Uniform as gendered medium ： Visualization of the “OL” category

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Other Title
  • ジェンダー化されたメディウムとしての制服 －「OL」カテゴリーの視覚化
  • ジェンダーカ サレタ メディウム ト シテ ノ セイフク : 「 OL 」 カテゴリー ノ シカクカ

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Abstract

The phenomenon of gender-based occupational segregation and hierarchy in the workplace is called “gendered occupational segregation”. This paper views the formation of the “OL” category, used to collectively refer to women engaged in clerical work, as overlapping with the construction of gendered occupational segregation. Using a socio-historical approach, it demonstrates how “uniform as material objects” were involved in establishing the OL category. Despite the close association of the OL image with typical uniforms, previous research on gendered occupational segregation has largely overlooked uniforms as a medium. There were the shft from the long work jacket uniform worn by prewar female clerk workers, to the short smock-style uniform of the postwar period, finally the set-up style uniform appeared in the early 1960s just as the wasei-eigo word “OL” also emerged. The set-up style uniform with its ambiguous functionality became a medium for visualizing female clerical workers, serving as an index for the OL category and exerting regulatory effects of gender.

Journal

  • 人文学研究所報

    人文学研究所報 (71), 39-57, 2024-03-27

    The Institute for Humanities Research. Kanagawa University

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