Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality

`Inside Toyland' tells the fascinating but exposing story how some children's toy stores in the United States seem to directly show the other-side of American society. Shopping for toys can sometimes reproduce social inequality in the most obvious way. Firstly, the shoppers who are mostly white women feel privileged and always except notions of `entitlements'. Secondly, many of the workers in the stores (who were minorities/ 10% African Americans/12% Hispanic), already over-worked and paid between 7-8 dollars hourly, had to face hostility and disrespect from predominantly white customers. Thirdly, the direct effect that the money-hungry toy-industry has on children, its implication for nurturing early consumer habits and transcendence of future values that reproduce-- identity, race, class, and gender. So what was the author trying to prove? How could a well-respected democracy--like the United States--suddenly still in the year 2006 still contain, structures of Jim-Crow, bigotry and discriminatory values against people that are simple different? Prof. Christine Williams, a Sociology Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, finds much of the answer(s) in the behavior of white costumers and social organization in toy stores. The `Participant Observations' seemed to have given her an edge in finding the many silent secrets mostly still covered-up in American society. Spending some 6-weeks infiltrating two toy-stores -- she observed first-hand-- how the toy business works as a capitalist organization and also works in dominating its workforce. In particular, Williams investigated two different toy stores: firstly, Diamond Toy stores, which she describes as being constructed for members of the upper and leisure class (almost made for the quasi-bourgeois costumer). Then, Toy Warehouse was a "big-box" retailer that was more interested in advertising in order to bring in those masses. Although, much of her real identity (Sociology Professor) was kept secret, she was able to spy on the internal/external organization and expose vital information. From the Marxian perspective, she also looks into the labor history that has been very troubling, as she came to the most sensible conclusion: "Union membership in the United States is at its lowest point in a hundred years, a reflection not only of the conservative political climate in America at the start of the twenty-first century but also of the interests of the big box retailers, who have unprecedented political and economic power... "(10). From the feminist school, Williams takes the critical-view in which ways toy shopping directly contributes to popular gender stereotyping that continues to be controlled and manipulated by sexist male-executives who run those toy-stores. The core of much of this manipulation of children lies in the manner in which capitalist advertising manipulates children. Readers interested in feminist theory might wish the author had devoted more space to the failure of f

This is almost like two books mashed up into one. The bulk of it is a Marxian feminist analysis of class, gender, and economic dynamics of the retail industry (especially Big Box retailing.) But the more memorable part of this book is her trenchant field notes of her own experiences as a retail clerk. William's experience echoes those of Barbara Ehrenreich's in "Nickel and Dimed" and "Bait and Switch." Williams didn't have to go as far underground as Ehrenreich did: she just went ahead and stated that she was a college teacher who found herself in need of a McJob. (The stores didn't look very deeply into her background anyway: in fact, both the places which hired her sent her to an employee orientation session the next day.) The two stores she worked at were described under the pseudonyms, "Toy Warehouse" and the more pretentious "Diamond Toys." Toy Warehouse is a very thinly designed Toys R Us (where I myself worked a few Christmases ago): aside from the pseudonym, the only detail she changed was the color of her smock (orange in the book, red in real life.) I am not sure what the other store was: it fits the general profile of both FAO Schwarz and the Discovery Zone. For the general reader, the academic part of the book is a little offputting, albeit of considerable interest. However, the academic stuff will make this an ideal academic text for classes in a wide variety of subject areas: not just sociology, but also women's studies and even business administration.

The book shows the nuances of how race, gender and class can intersect in the American retail environment. Williams uses a personal case study, where she worked at two toy stores in her town. One catered to mostly white, upper middle class women. The other to a more racially and economically diverse clientele. She shows how the staffing varied between these stores. In part to cater to expected preferences by customers about who should work there. Her book reveals the complexities of the interactions between the customers and the staff, and between the staff themselves. These could reflect a matrix of domination. Where a white female customer might in other contexts be discriminated against because of her gender. Yet, in a store, she might be privileged because of her race or sometimes by her class, if she was considered affluent by the staff. Williams ties this into negative experiences felt by some Negroes, termed "shopping while black". The different jobs within a store are also shown to often have stereotyping. The directors are mostly white men. While white or light skinned black women are cashiers, and darker skinned men are stockers or gofers. Some readers might question the paucity of her statistics. Only two stores were studied. Yet her conclusions ring true. After reading her book, you, too, might want to scrutinise your stores more carefully.