Given how often we see gender stereotyping in images showing people at work, I was rather shocked when Michele T. pointed out some some pics on the Sears repair/automotive website. Why were they so surprising? See for yourself:
That’s right: several of the images on the air conditioning and car maintenance page showed women doing the work. I wondered if maybe Michele was logged in and somehow the site knew her gender and thus customized the images for her (which wouldn’t really make it any less surprising, but I thought perhaps these pics were being used just to appeal to women specifically), so I googled the Sears automotive page directly, rather than using the link Michele sent. The site had a set of rotating images, including the second one above, and when you clicked to go to the page about pricing, most of the images showed women.
I suppose it is a sad reflection on how gendered many jobs in the U.S. are that these images are so surprising and unusual, not just because they show a woman doing a male-dominated job but because she’s not in any way sexualized when doing so, nor is her femininity emphasized. She’s just wearing plain old coveralls and a back brace. No form-fitting uniform, no pink, no bright red lipstick.
I have no idea to what degree Sears’s hiring practices match their marketing, though Michele did say she went to Sears recently for auto work and the shop manager was a woman.
Compare to gendered online degree programs, men’s and women’s work shoes, depicting Navy women, gendered milk ad campaign, why do men and women need hotel rooms?, high heels and professionalism, feminizing uniforms with pink accessories, you can be a “woman zoologist”!, objectifying women in aviation ads, and a woman can be anything as long as she’s hot.
Also see: a woman’s place is in her union! and made by women.
