VIEW ARTWORK FULLSCREEN
.jpg)
Nikki S. Lee, The Ohio Project (6), 1999, fujiflex print, 21 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches, collection of Leslie Tonkonow and Klaus Ottmann, copyright 1999 Nikki S. Lee, image courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
Nikki S. Lee (b. 1970) is a performance artist and photographer. By assuming the roles of a yuppie, punk, schoolgirl, senior citizen, and dancer, among others, Lee explores identity, its malleability, and its constructed nature. After acclimating to each identity group and spending time with it, Lee asks its members to take her picture with others in the group, documenting her time within that community. In her series The Ohio Project and The Yuppie Project, she examines how class is both constructed and enacted on a daily basis.
x
-
CLASS
IS ABOUT...
-
V
"IN 2009 A TYPICAL COLLEGE-EDUCATED WOMAN EARNED $36,278 PER YEAR FOR FULL-TIME WORK, WHILE A COMPARABLY EDUCATED MAN MADE $47,127 - A STARK DIFFERENCE OF $10,849."
National Association of Working Women, 9to5.org
back to top
back to top
She was a single mom. My father had left. And she thought that she would support her four children by writing children's books - which, you know, in hindsight sounds crazy; but it ended up working for her. But unfortunately, when we were children, it wasn't terribly lucrative.
Classless Society Stories Project
I felt, even though I had not voiced it myself, that for me getting an education was going to be the way out for me... I must have been about fourteen years of age, and in terms of summer employment, my mother... would try to solicit from this lady that she worked for consistently, to see if this lady had any friends that needed someone to do housework... and so I went one day. And then I came home, and I told my mother, "I'm never going back."
She said, "What do you mean?"
"I'm not working for any White people. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not cleaning their toilets. I'm not scrubbing their floors. I'm just not gonna do that. I'm not gonna spend my life doing it this way."
And she said, "how could you talk to me this way. This is what I do, this is how I take care of you."
And I said, "I understand that." I said, "but why do I have to do that."
So she said, "Well, you're not gonna have the things you need. There won't be any new school clothes for you. There won't be anything because that's the only way you have. You were gonna be able to make money for the summer to buy things."
And I said, "Then I just won't have them. I'm not going back."
And I said, "Anyway, I don't like the way her husband looks at me, so I'm not going back."
And so she said, "You better get a good education because if you don't get a good education this is what you have to look forward to."
And I said, "You better believe it, because I don't want to get my hands dirty."
And she would say, "Oh because you think you're better than everybody else in this family."
And I said, "Maybe I am." And she-I really think in some way she agreed with me in terms of- because she didn't force me to go back.
She was like, "It's your choice; it's your decision."
And I didn't go back... I mean I always had this sense that I wanted something more for myself, and that the only way I was gonna have it for myself was to be educated.
Sandra Jones, "A Place Where I Belong: Working-Class Women's Pursuit of Higher Education," Race, Gender & Class 11, no. 3 (2004): 74-93.
SHE WAS A SINGLE MOM. MY FATHER HAD LEFT...
CLICK TO READ
I, FELT EVEN THOUGH I HAD NOT VOICED IT MYSELF, THAT FOR ME GETTING AN EDUCATION WAS GOING TO BE THE WAY OUT FOR ME...
CLICK TO READ
CLICK TO PLAY AUDIO
WHEN YOU START TALKING ABOUT GENDER AND RACE WITH FEMALES AND PEOPLE OF COLOR...
(0:23 min)
CLICK TO PLAY AUDIO
I HAD AN EXPERIENCE GROWING UP IN A WORKING CLASS FAMILY...
(0:43 min)
-
DISCRIMINATION
Gender discrimination, a long-standing fact of our society, continues to limit opportunity and mobility for women. Because prejudices about women's roles kept large numbers of women out of the workforce until relatively recently, their socioeconomic status and earning power still lag behind those of men. Historically, inadequate maternity leave policies and the unavailability of quality childcare have hindered women's entry into the professions and hence their earning power. American occupations have traditionally been - and continue to be - strongly gendered, often leaving women in lower socioeconomic groups. Of the 59 percent of women active in the workforce, the majority hold working-class jobs, most of them lower paid, or in the lower ranks of management and the professions. Working class women are overrepresented in unskilled jobs like sewing machine operators (78.5 percent) and underrepresented in skilled blue-collar jobs like machinists (3.9 percent). Professional women are overrepresented in lower-paying jobs, such as nurses and teachers, and underrepresented in higher-paying jobs like lawyers, engineers, or computer scientists.
Although they have made gains in positions of authority and business ownership, women in the workforce are more likely to occupy a working-class job than a middle-class or higher position. Women make up over 90 percent of the childcare workers, receptionists, information clerks, registered nurses, secretaries, administrative assistants, and teaching assistants in the United States, while men account for 98 percent of carpenters and over 90 percent of auto mechanics, construction workers, drivers, and grounds and maintenance workers.
-
GENDER AND PRIVILEGE
Popular culture has perpetuated a lopsided discourse on women's place in the workforce. The notion of the "Mommy Wars" suggests that the question of whether women should work remains an issue for white middle and upper-class society. Debates about whether women can "have it all" ignore single mothers in low-paying jobs, for whom having it all might mean making a living wage and being allowed to take paid sick days.
back to top
