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Title: Fast food women Rating: 3.0 out of 4 Reference: By Anne Lewis Johnson; producer, Headwaters.
Library of Congress subjects: Fast food restaurants--Kentucky—Employees Women--Employment—Kentucky Work environment--Kentucky.
Reviews and Numerical Ratings 3 Anne Lewis Johnson not only showed perspectives from these fast food working women, but she also gave company management opportunities to defend themselves as to why they treat their employees as they do (i.e., to sustain the industry, satisfy customers, increase sales) and why they are responsible or guilty for employees’ feelings that they are dispensable commodities. Useful as classroom teaching material because students will be able to extract a wide range of topics, such as the feminization of poverty, gender discrimination, social inequality, and salary insufficiency that many working-class women - especially middle-aged women - face in the employment sector. Students who watch this will appreciate and relate to the issues discussed on a personal level, and therefore, can have frank and meaningful discussions in their classrooms. For 1st & 2nd year students. Minh Hoang (undergraduate) 3 Some really good aspects to this - the visual interest of grease & fast food kitchen equipment, the demeanour & concerns of workers in contrast to the sociologist analysing them, the where-are-they-now postscript. But the video drags somewhat - boring work is boring to watch, & organizing the contents by restaurant, rather than by theme, isn’t ideal. Kathy Bischoping 3 Very good for showing reserve labour of women during recession, the labour process, management-staff relations, gendered dynamics, deskilling (“McDonaldization”), shifts in labour market toward service sector while manufacturing workers (in “good jobs” with benefits) are laid off. Kate Laxer & Riley Olstead 3 Effectively elucidates the experiences of women
within the service/fast-food industry. Unveils how the mechanical, robotic
nature and structure of the fast-food industry causes female employees
to become disheartened, fragile, & less animated. Numerous sociological
issues, which are coloured by gender, were explored: exploitation, dead-end
jobs, income deprivation, the problem with part-time work versus full-time,
the lack of mobility within jobs in the fast-food industry, the hijacking
of labourers’ rights & needs, how low education levels are
a detriment, & how family responsibilities usurp these women’s
ability to advance up corporate ladders. This video has a remarkable
focus on group resistance. However, racism in the workforce should have
been addressed within this gendered, critical analysis of this industry.
The term “sexism” should have arisen. For students at any
level. Belinda Godwin
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