In Live Wire, Francine Moccio brings to life forty years of public policy reform and advocacy that have failed to eliminate restricted opportunities for women in highly paid, skilled blue-collar jobs. Breaking barriers into a male-only occupation and trade, women electricians have found career opportunities in nontraditional work. Yet their efforts to achieve gender equality have also collided with the prejudice and fraternal values of brotherhood and factors that have ultimately derailed women's full inclusion. By drawing instructive comparisons of women’s entrance into the electricians’ trade and its union with those of black and other minority men, Moccio’s in-depth case study brings new insights into the ways in which divisions at work along the lines of race, gender, and economic background enhance and/or inhibit inclusion. Incorporating research based on extensive primary, secondary, and archival resources, Live Wire contributes a much-needed examination of how sex segregation is reproduced in blue-collar occupations, while also scrutinizing the complex interactions of work, unions, leisure, and family life.

This volume considers how women are shaping the global economic landscape through their labor, activism, and multiple discourses about work. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of international scholars, the book offers a gendered examination of work in the global economy and analyses the effects of the 2008 downturn on women’s labor force participation and workplace activism. The book addresses three key themes: exploitation versus opportunity; women’s agency within the context of changing economic options; and women’s negotiations and renegotiations of unpaid social reproductive labor. This uniquely interdisciplinary and comparative analysis will be crucial reading for anyone with an interest in gender and the post-crisis world.

"At the Point of Production", a compilation of contributions to "New Solutions Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Policy", locates workers' health and safety problems in the broad political economy. It argues that without a deep understanding of the social/political/economic context of particular industries or workplaces, we cannot fully grasp the process of recognition and control of industrial hazards. The contributors report on a series of case studies, all of which used the 'point of production' framework to investigate particular problems or industries.The focus of the first section is on globalization, the impact of privatization on the health and safety of workers and communities in Brazil and Mexico. The next section addresses environmental issues: the unintended effects of environmental regulation on workers, the situation of hazardous waste workers and emergency responders, the implementation of toxics use reduction, and the role of workers in pollution prevention. In the third section the contributors explore the intersection of labor relations with gender relations at the point of production. A final chapter deals with some of the practical issues involved in conducting occupational health research in the contested terrain of the workplace.

Gender Through the Prism of Difference adopts a global, transnational perspective on how race, class, and sexual diversity are central to the study of sex and gender. In contrast with other books in this area--which tend to focus on U.S. or European viewpoints--this wide-ranging anthology features many articles based on research done elsewhere throughout the world. Now in its fifth edition, the book opens with a revised and updated Introduction that sets the stage for understanding gender as a socially constructed experience. Featuring twenty-eight new readings, this edition covers compelling subjects like transgendered people, intersex issues, men and masculinity, sexual and gender violence, disabilities, obesity, reproductive technologies, educational testing, aging and ageism, and Occupy Wall Street.

A reissue of the 1998 ILR Press edition, with a new preface by the author.