The geneticist, ergonomist and teacher emeritus at the University of Quebec returns several decades of struggle to obtain a work environment better suited to the body and the lives of women.
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Book. Karen Messing noticed it by force of interviews. When women are questioned about their working conditions and the difficulties they face on a daily basis, it is often only at the end of the third hour of exchange that speech is really free. And that are evoked, gradually, inadequate hardware from female morphology, the verbal attacks of some colleagues or discrimination.
Why such a difficulty describing these situations that hinder them? It is a question of “shame”, in the eyes of the geneticist and ergonomic, professor emeritus at the University of Quebec, in Montreal (Canada). It is also one of the key points of his work, the second body (ecosociety): many women would have, in them, a “shame that is attached to [their] body and [his]” differences ” ” “Ashamed to be physically weaker, to have their rules, having to leave the workpeople to go to the daycare before closing, to have hot flashes,” explains M me Messing, before concluding: “I realized that we had to become aware of the price of our silence and search together solutions.”
His essay offers a dive alongside these workers that ergonomists followed for several decades, mainly in Canada. Closet on the ground, we discover problems often evaded or minimized. Over the meetings, the difficulties related to the biological and social differences between women and men appear glaring.
Equipment (tool belts …) which are entrusted to employees may, for example, result in significant embarrasses. And for good reason: they have often been conceived only for men. Cold exposure can, moreover, amplify menstrual cramps. The story of the day-to-day maintenance agents makes it possible to understand that women frequently inherit with tasks that cause pains to the neck and shoulders. And then, in the face of the unpredictability of the schedules of certain positions, the custody of the children, which frequently falls to the mothers, can turn on the puzzle. The list is long.
Conduct the “Combat” with subtletility
What answers to these issues? The lattice emphasizes the need for a “struggle for a workplace better adapted to our body and our lives”. We understand, over the pages, how much the equation is complex. It evokes cases where developments have been possible following ergonomic analysis (obtaining seats for cashiers who were still standing …).
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