Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"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
Review
"A devastating story, superbly told. This is a breakthrough book." Naomi Klein, author of No Logo
Review
"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
Review
"[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
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
The groundbreaking exposé of how America's largest employer systematically deprives its female workers of promotions, pay, and job assignments - and how those women are about to change history