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Chapter Four The People of Wal-Mart

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Is Wal-Mart good for women?

Lyneese Roldan and The Going Places Network

Dress for Success clients as affective stakeholders

Wal-Mart as a path to economic independence for impoverished women of color.

Contrasting case: Wal-Mart v. Dukes

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Wal-Mart v. Dukes

The plaintiff: Betty Dukes and 4 other former and current female employees Eventually 1.6 million women

Sex discrimination suit Claimed she had been

denied the training and opportunity she needed to advance

Key Issue: women as a “class”

The Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs

Victory for Wal-Mart on multiple accounts

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The Broken Ladder

Wal-Mart presents itself as open to everyone while simultaneously recruiting and underpaying women and people of color

They actively “disadvantage” women that they then deem “disadvantaged” and in need of their help

Dukes and the DFS women are the same demographic group. Wal-Mart wants to help them on the company’s terms

Engage in PR/philanthropic activities to promote itself as interested in promoting the well-being of non-whites and women

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The Broken Ladder

Representations obscure the company’s chronic exploitation of structural inequalities between certain groups Invisible

Tensions between group and individual identities

Dukes case strategy reinforces the individual and market-based model of social advancement

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People of Wal-Mart

People of Wal-Mart demonstrates how Wal-Mart targets poor and rural communities Encourages viewers to disparage the

customers (and the store, by extension)

Everyone invited to come in and “better” themselves through aspirational shopping

“Save Money, Live Better” as a real experience

“Mom-preneurs”

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Climbing the Ladder

Wal-Mart uses the legend of Sam Walton to market its vision of social mobility

Commercial advertising aggressively promotes this vision Tejas Noemi

Central tenet of neoliberal thought

Promotion and advancement tensions: “people like you don’t get promoted.”

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Collective Empowerment?

Workers cannot afford to shop elsewhere Generates economic underclass

partially dependent on government support

Diversity and philanthropic efforts within the company Office of Diversity Global Women's Economic

Empowerment Initiative

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Discrimination

Wal-Mart v. Dukes Litigants believed they should have

been able to climb, not that the system was broken or flawed

Sexist managers v. structural obstacles

Structural impediments to social mobility exist, even without discrimination Betty Dukes vs. Bangladeshi textile

worker Does Wal-Mart have a “commitment to

working women”?

“Someone still has to stock the shelves.”