Inequality In The Toy Store Summary

Inequality in the Toy Story

In Inequality in the Toy Store, by Christine L Williams, she explains the different “gender segregation, racial stereotyping, and social class” she sees in two different toy stores while she worked there. The two stores were called Toy Warehouse and the Diamond Toys. The Toy Warehouse was in a low income area where they offered popular toys at a reduced rate. While for the a Diamond Toys, it was in a downtown area where it had limited high quality toys. Some of the inequality that Williams observed had to do with gender, racial and class. In both the toy stores, majority of the employees were women. For the racial compositions at the Toy Warehouse, more than half of the percentage were African American and at the

Diamond Toys only 6 percent of the employees were African American. Within each story, the stores had ranking for the positions such as: the “directors, managers, supervisors, and associates.” The directors at both stores were white males. The managers were more diverse. For the supervisors, many of the associates had to compete to gain that positions. At the Diamond Toys, the supervisors were white males and at the other it was more diverse. The associates was full of diversity at both stores. There was also the job of securities and janitors. The securities were mainly African American so that they could scare off some of the customers at the end of the day. The janitors were mainly Latinos who couldn’t speak English. While the white males and African Americans did their jobs, the Asian Americans were assigned to work in the electronics area because of their interest in “computers and gaming equipment. Although most women work at the registers, some men will be at the registers until the women came. Most of the time the men will be doing the heavy lifting. However, when they were assigned to do any of the jobs women often did they would become angry and isolate themselves from the women. While when the women were assigned a men like job, they didn’t care as much. Comparing at Toy Warehouse, there was both women and men assigned the jobs as cashiers and at Diamond Toys only two were female and African American. There was gender segregation shown by the “types of toys that were sold” even though both genders worked at the register. Women did most of the “doll and stuffed animal sections, gift wrapping, and books department.” The men did the “electronics and sporting goods.”
In my own working environment, I see of class, gender, and race.

I work at a teaching center called Kumon. When I look around I see that most of the employees are female and also Asian American and Indian American. I believe that is because females were given the social roles of handling children. I think the reasons for the race is because there is a stereotype that Asians and Indians are really smart. The different jobs that we have are the graders, those who teach the children, those who run the front desk, and the recorders. However, there aren’t specific genders, race, or class when it comes to certain jobs that were assigned.

At the restaurants in Bellaire, I notice that most of the asians with often be the ones to take my orders and deliver the food. While, the Latinos are the ones to clean up the areas after each family finishes their meal.

In Inequality in the Toy Store, by Christine L Williams, she explains the different “gender segregation, racial stereotyping, and social class” she sees in two different toy stores while she worked there. The two stores were called Toy Warehouse and the Diamond Toys. The Toy Warehouse was in a low income area where they offered popular toys at a reduced rate. While for the a Diamond Toys, it was in a downtown area where it had limited high quality toys. Some of the inequality that Williams observed had to do with gender, racial and class. There is gender segregation, racial stereotyping, and social class everywhere you look whether it's at work or even at a

restaurant.