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Informal Power
ОглавлениеBesides having the ultimate say in formal matters such as scheduling, hiring, and firing, male managers sustain dominance at Bazooms in other, more subtle, ways. Eleanor LaPointe (1992:382) identifies a number of “interactional techniques” often used by men to sustain dominance and maintain the inferior status of women. At Bazooms such power was exercised by the use of derogatory terms of address, disciplinary actions, direct orders, threats, general avoidance of waitresses’ concerns, cynicism, and even humiliation. For instance, the fact that female employees between the ages of eighteen and thirty are called girls by Bazooms managers and customers alike is an example of such an “interactional technique” used to sustain dominance. Everyone knows that the managers (all men in their twenties and thirties) are not to be called boys (neither are the “kitchen guys” to be called boys). Yet, by seeing and addressing the “low-status” employees as girls (based upon the “Bazooms girl” concept), one can retain dominance as a manager or customer (since waitresses are referred to by all as Bazooms girls) and maintain the subordinate status of female employees. Humiliating comments during the work shift about personal appearance from managers is another example of an interactional technique causing Bazooms girls to feel that they aren’t respected or that they are treated poorly. In the words of one (Trina): [The management] has no respect for any of us waitresses. No respect.