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Samuel Andalon
Dr. Serviss
English 16
17 October 2016
Reading Response #3
In her essay, Formidable Females: Pink-Collar Workplaces, Computers,
and Cultures of Resistance, Danielle DeVoss analyzes the ways in which women
exert resistance in male-dominated workspaces. Feminist, DeVoss analyzes
different literary models of resistance for her audience, fellow feminists in the
writing community. Her audience is especially apparent since her essay was
published in Kristine Blair, Radhika Gajjalaand, and Christine Tulleys 2008 book,
Webbing cyberfeminist practice: communities, pedagogies, and social action,
which details the relationships between women, feminism, technology, and
writing studies. Ultimately, her purpose in this essay is to showcase how women
have utilized technology in office spaces to combat male-dominated workspaces
and are taking back control in a dwindling female-populated work environment.
History has shown that male-centered workspaces have devalued and
marginalized its female workers, employing a pink-collar ghetto. As DeVoss
explains the pink-collar ghetto refers to jobs and responsibilities women that are
usually classified as feminine, such as secretaries, nurses, and teachers.

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Sexism in the workplace is not a new concept. As DeVoss notes, in the 1980s,
most women were subjected to the glass ceiling, which prevented them from
promoting to higher positions; in the 1990s, most women were bound by the
stick floor, which forced them to stay within low level jobs (348). In her research,
DeVoss found that, compared to men, women are passed up on training
opportunities and forced to take a lower salaries.
Specifically, DeVoss notes the disparity in the workplace between women
and technology and men and technology. In the workplace, women are
disconnected from the technology that is vital to their responsibilities, typically
involving secretarial or clerical work. DeVoss explains this divide of technological
mastery by stating that men are expected to learn the how of new technologies
whereas women can learn the how but they are often excluded from the why
and the whether. (354) To an even further extent, women are left out of the
design process of these machines (353). Instead, the technicians will pretend to
be women and find ways to break or destroy the machine. Women are solely
included in the advertising aspect, if that. With technology changing, particularly
computers and digital spaces, women must learn how to adjust and adopt these
new technologies or be left behind.

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While their effort to engage in rhetoric and composition was restrained by
technological barriers, women needed to adapt in order to retain their positions.
They did assimilate but women began pushing back on these changes. However,
they did not completely reject the male-dominated workspace. Instead, they
united and uniformly presented themselves as willing to compromise and
negotiate. Women resisted through office folklore, which DeVoss defines as
reminders of the gaps between organizational realities and organizational
ideals (361). She continues by stating that office folklore can take on the form of
outrageous cartoons, parodies of company policy, and pithy one-liners [that are]
wordprocessed, photocopied, faxed, and posted in millions of offices across the
U.S. (361). In essence, these examples of office folklore are posted on the office
bulletin boards, which serve as communal display notices but more importantly,
take on the form of a rhetorical genre.
In their chapter, Rhetorical Genre Studies, from their 2010 book, Genre:
An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy, Anis S. Bawarshi
and Mary Jo Reiff relate the idea of a genre to social actions. Both of these
English university professors aim to offer a new way of thinking about genres to
fellow members of the writing studies community, similar to the Method
category in Joseph Bizups BEAM: A Rherotical Vocabulary for Teaching

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Research-Based Writing. In their eyes, any piece of text can be formatted into a
specific genre, whether academic, cultural, etc. While these genres may have an
intended use, the understanding of the message varies. Bawarshi and Reiff
specify by stating that genres need to be responsive to their users individually
formed inclinations and dispositions (Bawarshi and Reiff 79). While genres may
cater towards a specific type of writing, genres simultaneously interact with each
other. To understand a genre, the genre must be recognized in relation to other
genres. Similarly, in order to categorize a piece of text as a specific genre, one
must look to the rhetorical situation of the text.
In regards to DeVosss essay, Bawarshi and Reiff provide a social action
lens to better understand DeVosss observations. Essentially, genres are a
meaning-making tool, intending to be redefined through its use and user. As
DeVoss noted, women are resisting the male-dominated workspace through
office folklore, a type of social action genre. Women are proving that they are
able to do more than just handle data (DeVoss 350). In the context of DeVosss
observation, she came to the conclusion that women will continue to exercise
resistance while using technology to distribute office folklore relevant to their
cause.

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These office folklores are used to regain equality that his been taken from
them. As DeVoss states, office folklore is a tactic to show resistance from the
exploited (365). Similar to this, Bawarshi and Reiff offer that each text will deploy
a range of tactics, to stress a particular rhetorical situation (85). To successfully
relay a message using a genre means to consider kairos and the rhetoric of the
text. As mentioned earlier, depending on the use and user, genre as a tool, will be
redefined.
While Bawarshi and Reiff provide a useful lens for DeVosss review, the
idea of genre as a social action tool reinforces the idea of analyzing a texts
rhetorical situation. Through a rhetorical situation, a person is able to deconstruct
the audience, writers persona, purpose of the writing, argument and the
publication venue. Each of these aspects contributes in some way to the overall
purpose of a piece of text. Although rhetorical situations can be applied to any
piece of text, Rhetorical Genre Studies offers a unique way to perceive rhetorical
situations in addition to cultural aspects. In regards to DeVoss, women in the
workplace should continue using office folklore to show that they exist and are not
to be thought of as lesser than men.

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Works Cited

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Bawarshi, Anis S., and Mary Jo. Reiff. "Rhetorical Genre Studies." Genre: An
Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. West Lafayette, IN:
Parlor, 2010. 78-104. Print.
Blair, Kristine, Radhika Gajjala, and Christine Tulley. "Formidable Females: Pink-Collar
Workplaces, Computers, and Culture of Resistance." Webbing Cyberfeminist
Practice: Communities, Pedagogies, and Social Action. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton,
2008. 345-84. Print.