Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart

Selling Women Short is about much more than one company's mistreatment of its employees. It is about the history of the female working poor, and the impossible situation facing America's low-wage women workers. Fifteen percent of American women hold the kind of jobs Barbara Ehrenreich described in Nickel and Dimed, and their lives are impacted by the combination of sexism, low-wage work and poverty that is so evident in the story of Dukes. In the ongoing welfare reform debate, we are often told that a job — any job — is the ticket out of poverty and welfare dependence. But in fact, as Featherstone shows, dead-end jobs like those at Wal-Mart actually sustain poverty.

Drawing extensively on interviews with the plaintiffs, the book shows how sex-discrimination in employment contributes to keeping women poor. The work being done by Betty Dukes and other like her, to reform and unionize Wal-Mart, offers hope for the future, and Featherstone reveals the creative solutions workers around the country have found — like fighting for unions, living wage ordinances, and childcare options. Selling Women Short combines the personal stories of the Wal-Mart employees with superb investigative journalism to show why women who work low-wage jobs are getting a raw deal, and what they are doing about it.

"Fortune magazine's 'Most Admired Company' for two years running, Wal-Mart offers its customers low prices and its shareholders big profits, but as freelance journalist Featherstone (Students Against Sweatshops) argues, this comes at great cost. Wal-Mart's success is based not only on its inexpensive merchandise or its popularity (Featherstone cites working-class shoppers and Paris Hilton among Wal-Mart's fans) but on bad labor practices. Using a close investigation of the class action suit Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and extensive interviews with female workers, Featherstone indicts Wal-Mart for low wages, discriminatory policies and sexist practices. '[Our] district manager sometimes held lunch meetings at Hooters restaurants,' one female employee explains; another recalls being asked to work 'off the clock.' Failure to post open positions, exclusively male social gatherings, pay discrimination, 'persistent segregation of departments' — all are part, she argues, of Wal-Mart's deep-rooted culture of sexism. Many women employed full-time at Wal-Mart make so little that they are dependent on public assistance: 'It is curious that Wal-Mart — the icon of American free enterprise and self-sufficiency... — turns out to be one of the biggest 'welfare queens' of our time,' Featherstone writes. She doesn't give much time to related topics — racism, exploited overseas labor — but this is a clearly written and compelling book. It may not keep readers from their local Supercenters, but it should make them take a closer look at who's working the register." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Selling Women Short is a bargain even Wal-Mart can't match...It offers an unprecedented glimpse into Wal-Mart's pseudo-Christian, ultra-macho, corporate culture." Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel & Dimed

"A devastating story, superbly told. This is a breakthrough book." Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

"A must read for an understanding of the new service economy and the risks it poses to the U.S." Frances Fox Piven, author of The War at Home and Regulating the Poor

"[R]igorous reporting on the stories behind the lawsuit makes the book a must-read for Wal-Mart's friends and foes." The Washington Post

Wal-Mart is the biggest private employer in the United States. It controls the quality, quantity, and prices of household goods in many markets. It fosters a wholesome image through its advertising and in the content of the media it sells. To keep prices low, it keeps starting wages low, but maintains it offers training and promotional opportunities within a corporate culture that rewards dedication and industriousness. However, according to Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the class-action lawsuit against it, it does not offer those opportunities based on seniority or performance but largely on whether the employee is male or female. Journalist Featherstone examines the conditions that led to the lawsuit, the possibility of its reducing harassment and discrimination in the general workplace, and the impact it may have on the people likely to shop and work at Wal-Mart.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

On television, Wal-Mart employees are smiling women delighted with their jobs. But reality is another story. In 2000, Betty Dukes, a 52-year-old black woman in Pittsburg, California, became the lead plaintiff in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, a class action representing 1.4 million women. In an explosive investigation of this historic lawsuit, journalist Liza Featherstone reveals how Wal-Mart, a self-styled "family-oriented," Christian company:

• Deprives women (but not men) of the training they need to advance
• Relegates women to lower-paying jobs, like selling baby clothes, reserving the more lucrative positions for men
• Inflicts punitive demotions on employees who object to discrimination
• Exploits Asian women in its sweatshops in Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth

Featherstone reveals the creative solutions Wal-Mart workers around the country have found — like fighting for unions, living-wage ordinances, and childcare options. Selling Women Short combines the personal stories of these employees with superb investigative journalism to show why women who work low-wage jobs are getting a raw deal, and what they are doing about it.

In this groundbreaking expos, Featherstone looks at how Wal-Mart, America's largest employer, systematically deprives its female workers of promotions, pay, and job assignments, and then shows how those women are about to change history.