Race, Gender, and National Identity in the American and British Telephone Industries

Abstract

This article compares the racially heterogeneous, privately-owned American telephone industry, and the relatively homogeneous, publicly-owned British system, to examine how race and gender constructions implicit in the national identities of the two countries influence employment opportunities. For all the differences in the histories of the two telephone industries and variations in the construction of racial, national, and gender identities, blacks in the United States and Britain had remarkably similar experiences in obtaining employment as telephone operators. This leads to the conclusion that the power of national identity in the workplace is strongly based on “whiteness”. Despite their limited access to national identity, white women experienced advantages that were denied to black women, which illustrates how race modified the impact of gender on the privileges of national identity.