transportation as a site of social struggle.

Who Really Makes Environmental Policy?: Creating and Implementing Environmental Rules and Regulations, edited by Sara R. Rinfret, provides a clear understanding of regulatory policy and rulemaking processes, and their centrality in U.S. environmental policymaking.

Filed under: african american studies, american studies, Anthropology, art, asian american studies, Asian Studies, civil rights, cultural studies, Disability Studies, economics/business, Education, environment, ethics, gender studies, health, History, immigration, Jewish, Labor Studies, Latin American studies, latinos, law & criminology, LGBT studies, literature, Mass Media and Communications, Philadelphia, philosophy, photography, political science, race and ethnicity, racism, Religion, sexuality, sociology, transnational politics, Urban Studies, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

What’s a mother to do?

Posted on October 21, 2020 by gkramer

This week in North Philly Notes, Leah Ruppanner, author of Motherlands, writes about women who are forced to choose between working and child care.

Emily Tatro is a paralegal working full-time while balancing the demands of three school aged kids. School closures mean she is learning Seesaw, Google classroom, IXL, and RazKids while also writing up legal briefs. She is at the end of her rope.

Emily said: “My everything is suffering and I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. As soon as the kids are asleep, I pass out because I’m always bone tired. But, I also feel this pressure to keep up a happy-it’s-all-good face so the kids don’t feel bad or sad or scared because none of it is their fault and I don’t want them to see this pressure.”

Without the support of her mother, she would drop out of work altogether. Working full-time job on top of school closures is unsustainable.

What happens when state governments close schools to stop the spread of a deadly pathogen?

The same as before: mothers step out of employment to manage the care.

My book, Motherlands: How States Push Mothers Out of Employment, shows these patterns are nothing new. Prior to the pandemic, California had some of the highest childcare costs in the nation and some of the shortest school days. Afterschool care? Forget about it—many Californian families need but cannot access afterschool care. These structural impediments mean mothers often reduce work to part-time or drop out altogether.

As Emily says, “Childcare was always hard and now it’s just impossible. In summer, I pay someone to watch the kids and I would lose money on these days.”

These patterns are distinct to many of the states in the heartland where childcare gobbles up less of the family budget, school days are longer and afterschool care is more accessible. The result? More mothers are employed, in part, because they can access more affordable childcare.

As Motherlands shows, California is a gender progressive state and is one of the leaders in the country in empowering women. When women do work, they make more money and have access to higher level professional positions. More women are voted into California’s state legislature and California is one of the few states in the nation that provides its constituents paid parental leave.

So, what is happening here? How can California be both progressive in its gender policies but have some of the worst childcare outcomes?

Motherlands shows states tend to cluster on one of these metrics or the other—either facilitating mother’s employment through childcare resources or empowering women through policies and access to better economic markets. Only a handful of states do both—empower women and provide childcare resources. This means even the progressive states that aim to empower women must do more to support them when they become mothers.

And, now seems to be the time because women like Emily are suffering with closed schools and limited childcare support.

We need employers and governments to invest in, advocate for and execute comprehensive and effective childcare policies.

The pandemic and its impending recession is a major crisis. Within these crises, if we are smart, can come change. Putting childcare as a central policy solution is the only way forward.

Filed under: american studies, economics/business, Education, gender studies, health, Labor Studies, political science, sociology, women's studies | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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