Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chennai Landline Directory

The job interview soon a total institution?

Via actuchomage.org site, we learn that Job center offers, in partnership with Ereel, an "endowment fund to support innovation in Europe" (it's beautiful, I cry), training for unemployed to help them find new jobs. On the agenda: a reminder that the interview is one of many mechanisms for compliance of bodies and, perhaps, souls ...

's article actuchomage. org focuses on the question of the origin of the foundation and the question of the supposed contribution of such formations in the fight against unemployment and the return to employment . I'll let you read and get an idea by yourself on these points. Rather, the same pictures that caught my attention. Consider:



These are images taken from the article actuchômage. Org. They are obviously taken from the site Image Bureau, the main company involved with the action (watch the site automatically launches a very unpleasant music: when it pretends communication specialist, such a bad taste should not be forgiven). They give a good idea of what constitutes such makeover to find a job.

Indeed, what happens to women who lend themselves to this game? Well, obviously, to find a job, they are pushed to feminize. Not that they are particularly male at first, that is to say in the pictures "before", but it is clear that the efforts of the business makeover is to accentuate the femininity. Whether in clothing, hairstyles, makeup (not less than two companies make up the program proposed by job center) ... and attitude. Is evident in the poses adopted, probably at the request of photographer and under the advice of relookers by women in question: not only are they smiling or more "open", whatever This word can mean well, but the eyes of deer-cons in diving at the unveiling of the shoulder through the bust through hands on hips, one is in a game closer to the seductive, where femininity is to be seen often in all its fullness. The band offered by the site Ereel on the page with its "action" for the makeover of unemployed also leaves no doubt about it: it shows a photo of a young blonde-on make-up, the very red lips and bare feet resting on the table. An attitude that has nothing "professional" but for "female" in this term may be more contemptuous frivolity and sexualization. The photo does not déparaillerait in a catalog or on La Redoute the cover of a porn DVD.

What we ask for unemployed goes much further than the mere sake of self-presentation without a hitch: they are encouraged to adopt such an attitude and quite a unique role, which is assumed to be the expected by the recruiters and companies. This role is very clear: it is the woman. Not that of professionnel.le, not that of travailleur.se, not that of futur.e employé.e, but that of women. And this change can not simply be visibly plastic, be limited to one garment: the presence of a psychologist in the action and changes in gestures that leave to see through photographs clearly suggest that it is to take over the whole personality of the individual.

We understand the idea behind it: to take care of yourself to regain confidence and become "entrepreneur of oneself", able finally to find work as desired. But this confidence is not so clearly only through adherence to gender norms: take care of you, ladies, is your makeup to be pretty for the man who hired you ... And be "entrepreneur of oneself" is never a way to defer the burden of unemployment on an individual through - "you're not trying hard enough!" - Rather than a collective issue - "there are not enough jobs!". us once again the hammer of individual responsibility ...

Proceedings of the interview, which prepares such actions, probably more numerous than this simple news might suggest, therefore plays a particularly important role here. It does not merely select certain candidates, but serves as a pretext to control and transform them into dimensions of person who goes beyond the scope of work. To find work, they say to these women, you must change the personality not only have more skills, not only be more professional, not only have more skill or training best suited, but to be more feminine, prettier, more feminine ... In times of unemployment, job interview and everything that surrounds seem to adopt certain features of the qu'Erving Goffman called "total institutions," those who undertake to support the entire life individuals as to redefine all of their personalities.

It is here that women matter. What about men? This injunction does kind of conformism does these ladies, or is it shared the point that the men are asked to remove or abandon the features most "Feminine" in their appearance and personality? I'm willing to bet yes. Even if the thing is probably less of an impact, since joining the masculine role is probably more spontaneous as it may seem "natural." It does not say much for the kind of self-transformation required by the orders to be "entrepreneur of oneself" are less cumbersome to wear, whatever its kind.

0 comments:

Post a Comment