Sublime

wearing a rust-colored middy blouse and skirt by a Japanese designer. I wondered if her editor at Knopf, Shelly Wanger, had bought it. She often helped Joan with clothes.

Girls perform emotional and physical labors that mirror what sociologists have termed “aesthetic labor,” common in the service industries. Flight attendants, retail workers, waiters—pretty much anyone in service has to “look good and sound right” according to their company’s brand identity.

One worked to be good, not to be happy.

Refusing to limit that category to waged work, women’s strike activism is also withdrawing housework, sex, and smiles. By making visible the indispensable role played by gendered, unpaid work in capitalist society, it draws attention to activities from which capital benefits, but for which it does not pay.

Major companies are also increasingly called to account for their products. In 2019, Macy’s found itself at the center of an outcry that began with one offended person on Twitter. They had to publicly apologize for producing a plate that showed portion sizes in terms of jeans sizes (which was considered “fat shaming”).32 They cancelled the line.