Abstract
It is a rule we learned again and again: despite the magnitude of the power differential, there were always women who found an opportunity to deepen their own and others’ humanity, women who worked for a better world, who learned that collectively they could build power (p. 27).'
If you are looking for a book that takes you back to the activist roots of social work, a book that portrays what a true working-class women’s movement looks like that crosses racial, educational, gender orientation, and immigrant lines and one that reinforces the notion that individual empowerment can originate only from collective empowerment, then look no further. Casino Women contains all the critical elements of an inspiring social feminist read in which the basics of life—fair wages, health care, a safe and respectable work environment, and the right to unionize—inspire diverse women to challenge the power of the trillion-dollar global gaming empire.
Through interviews, focus groups, and key informants, stories of hard labor, injury, illness, family problems, exploitation, and bonds with fellow workers are told by union women in Las Vegas (the first half of the book) and nonunion women in Reno (in the second half). The thematically separated chapters contain unifying themes of compassion, commitment, and most importantly, the women’s personal and political transformations. A shared working-class consciousness joins the seemingly disparate, mostly immigrant, invisible women (including maids, laundry workers, and cooks) performing domestic work in the back of the house and the blatantly visible women (such as cocktail waitresses, bartenders, and dealers) who are used for sexual ornamentation in the front of the house. Collectively and individually, these women challenged patriarchal hegemony by saying no to verbal abuse, sexual harassment, wage cutbacks, health care and pension cuts, and breaking union contracts. They said no to high-heel requirements, working in smoke-filled work environments, and the branding and commodification of their appearance through compulsory makeup. Although not always immediately victorious, this counterculture of communitarian women made the workplace a better place for each other and for those who followed them.
Though the authors identify the book as “women-focused,” (p. 5), the language used in the narrative is very much social feminist (Adamson, Briskin, & McPhail, 1988)—that individuals in society have differential amounts of power and privilege on the basis of their sex/gender, class, race, and sexual orientation and that the interests of business are often the interests of government (e.g., the chapter, “Big Tobacco Rides the Strip,” explores the symbiotic relationship among corporate gaming, legislation, the media, and the tobacco industry). The authors integrate a plethora of diverse scholarly works and data from various organizations (there are 21 pages of notes and 19 pages of references) to support how globalization and male power contribute to a system of relationships that is responsible for the unequal distribution of power and resources in society and the class nature of women’s oppression. Social policy courses will benefit not just from the macrograssroots organizing content but from the effects of policy on marginalized communities: how the 1967 Corporate Gaming Act shifted gaming to Wall Street and how low casino taxes starve Nevada’s infrastructure of schools, health care, social services, and quality of life. Here the union academy steps up, supplements, and empowers through free language classes, job skills, immigration services, food collectives, and the opportunity to participate in political campaigns and immigration reform activities.