Discourses of flexibility and the rise of the 'Temp industry, or, How I met the 'Kelly Girl' commuting between public and private

Abstract

This paper argues that multinational Temporary Help Service (THS) firms use gender narratives to sell labor as flexible and in doing so, they proliferate the flexibilization of labor on a global scale and contribute to economic restructuring. How do global processes become daily lived experience? In this article, it is argued that the Temporary Help Service industry expands and maintains a flexible labor force by referring to the multiple identities of women workers. This process is visible in the print advertisements produced by the industry: 943 advertisements which appeared between 1980 and 1990 were analyzed to show how the industry relies on the trope of white womanhood to position and sell its product.