Prep Note on Hungry for the Job: Gender, Unpaid Internships, and the Creative Industries

Leslie Regan Shade & Jenna Jacobson

By: Desirée La Noire

Takeaways
1. The shocking statistics- In this article by Shade & Jacobson, the authors reveal a
shocking statistic that around 200,000 internships are unpaid in Canada (Shade &
Jacobson, 2015, para 2). Although this was an interesting statistic, I took time to reflect
upon this statistic to see how real it would be in 2023. As I interviewed my cohort I
concluded that for the public relations program our internships were mostly payed.
However, as the authors mention often times class, gender, and race play a role in the
type of intership each individual gets (Shade & Jacobson, 2015). While I received a high
paying and reputable internship, some of my classmates were working low-wage jobs
making minimum wage, some making even less than minimum wage.

2. How the internship affects the individual- As I continued to read this article, I found it
strikingly interesting that the type of internship an individual gets could hinder their
career prospects (Shade & Jacobson, 2015). Having worked both as an intern and a
supervisor, I agreed with some of the authors findings that internships are often times
exploitative and classists (Shade & Jacobson, 2015). If I have thought this working a
high-wage internship, I thought about how terrible it would be to have been doing an
unpaid internship as they did here in this study.

3. Unpaid internships and devaluating education- I found this point of the article very
fascinating. As the authors mentioned, the situation with unpaid internships exploits a
societal trend where employers benefit off highly educated but desperate students
wanting to gain experience in the workforce (Shade & Jacobson, 2015). Reading more
about the conducted surveys, I learned that this very evidently deavluates education and
makes women and students feel like their education is irrelevant when entering the
workforce.

Impactful Quotes
1. “Free labour is an increasingly routine and normalized aspect of the creative sector”
(Shade & Jacobson, 2015, P. 198). I like this quote because I have experienced this first
hand with my cohort. After interviewing them, I realized that the idea of unpaid
internships has not improved since 2015 when the article was published. I continue to
see internships providing low wages, with little to no meaningful exposure to the actual
structure and layout of a workforce.
2. “...gendered nature of unpaid internships and the repeated history of devaluing women’s
unpaid work” (Shade & Jacobson, 2015, P. 197). This quote was very thought-
provoking. As I finished reading the article I thought about how often we as students and
women, are underestimated in the workforce and how this can translate into unpaid
internships for up and coming employees. As the article mentioned alot of the
 interviewees’ internships came from connections made for them by their fathers. This
began to spark some questions as to why this always seems to happen in society.
3. “Our participants still believed they gained more from the internship than the company”
(Shade & Jacobson, 2015, p.196). This particular quote was interesting to me, because
this quote resumed all the participant’s experiences in one quote. Although the
participants were unfairly treated, unpaid, and overworked, they still felt lucky to have
received an offer which speaks to the perception that interns must feel lucky to receive
even unpaid internships.

Questions
1. What are is one factors that contribute to the persistence of unpaid internships in
these sectors?
The reading suggests that often times even informed women still desire secure
employment, often feeling like they have limited choices. This often incentivizes them to
take unpaid internships.
2. Does expanding the general knowledge of unpaid internships among young
Canadian women affect their willingness to engage in activism against them?
Based on the reading, this group of women would be more willing to engage in activism
against unpaid internships once they are well-informed about the legalities of this kind of
work. Knowledge and research are fundamental tools used to inform one’s negotiation
skills as we have learned in this course. Likewise, these tools can be used to strengthen
activism against key issues such as unpaid employment.

References

Shade, L. R., & Jacobson, J. (2015). Hungry for the job: gender, unpaid internships,
and the creative industries. The Sociological Review (Keele), 63(S1), 188–205.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12249