Women in Reserve: Toward Female Emancipation in the Labor Market - Essay Example

Women in Reserve: Toward Female Emancipation in the Labor Market The imposition of Karl Marx’s latent reserve labor army concept was, for much of the 20th century, used to explain the lesser attachment of women to the labor market and their vulnerability to economic cycles. However, the speed and magnitude of socio-economic developments, particularly in the decades after World War II, have opened this traditional model to criticism from sociologists, economists and other social scientists who point to factors such as the growing reliance of families on the woman’s salary vis a vis the family patriarch, the growing prominence of women in certain economic sectors, and other phenomena. By the beginning of the 21st century, the prevalence of married women in the labor force had marginalized the traditional Marxist construct. Modern theories have illustrated that the modern notion of gender and its impact on the labor market has changed to reflect contemporary reality (Beechey, 1988). In her 1978 paper, “Women as a Reserve Army of Labour,” Irene Bruegel accords with certain precepts of a gender-based reserve labor army, such as the rigidity of the sexual division of labor. Bruegel concurs with the idea that “the segregation of women into women’s work is of such ideological importance that it cannot be breached, even where it would yield capital cheaper labour” (Bruegel, 3). Women have also been more vulnerable to the swings of economic Name 2 fortune, yet in Britain during the 1970s the number of women entering the work place increased by nearly 150,000 jobs, while the number of employed men fell by more than 300,000 (Bruegel, 5). This, Bruegel argues, was symptomatic of a long-term trend during which women infiltrated the labor market. This has helped insulate women against cyclical downturns in the economy, traditionally a stumbling block to female employment, in which “women’s work” tended to be the less stable, more volatile types of employment work addressed by Barron and Norris’ dual labor market division theory (Barron and Norris, 1976). While improvements in technology have lessened the significance of traditional gender differences, employed women remain vulnerable to job loss, particularly to unemployed men seeking to return to work. Bruegel insists that new strategies are needed to defend the integrity of women at work if true equality and the unemployment problem are to be improved (Bruegel, 9). Ann Oakley points to powerfully entrenched cultural factors to explain the relegation of women to the role of reserve labor. For Oakley, the tradition of women performing “women’s work,” work that is perceived as more sensitive and connected to the “feminine mystique,” arises from persistent socio-cultural mores. “Male-dominated culture has designated as female all labours of emotional connectedness…The principal mode of developing this sensitivity in women is the gender-differentiated nuclear family. Women mother. Daughters are transformed into mothers. An autonomous sense of self…does not need to develop” (Oakley, 201). Despite the increase in female employment in the 1970s, Oakley maintains that the woman-as-individual versus woman- as-mother-and-wife dichotomy is as strong as ever, and precludes Name 3 the possibility of true labor equality. Oakley’s feminist view incorporates the lack of gender equity in the home, which also hampers the ability of many women to realize their potential in the labor market. For Oakley, this is another oppressive outgrowth of traditionally culture-based gender inequity. “Men create more housework than they do and, in many households, children do as much housework as men…Even in supposed paradises of gender equality, such as Sweden, 87 percent of couples do not share housework” (Oakley, 56). For some theorists, the patriarchal orientation of society has, over time, extended from the home into the political realm and the workplace. Sylvia Walby theorizes that when women won political citizenship and began to assert themselves in the labor market, the traditional male-dominated power structure simply expanded to encompass public life. Walby notes that this phenomenon was potently reinforced in Britain during the last quarter of the 20th century. “Thatcherism, and then Majorism, are best seen not as representing a ‘turn-the-clock-back’ type of backlash, but rather as pursuing a project of public patriarchy…” (Walby, 159). In her 2005 report for the European Union, Dr. Anna Pollert cited occupational segregation as an outgrowth of gender inequality across the EU’s member states. Pollert found that women occupy a majority of “lower professional and semi-professional positions,” while men are predominant in managerial occupations (9.4 percent compared to 6.8 percent for women as well as skilled labor (35 percent to just 8 percent for women) (Pollert, 42). The findings in Pollert’s report bear out two prominent theories of occupational segregation, both of which Name 4 have gained considerable coinage in recent years, and which propose two especially flexible and workable models for the furtherance of gender inequity in the workplace. In horizontal segregation, a labor force is composed principally of one gender (or race), whereas vertical segregation limits career opportunities and advancement for members of a gender, or other group. Pollert uncovered the presence of both in EU labor markets. The idea behind the “glass ceiling” inherent in vertical segregation encompasses the complicated dynamic of sex, and sexual harassment, in the workplace. In Gendered Work, Lisa Adkins comments on the preconceptions that accompany women on the job (Adkins, 3). One way in which women have been marginalized has been the assumption that they have had to work at making men feel desirable in order to succeed, yet another manifestation of Walby’s private/public patriarchal theory. According to Elizabeth Stanko, women in “traditional” employment were forced to endure the burden of having to find ways to “negotiate” men’s behavior toward them. Part of this required them “to assume that being annoyed or bothered by men in these jobs is part of the job” (Stanko, 96). This particular aspect of patriarchal supremacy has slowed the pace of female liberation in the workplace as much as any other; the notion that one is expected to endure this kind of oppression in the interest of holding (not to mention advancing in) a job in a still male-dominated society. In the modern world, entering the job market and earning a wage is assumed to go hand-in-hand with independence, with the ability to make one’s way in the world. That is the traditional expectation. But it has always been a different story for women. Trade unions have Name 5 in recent years enacted reforms aimed at leveling the playing field for women. Despite attempts to support gender equality, there persists a separate standard for women, which has yet to be resolved. “The new order is based on a deepening contradiction between economic and social restructuring, between the spheres of production and reproduction in both of which women’s work plays an increasingly central part” (McDowell, 1991). According to Linda McDowell, post-Fordists may well have been overly optimistic about the potential for lasting change. She posits that, lacking a sea change in the current state of affairs, there may need to be a recalibration of perspective. “Long-held beliefs that women’s entry into waged labour has emancipatory potential, may have to be re-evaluated, at least until current labour market conditions are challenged” (McDowell, 1991). For some, gender inequality in the workplace boils down to nothing more complex than basic biology or, put simply, the physiological and psychological differences between men and women. The segregated workplace “norm” was part and parcel of the Industrial Revolution, during which clear divisions between male and female jobs were clear and distinct by the late 1800s. “This gendering of work was seen to be natural, arising from biological differences between women and men” (Strangleman & Warren, 162). It was thought that the forced progress of World War II, in which dire necessity temporarily “liberated” everyone, would result in lasting change. However, “old guard” institutions that had the effect of slowing change, stood in the way. Ideas about emancipation “fails to take into account the significance of employer and trade union resistance to women substituting for male workers” (Strangleman & Warren, Name 6 162). More than 30 years after the end of the war, Catherine Hakim’s well-known report, “Occupational Segregation,” which put forth now widespread theories about workplace segregation, showed that women were still in markedly different jobs than men – horizontal gender segregation – and in lower levels of responsibility and authority, which amounts to vertical segregation (more colloquially known as the glass ceiling). Breaking the glass ceiling was, among other things, an avowed aim of the Sexual Discrimination Act of 1975. Critics have claimed that certain provisions of the law, including raising the retirement age for females, have been forced on the UK by mandates of the European Court, to the detriment of this legislation. Such provisions, it is theorized, “equalizes down, that is subjects women to the disadvantages experienced by men, rather than giving men the protections enjoyed by women” (Atkins, 1986). All in all, this legislation, as with equality measures from 1970 and 2006, have been criticized for coming up short in terms of a lasting commitment to gender equality. The prevalence of the patriarchal mindset, as theorized by Sylvia Walby (which dovetails with Catherine Hakim’s concept of the glass ceiling) appears to have been the most “durable” of those put forth. Those gains that have been made have been notoriously slow in coming, and have ultimately failed to abolish the stubborn primacy of the male-dominated labor market. Biology and culture, it seems, conspire to maintain a tradition that does little to mitigate economic ills that slow the cause of social and economic progress. Name 7 Works Cited Adkins, Lisa. Gendered Work: Sexuality, Family and the Labour Market. London, UK: Open University Press. 1995. Atkins, Susan. “The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975: The End of a Decade.” Feminist Review, No. 24. October 1986. Barron, R.D. and Norris, G.M. Sexual Divisions and the Dual Labour Market. Dependence and Exploitation in Work and Marriage, eds. Barker, Diana, & Allen, Sheila. New York, NY: Longman. 1976. Beechey, Veronica. “Gender and Work: Rethinking the Definition of Work,” Jensen, Jane., Hagen, Elisabeth, and Reddy, Ceallaigh, eds. Feminization of the Labor Force: Paradoxes and Promises. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 1988. Bruegel, Irene. “Women as a Reserve Army of Labour: A Note on Recent British Experience.” Feminist Review, vol. 3. 1979. Hakim, Catherine. Occupational Segregation (Research Paper #9). London, UK: Department of Employment. 1979. McDowell, Linda. “Life Without Father and Ford: The New Gender Order of Post-Fordism.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol 16, 4. 1991. Oakley, Ann. The Ann Oakley Reader. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. 2005. P56 Oakley, Ann. Taking it Like a Woman. New York, NY: Flamingo. 1984, p. 201. Name 8 Pollett, Anna. Working Conditions and Gender in an Enlarged Europe. Dublin, IR: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. 2005. Pringle, Rosemary. Sex and Medicine: Gender, Power and Authority in the Medical Profession. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Stanko, Elizabeth A. “Keeping Women in and Out of Line: Sexual Harassment and Occupational Segregation.” 1988. Strangleman, Tim & Warren, Tracey. Work and Society: Sociological Approaches, Themes and Methods. New York, NY: Routledge. 2008. Walby, Sylvia. Gender Transformations. New York, NY: Routledge. 1997. Walby, Sylvia. Theorizing Patriarchy. London, UK: Basil Blackwell. 1990. Read More