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Bent out of Shape
Shame, Solidarity, and Women's Bodies at Work
Award-winning ergonomist Karen Messing is talking with women—women who wire circuit boards, sew clothes, clean toilets, drive forklifts, care for children, serve food, run labs. What she finds is a workforce in harm’s way, choked into silence, whose physical and mental health invariably comes in second place: underestimated, underrepresented, understudied, underpaid.
Should workplaces treat all bodies the same? With confidence, empathy, and humour, Messing navigates the minefield that is naming sex and biology on the job, refusing to play into stereotypes or play down the lived experiences of women. Her findings leap beyond thermostat settings and adjustable chairs and into candid, deeply reported storytelling that follows in the muckraking tradition of social critic Barbara Ehrenreich.
Messing’s questions are vexing and her demands are bold: we need to dare to direct attention to women’s bodies, champion solidarity, stamp out shame, and transform the workplace—a task that turns out to be as scientific as it is political.
Contributors
Karen Messing
Karen Messing is a professor of biology at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she does research in partnership with unions and women’s groups. She was trained in ergonomics and genetics. She is an internationally-known expert on occupational health from a gender perspective. Her 2014 Pain and Prejudice: What Science Can Learn about Work from the People Who Do It was translated into French, Korean and German. She has won numerous academic and non-academic awards, most recently the Yant Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association and the Order of Canada (Officer Level).
