The internalization of control can be quite durable and resistant to change, even with a shift in workplace conditions. Like those who have internalized control in other carefully monitored organizations (such as the military and formal, high-pressure educational systems), the Mill Girls and Harvey Girls were likely to be “good” and compliant employees in any organization where they might later be employed. They learned how to be compliant and business-oriented. Nothing better than hiring a retired Army lieutenant to run your shop. Graduates of a highly demanding educational institution, such as the Boston Latin School or the Citadel, might be perfect for management in a contemporary corporation. Those, like Lindsey Gulden, who graduate with a prestigious advanced degree from Harvard University, know how to be diligent workers and will succeed in a high-pressure situation.
While a compliant orientation might no longer be appropriate, a strong work ethic might be relevant in a setting where someone like Lindsey Gulden, or a former Mill Girl or Harvey Girl, decides to run or even own their own business. Many years ago, it was discovered in studies of corporate women that many of these women started their own business after hitting the glass ceiling in someone else’s organization and growing tired of being under someone else’s control (Hardesty and Jacobs, 1986). A woman like Lindsey Gulden might find that she, too, will have to start her own business to avoid the unethical control exerted by someone in a corporation she might join. Internalized control makes perfect sense when you are captain of the ship!
Career and sense of Self-Worth
Unfortunately, the opportunity to move out and start their own business was not available to most of the Mill Girls or Harvey Girls. The world of work for many of these women that Dr. Sun and I studied might justifiably be labeled Extertelic, for an external locus of control reigned supreme. A sense of authentic internal control was absent. The world of work and institutional loyalty may have gradually intruded on all domains of each woman’s head and heart. Worlds of the Mill Girls and Harvey Girls were now defined almost exclusively by their work life, as was their sense of Worth. These women became “worthy” only to the extent that their organization was “worthy.” Other people dictated the degree of self-worth the Mill and Harvey Girls felt. Their personal pride was beholden to the reputation of Lowell’s cotton cloth or Harvey’s pot roast.
This cautionary note regarding Control and Worth might appropriately be directed to many of us working in contemporary postmodern institutions. It is not just the Mill Girls and Harvey Girls who face challenging career decisions. We are also both pushed and pulled to our jobs. The Pull is often more forceful than the Push, for an open labor market allows many Americans to be selective in their job choice. They have considerable control given the opportunity to move on to a new job. A high level of job mobility is common among many knowledge workers of the mid-21st century. Self-worth is portable. Workers carry their Worth with them from job to job.
This means important decisions must be made multiple times during a 21st-century worker’s life. Given that this worker might be suffering from Ken Gergen’s “multiphrenia,” it is hard to decide which “self” should decide about a new job. “Cognitive dissonance” can readily crop up when a “bad” decision is made. While a new job might be waiting around the next corner, one can hardly rely on past career selection processes. We resolve the dissonance of bad choices either by blaming the “rotten” alienating world in which we live and work (“There are NO good jobs these days!”, or by blaming that self within us that doesn’t know what the heck its’ doing (“I’ll never look again at the money being dangled in front of me!”).
Next time, perhaps we should select a less ambitious self or choose a self who is more socially conscious. Perhaps, we bring in our critical (even jaded) self that can readily detect all the “BS” found in a job posting. We might even seek advice from our stabilizing self: “Please help me identify those aspects of a potential job that will keep me engrossed and gratified for a long time.”
