Chapter 6 Work Work Work

Chapter 6 Work, Work, Work ( Women and Men : Changing Roles in A Changing Economy ) 1.1Introduction Changes in the roles of women and men, their relations to each other, and the nature of the families in which most of them continue to live to have been taking place at a speed that is quite possibly unprecedented. This situation has inevitably created stresses and strains. Not surprisingly, people who fee insure in a world of shifting boundaries and values are prone to look back with nostalgia ( homesickeness, wistfulness ) to the ‘good old days’ when women were women and men were men and both knew their proper place.

1.2 The

Nature of Males and Females

As recently as the 1970s, a common interpretation of the behavior of, and relation between, men and women emphasized the importance of “man the hunter” and of the biological maternal function of the female in determining the nature, and content of her being.

Women life is devoted to being a successful wife and mother. According, her nature is compliant, not competitive : nurturant, not instrumental. Here activities, though not necessarily confined 1

to the home, at least center around it, for her primary mission is to be a helpmate to her husband and to provide a warm and safe haven for the family.

Men, on the other hand, are not constrained by their paternal function from fully entering the world outside the home. On the contrary, their natural role as provider and protector spurs them on to greater efforts.

1.3The Roles of Sociobiology in Explaining Gender Differences Research in the 1960s and 14970s showed the following: a) Women placed considerable emphasis on finding good providers. b) Men look for relatively young women who would bear children and be good homemakers. c)

Women needed mates who were able and willing to support them and their children.

d) Men wanted partners who would bear and nurture their children, as well as tend home and hearth. e) By virtue of their youth, women at the beginning of their childbearing age were also likely to process physical characteristics that came to be accepted as standards of beauty. f)

Women who conformed to these standards tended to experience greater reproductive success than those than those who did not and passed their genes on to their offspring. 2

g) Intelligence, aggression and territoriality are some characteristics of the stereotypical male of Western capitalist society.

1.4Factors Influencing Women’s Relative Status a) Ernestine Fridedl, an anthropologists, emphasize the importance of environmental constraints in shaping human organization. Technology employed by the society to produce the necessities of life has tended, in the past, to determine the division of labor on the basis of gender. The status of men and women was very unequal in society where men provided all the needed resources and women devoted themselves to transforming these resources into usable form and creating a pleasant atmosphere in which they could be used.

b) Prestige from ownership of wealth rather than from any work they did that give a person the status. There is no doubt, that property gives owners power over distribution and that this helps to determine status.

c) In the case of women, it appears that sharing in the provision for the family’s needs is a necessary, though not a sufficient, ingredient in achieving a greater degree of equality.

1.5Women’s Roles and Economic Development 3

a) Primitive. In technologically primitive hunting and gathering societies, men and women shared in providing food, clothing and shelter for their families. Men hunted large animals and defended the trible, whereas women gathered a variety of vegetable foods, occasionally hunted small animals and had the main responsibility for food preparation and care of children. b) More Advanced Horticultural Societies Plants were cultivated in small plots located near the home. Men continued to conduct warfare and also prepared the ground for slashing and buring. Women prepared the food and cared for the infants.

c) Pastoral Societies Men tended to monopolize the herding of large animals, an activity that often took them far from home. Herding provided the bulk of what was needed for subsistence. Women’s contributions were largely confined to tending the primitive equivalent of hearth ( fireplace ) and home, and women never reached more than a subservient ( obedient ) status. d) Agricultural Societies The introduction of the plow. Women help in he fields, looked after small animals and gardens, worked in the now permanent home taking care of 4

large families, only men owned and worked the land, and the disparity in power and influence became great indeed. Dowry – paid by the father of the bride to the groom, who henceforth undertake s her support. Purdah – the practice of hiding women from the sight of men, came into sue during that period of some of these societies.

e) Industrialization Production was shifted to factory and the office. This shift reduced the burden of housekeeping but did little to advance the status of women, who, for the most part, continued to center their activities around the home. Industrialization began to draw ever increasing numbers of women into paid labor force, paving the way for a subtle revolution of gender roles.

1.6The U.S Experience 1.6.1The Pre-industrial Period In colonial America, the family enterprise was the dominant economic unit, and production was the major function of the family. Most of the necessities for survival were produced in the household, though some goods were generally produced for 5

sales, the proceeds of which were used to purchase some market goods and to accumulate wealth.

Men were primarily responsible for agriculture and occasionally trade, Women did much of the rest of the work, including what would today be characterized as “light manufacturing” activity.

Wealthy women were primarily managers, not workers, within the household.

1.6.2Industrialization Women worked in the textile mills and other industries that sprang up in the East. Girls were employed in the factories, often contributing part of their pay to supplement family income and using some to accumulate a ‘dowry’ that would make them more desirable marriage partners.

1.6.3Industrialization and the Evolution of the Family a) Larger segment of the population began living in urban centers. b) Women found that their household work increasingly came to be confined to the care of children, the nurturing of the husband and the maintenance of the home. c) Along with industrialization, the family shifted from the production unit to a consumption unit and the responsibility 6

for earning a living came to rest squarely on the shoulders of the husband. If a wife entered the labor market, it was assumed that she was either compensating for her husband’s inadequacy as a breadwinner or that she was selfishly pursuing a career at the expense of her household responsibilities.

1.6.4Women in the Labor market There were always women who were economically, active beyond taking care of the family and home.

Most women were in the service sector.

About 10 % of all women were in professional positions, almost all were school teacher or nurses. These professions, like domestic services, may be regarded as extension of women’s domestic roles.

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