All blog posts in On The Job - Shameless Magazine - your daily dose of fresh feminism for girls and trans youth

All posts in On The Job

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Meet Meg…

April 6, 2011 • Meg Pirie

Hey y’all! My name is Meg Pirie and I’m so excited to shamelessly get my blog on with such a wonderful publication.

My Shameless column’s primary focus is labour, especially as it pertains to gender. Why, you ask? Well, I’ve had a series of jobs that have varied widely (babysitter, tutor, gift wrapper, customer service representative, server, LEGO instructor at after school workshop … you name it). While the type and length of employment varied, 98% of this work has shared some or all of the following characteristics: the labour involved was gendered, the employment field itself could be likened to a female job ghetto, and the environment was exploitative. This journey began while working at a Customer Service desk in a local shopping centre. During a visit from some big wig from head office, I asked why we had no union. “Happy families don’t need unions,” was the response. My first thought was “Family? What family? You’re not my family!” Once this petulance subsided, I realized I had touched a nerve, and was both shocked and petrified at the power of this minor rebellion. While I didn’t yet have the vocabulary to identify what was going on, my interest in labour and its many faces was cemented.

I think this issue is so important for so many reasons, but especially because it is often regarded as a non-issue. Your first job? Sure, that’s a rite of passage. A side of garden-variety exploitation with that first job? Not so much. So often we suppress dissent for fear that nobody else feels the way we do. Making waves … “oh, that’s not my scene,” you think. Well, think again, my friend! We are all political agents, and an empowering step towards potential collective organization is beginning to see the ways in which we fit into larger systems of power and resistance.

Not only that, but grinding, emotionally demanding, under-appreciated labour is lonely. We become isolated units that can’t see our community for the trees. The performance of the happy server or caregiver or flight attendant is … just … exhausting. Honest, open dialogue with other people with similar lived labour experiences (maybe even co-workers!) is a validating step that could lead to demands for better work conditions, or even just a sense that there’s somebody out there who can relate.

Along with my musings concerning labour and gender, you can expect to read about reclaiming experiences from adolescence, politics, female voices in literature (especially Young Adult works), and the odd piece on feminist health issues.

That said, I can’t wait to get started on this new adventure!
- On The Job
5 scenarios where you need help at work, and how to ask: part 3

November 11, 2010 • Megan Lau and Cynara Geissler MPub

engineering department employee, 1962 (Seattle Municipal Archives)

The third and (thus far) final installment on navigating office peccadillos so you can maintain your dignity, uphold your feminism, and get the job done.(more inside…)
- On The Job
5 scenarios where you need help at work, and how to ask: part 2

November 10, 2010 • Megan Lau and Cynara Geissler MPub

comptrollers office employees, 1960 (Seattle Municipal Archives)

The second installment of a three-part post on navigating office peccadillos so you can maintain your dignity, uphold your feminism, and get the job done. (more inside…)
- On The Job
5 scenarios where you need help at work, and how to ask: part 1

November 9, 2010 • Megan Lau and Cynara Geissler MPub

lighting department stenographers, 1935 (Seattle Municipal Archives)

The first installment of a three-part post on navigating office peccadillos so you can maintain your dignity, uphold your feminism, and get the job done.

At the end of August, you might’ve caught the article “Where Are The Ladies At? 18 Reasons Your Company Might Be A Sausagefest” on The Frisky. In her post, former HuffPo blog editor, Jessica Wakeman tackles a controversial piece in the Wall Street Journal about why so few women are behind tech startups, and TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington’s response to the that article. Like most potentially well-meaning-but-entitled people who are made to confront privilege and inequity they’d rather ignore, Arrington’s defensiveness results in him all but saying “get better at what you do, ladies.” Wakeman, cutting him more slack than Cynara will, notes that the reasons women are not fairly represented in certain industries vary from office to office. She concludes with a distressingly accurate list of why women fare better in some industries or workplaces than others. To wit:(more inside…)
rabble.ca Internships!

October 18, 2010 • Julia Horel

Interested in interning at Canada’s awesome, progressive news website, rabble.ca? They’re hiring!

rabble.ca is one of the success stories of Canadian independent journalism, publishing news and columns by some of the best writers of the left, and providing exposure to new writers. rabble.ca hosts one of the most dynamic discussion boards in the country: babble (www.rabble.ca/babble).

Five years ago, rabble.ca launched the ever-expanding rabble podcast network (www.rabble.ca/rpn) as well as the rabble book lounge complete with reviews, an online book store, book events listings and more (www.rabble.ca/lounge), and in 2008 we launched rabbletv!

Since its inception in 2001, rabble’s readership has grown by leaps and bounds while maintaining a loyal core readership: we have 130,000 monthly visitors who read more than eight million pages each month. rabble.ca is an incorporated not-for-profit organization.

rabble.ca is currently seeking volunteer editorial interns — please see descriptions of each below. Applications are limited to one per candidate.
Applications are due Thursday, October 21, 2010.
(more inside…)
- On The Job
Should Forbes Give Women Work Advice?

September 19, 2010 • Megan Lau

Last month, Forbes published an article and corresponding guide called “Flirting Your Way to the Corner Office: Are you ignoring one of your greatest career assets? A guide to professional flirtation” in the Forbes Woman section online. In the article, writer Jenna Goudreau debates the pros and cons of flirting in the office, quoting Nicole Williams, author of Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules into Career Success, as the article’s primary expert.

In the article, Williams unabashedly endorses women using their feminine wiles to get ahead in the workplace. Her argument is that it works, and so it should be done—if you want to be “smart” about advancing your career. The headline given by Forbes’ editors is more sensational than the article itself; in the end, many of the tips Williams gives are about how to connect with co-workers in a genuine way. This part of the article is palatable, and could be even helpful to those looking for some pointers for networking. However, the slideshow that accompanies the article painfully reads like a dummies guide to not dressing or acting like a fool in the office (for women!).

The implicit understanding in Williams’s advice assumes that a woman’s skills and leadership aren’t enough to get ahead. In a way, she’s right—it’s not enough, but I say touching your male supervisor’s hand and giggling a lot isn’t the way to go either. What many women are lacking is the confidence and assertiveness they need to move up.

Readers’ comments on the article and this blog post on Workpolis.ca express anger that a publication as respected as Forbes would publish such as article (sort of suggesting that this advice would be somehow less atrocious in Cosmo). But, hey, let’s not forget that Forbes isn’t exactly a bastion of female power in the business world.

Finally, what really makes me want to cry about Goudreau’s piece is its the ending that warns against this type of behaviour producing unsavoury results. The article relates William’s story of an incident that happened early in her career:

She’d been in a meeting with superiors, frequently emphasizing points by touching one on the hand. Later, the group went out for dinner and drinks. When she came out of the restroom, one of the men cornered her and said, “I’ll give you something to touch.”

I cringed when I read this, and even more when I re-read the sentence that precedes this recount. “[Williams] crossed the line.”
- On The Job
Welcome to Shameless at Work

September 19, 2010 • Megan Lau and Cynara Geissler MPub

We’re here to do work. Business work.

Hi there, we’re Megan and Cynara. We’re delighted to join the accomplished team of bloggers at Shameless with our new blog “Shameless at Work.” Our column will be a monthly mix of all topics related to women and work. We’re both in our twenties and are navigating the trials and tribulations of being female professionals. After having worked in academia, childcare, retail, publishing, marketing, communications and project management, we have a lot of advice to share, issues (vs skirts) to raise, and topics to debate and discuss with you. This column will incorporate the insights of our friends (Internet and Outernet) and colleagues. We’ll give some how-to-survive-the-office tips, talk about empowerment in the office and discuss about the challenges that you face on the job, and/or when you’re pounding the pavement in search or gainful employment.

Since getting thinky about pop culture and new media is kind of our unpaid full-time job, we’ll also delve into our favourite representations of working women in television, music, and film. One of our professional heroes is Mad Men’s Peggy Olsen, the junior copywriter at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. She’s independent, smart and ambitious; holding her own and making her own way in a hostile, Boys’ Club environment. But ever since last (last) week’s episode of Mad Men, “The Summer Man,” we’ve been intensely thinking about how little has changed since Peggy and colleague Joan Harris—another powerhouse at SCDP, played by the scene-stealing Christina Hendricks’—and their real-life working women counterparts were clocking in and punching out in the early 60s.

Vidivodo.com : joan vs peggy - mad men Etiket: mad_men_hq season_1

For one, women are still, like Peggy, in the minority and at a disadvantage in creative industries.

Of course this has zero to do with ability, and everything to do with kyriarchy. According to a study by the Council of Education Ministers that looks at education levels, spending on schools and the benefits of education across the country, women with a post-secondary education still earned just 63 percent the salary of similarly-educated men, up only slightly from 61 percent in 1998. And that’s also despite the fact that women are better educated.

We’ve seen our male friends and colleagues get promoted before us and get offered great opportunities in front of us. It’s a minefield sometimes. There are a lot of wonderful things about being the workplace: being there, for one is a good start. Work also lends a sense of accomplishment, opportunities to learn, and most of the time, the people that you work with make it fun. On the other hand, we’re not fans of sexism at work, inappropriate customers, the lack of role models and mentors for women, the wage gap between genders, and unpaid internships (particularly in female-dominated industries).

Our 2010 work places have policies against gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment that the whiskey-swilling, grabby-handed men of 60s-era SCDP could never have imagined, but when it comes to wages and opportunities, statistics reveal that men receive recognition instead of and at the expense of women.

Well-deserved hat tips to Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Faithfull, and Gloria Steinem, but there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to women getting due recognition for a job well done. And we’re here to get down to business, and heavy lifting necessary to help make that a reality. Let’s all get to work!
International Day to end Violence Against Sex Workers

December 17, 2009 • Julia Horel

“On December 17th 2009, sex workers and their allies across Canada will mark the 7th International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This day draws attention to acts of violence that continue to be committed against sex workers worldwide, and to the stigma and discrimination perpetuated by prohibitionist laws against sex work, which endanger our lives and work.” - Rabble.ca

Check out more information at

Rabble.ca
SWOP (American, but with lots of good information)

and learn more about sex workers and sex workers’ rights in general at

Maggie’s (Toronto)
SWAN (American)
- On The Job
Did *YOU* choose your path?

November 19, 2009 • Desirée O

Growing up, my mom was always supportive of my career aspirations. When I showed an interest in writing, she bought me notebooks and special pens to encourage me. When I told her I wanted to act, she took me to the National Theatre School a province away to see if it interested me. When I felt visual art was part of my craft, she took me to galleries to show me what was possible. She even bought me my first guitar to explore my musical inclinations.

And through it all, when my activist nature showed through, she explained to me that art can be one of the strongest tools an activist can use to change the world.

This is why I am now a proud “Professional Bohemian” – a writer / actor / musician / artist with activism streaming through everything I do.

She never once tried to convince me to follow her footsteps and become a lawyer/mediator. She knew it wasn’t right for me and knew I had to find my own path to truly be happy and fulfilled.

This seems obvious and normal to me. But not to everyone else.

Yesterday, while checking out Twitter, I noticed a couple of tweets that had gone back and forth between two women I follow. They were discussing the attitudes their parents and cultures had towards certain professions (good and bad) and how that had influenced what they now do.

(more inside…)
A new domestic order?

September 28, 2009 • Nicole Cohen

(The Nation)

There are few jobs in North America where exploitation of gender, race, and class intersect so sharply as in domestic work, where immigrant women from around the world labour in the homes of wealthy families in what are often dismal conditions: low wages, no security, fear of violence and deportation, and overwork. The situation of live-in caregivers (as they’re officially called by the state, erasing the fact that these women work, hard) in Canada briefly made headlines when MP Ruby Dhalla was accused of mistreating Magdalene Gordo and Richelyn Tongso. There has been a lot of academic and activist attention to the struggles of domestic workers in Canada, with groups calling for the elimination of the government program that capitalizes on historically undervalued work and the desperate economic situations of women around the world.

And so it is inspiring to read Lizzy Ratner’s article “The New Domestic Order,” a piece that describes the courage domestic workers in New York City have mustered to fight back against abuses and call for a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which could be the first of its kind. Women are calling for “severance and overtime pay, advance notice of termination, one day off a week, holidays, healthcare and annual cost of living increases, among other fundamental rights.” Seems pretty basic, huh? Ratner’s article looks at the history of domestic workers’ struggles for rights in the US and outlines the global political economic conditions that compel so many women around the world to migrate to work in other women’s homes. The story is heartbreaking and exhilarating; well worth a read.