‘It’s inherently political’: looking back upon a history of women at work
Think about the term “women’s work” and images will inevitably come to mind – possibly a grade-school teacher, or a sex worker, or a second world warera Rosie the Riveter. We all have ideas about just what so-called women’s work is, as it’s a very well-worn concept that comes with its own set of assumptions, stereotypes and fixed ideas.
Hoping to add greater depth, nuance and historical complexity to the received wisdom around female labor, the New-York Historical Society debuts its show Women’s Work on 21 July, running through 18 August 2024. This massive undertaking dives into many thorny questions surrounding its complicated subject matter, finding fresh and insightful ways to help us see with fresh eyes. Based around nearly 50 objects, each with its own unique story to tell about women in the workforce, the exhibition aims to offer museumgoers a free-associative, enthralling experience.
“We wanted to create a nonlinear exhibition, one that was nonhierarchical,” said the New-York Historical Society’s Jeanne Gutierrez, one of several curators who worked to put this show together. “We hope that, when taken together, the objects tell a larger story. We want audiences to be able to walk through the exhibition and make those connections. We want them to be able to ask themselves questions like: what does an NYPD nightstick have to do with a photo of a street vendor?”
The objects incorporated into Women’s Work are indeed multifarious and intriguing. They include items such as a pin-back button from the National Welfare Rights Organization, a lantern slide advertising the 1927 silent movie My Best Girl, an archival photo of perfumer Ann Haviland, a Native American beaded pincushion, the birth certificate of a child born to an enslaved woman, a 1930s condom tin, and a photo of transgender sex workers working along the Stroll, a notable hotspot of sex work in the 1980s Meatpacking District.
“This exhibition was a long time in the works,” said Gutierrez. “There’s no single path through it, no clear chronology. We want viewers to be able to look at these objects from a variety of perspectives. We want people to come away with the understanding that women’s work is inherently political, and it can’t be divided from men’s work. We all depend on women’s work.”
To that point, Women’s Work gives audiences ample space to wonder why some forms of labor have ended up being coded as mostly for women, whereas other forms of labor have been given to men. One of the objects in the show, a typewriter ribbon rolled up in a little pink tin with a woman’s silhouette on it, demonstrates how porous this line can be. As Gutierrez explained, before women had largely entered the workforce, clerical work such as typing was once seen as the first step on a man’s career. But as women achieved greater access to education and literacy and began to hold down jobs of their own, the future potential of a job as a typist began to change.
“As women begin to enter the whitecollar market, it then becomes pinkcollar work,” said Gutierrez. “At that point, it’s no longer a path to a living wage that you can use to set up your family. There’s this widespread assumption that women are only doing this job until they can get married and have children. Very few women are promoted to the ranks of management. With very few exceptions, we’re not talking in the exhibition about work that men can’t do. We want people to think about why and how did this work, which is not inherently gendered, come to be gendered.”
The show also gives space to think