The Death of Fordism and the Family Wage in Labor Documentaries: A Feminist Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes three labor documentaries released from 1989 to 1991, which depict the United States’ assumed transition from a Fordist to post-Fordist economy. Feminist textual analysis focuses on the depiction of workplaces and gender roles in Roger and Me, American Dream, and Fast Food Women. The analysis demonstrated that discourses of epochal change in the context only held true if one looked at a slice of the U.S. labor market largely dominated by White men. Focusing on feminine sex-typed labor demonstrated the worst elements of industrial Fordism remained in post-Fordist workplaces. Long-standing sexual divisions of labor were unambiguously repeated in post-Fordist work and intensified in a discussion of the family wage.