Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality

by Christine L. Williams

"I got my first job working in a toy store when I was 41 years old." So begins sociologist Christine Williams's description of her stint as a low-wage worker at two national toy store one upscale shop and one big box outlet. In this provocative, perceptive, and lively book, studded with rich observations from the shop floor, Williams chronicles her experiences as a cashier, salesperson, and stocker and provides broad-ranging, often startling, insights into the social impact of shopping for toys. Taking a new look at what selling and buying for kids are all about, she illuminates the politics of how we shop, exposes the realities of low-wage retail work, and discovers how class, race, and gender manifest and reproduce themselves in our shopping-mall culture.

Despite their differences, Williams finds that both toy stores perpetuate social inequality in a variety of ways. She observes that workers are often assigned to different tasks and functions on the basis of gender and race; that racial dynamics between black staff and white customers can play out in complex and intense ways; that unions can't protect workers from harassment from supervisors or demeaning customers even in the upscale toy store. And she discovers how lessons that adults teach to children about shopping can legitimize economic and social hierarchies. In the end, however, Inside Toyland is not an anticonsumer diatribe. Williams discusses specific changes in labor law and in the organization of the retail industry that can better promote social justice.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Economics, Read For School, Race

265 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2005

Reviews

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a sociologist, took two jobs working in toy stores while she was on a sabbatical from her teaching job at the University of Texas. The picture that she paints of retail work is a discouraging one. One of the toy stores she worked at was a big box store that had a diversified clientele and racially diverse employees. The other was more upscale appealing to the upper middle class shopper and the sales people were primarily white. In both cases the managerial jobs went to the men with the women doing the work on the floor. The upscale store was unionized which helped in terms of having set schedules for the workers. The assumption was that the workers were women who were either young people working temporarily while pursuing their education or older women who were working part time to supplement their family income. There were some benefits at the store with the union, but even the union did not prevent some of the same exploitation of the retail workers by the corporations with their minimum wage salaries and little chance of promotion for the women. The racial treatment of both workers and customers was discriminatory with African-American customers more likely to be suspected of shop lifting than the actual shop lifters who tended to be white women over fifty. Customers in both stores tended to treat the employees negatively, particularly minority employees. White customers were more likely to be able to return products without a problem than any minority customers could. Male shoppers were even worse than the women shoppers treating the employees disrespectfully to an even greater degree. Employees found their own ways of dealing with customers by avoiding them as much as possible. People were hired with relatively little training. They learned on the job. If a customer cornered them as they were going on their break, this time was taken from their breaks. There is an interesting chapter on what children learn from the shopping behavior of their parents. The author also talks about the gendered nature of the toys, which is certainly evident in the way in which toy stores or toy sections are organized. The issues of shopping as a way of establishing identity is discussed as is the implications of the power of corporations in terms of exploiting not only their employees, but those people who make toys. The low prices which the customers love are at the cost of the exploitation not only of the retail workers, but of those who are employed making the toys as well. The author does try to suggest a model of shopping that might be different if the government was on the side of the workers as was evident to some degree in the 1930s and 40’s. The overall impression one is left with, however, is that shopping is part of the sickness in society that is racist, sexist and perpetuates inequality

[Izzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an incredibly boring book. I've never worked in a toy store but from working in a grocery store, I can tell you that I have experienced all of this first hand and having to read about it was a waste of my time. I don't understand why any of this was worth writing down. Anyone could tell you these things.

[Tiny Pants · Rating 4 out of 5]

CLW hits it out of the park with this one -- this book was fantastic. I would particularly recommend it instead of the Juliet Schor books I recently reviewed. CLW takes a much more nuanced approach, looking not at whether consumption is good or evil, but instead examining how relationships of race, class, and gender are played out in the employment practices, store policies, and customer interactions via ethnographic work in two different toy store chains. Her detailed observation as well as her even-handed reviews of the relevant literature make this a pleasant and thought-provoking read, as you actually get to think through the issues as you go rather than have them shoved down your gullet as in the Schor books. I would highly recommend this book to people studying a variety of areas, including race, gender, labor, and consumption.

[Holly Donnelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but kind of depressing. It's tough to aviod shopping in these big box stores where employees are miserably treated, low paid and tracked by gender and race into separate streams of work. I was disappointed that the unionized store the author described had many of the same problems (and closed due to bankruptcy anyway.)Maybe online shopping is the answer. . . Wonder how employees at Amazon.com are faring?

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The section on teaching kids how to shop was especially interesting. There are a lot of ideas brought up here. In spite of its academic style, it sustains interest.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the chapter on the history of retailer and manufacturer relationships.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh.