Work and Gender

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Work and Gender

• Old job ads and work patternsseparate sections
  for men and women as recently as 1970s.
• Male
• Truck drivers and helpers Must be experienced
  in handling furniture must be willing to work
  and have good references.
• Female
• Airline Hostesses for TransWorld Airlines High
  school graduate, age 20 to 27, height 52 to
  58, weight 100 to 135, attractive, unmarried.
  Apply in person.

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Work and Gender

• Current patterns women and men work in different
  jobs, for different pay, and are treated
  differently.
• Causes today are more subtle than old segregated
  job ads, but they exist and matter for womens
  (and mens) outcomes.

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Work and Gender

• A broad definition of work is any activity that
  produces a good or service.
• Types of work
• Paid (market) work
• Unpaid (non-market) work
• Forced work

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Work and Gender

• Defining sex and gender
• Sex a classification based on biological
  differences
• Gender a classification based on the socially
  constructed differences overlaid on top of sex

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Work and Gender

• The distinction between sex and gender is useful
• Biological differences create different sexes,
• Social and cultural differences create different
  genders
• There is little or no natural difference in
  identity.

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Work and Gender

• Gender categorization is a feature of interaction
  that is nearly universal for us now.
• Categorization is often accompanied by
  stereotyped information. This can lead to
  implicit bias although someone may not have
  biased conscious opinions, they may retain
  unconscious society-wide stereotypes and these
  may shape their perceptions and beliefs.

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Work and Gender

• Take the Implicit Bias Test
• https//implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
• Please record your results to bring in next time.

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Work and Gender

• Gender is also involved with how work is
  structured explicitly in three ways
• The sexual division of labor
• Devaluation of womens work
• The construction of gender at work

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Work and Gender

• There is often a clear division between womens
  work and mens work, called the gender division
  of labor.

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Gendered Occupations?

• Nurse Doctor
• Cashier Accountant
• Teacher Professor
• Truck Driver
• Secretary Manager
• Baker Chef
• Librarian Network Analyst
• Policeman, fireman, longshoreman, etc.

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Work and Gender

• The sexual/gender division of labor varies over
  time and across societies (see book for
  examples).
• However, the devaluation of womens work is
  relatively constant womens work is nearly
  always lower paid than mens work.

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Work and Gender

• Devaluation is somewhat more difficult to prove
  than the sexual division of labor.
• Occupational earnings depend on many factors,
  notably the complexity of the jobs, the strength
  of the employees bargaining power, etc.

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Work and Gender

• Gender construction at work comes from two main
  sources employers and workers
• 1. Employers may seek a particular gender
  because of beliefs about the suitability of the
  work, refuse to intervene, or attempt to use
  gender differences to reinforce divisions between
  workers

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Work and Gender

• 2. Workers may recreate gender beliefs from
  outside the workplace within the workplace.
• For example, notions about whether someone is
  man enough to do the job or notions about how
  women are supposed to act will structure
  interaction and help recreate gender roles within
  the workplace.
• Professional sports are a rather egregious
  example of a work setting where gender plays an
  overwhelming role.

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Work and Gender

• Clear case that gender matters in relation to
  work.
• Where do these patterns come from? Employers,
  workers, societal norms?
• Reasonable to suggest that the system is,
  overall, set up to put women in a subordinate
  position?

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• Variation across time and place matters
• Variation indicates that patterns are socially
  determined
• Understanding why variation occurs helps us
  understand how to change situations
• Past differences influence ways of thinking about
  what is appropriate now

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• Variation across time
• - prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was
  less gender differentiation in work
• - men and women would work together in fields or
  on other household tasks
• - women in many cases still played a subordinate
  role, but closer than at some points later in time

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• Variation across time
• 1850 to 1900 womens participation in work
  falls, as a result of male workers and
  employers actions and changes in ideas about the
  appropriateness of womens labor force
  participation
• Introduction of protective labor laws
• Ideology of separate spheres

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• Ideology of separate spheres
• Suggested that women and men belonged in
  different spheres women in the home, while men
  belonged in the world outside
• Reinforced by Evangelical Christianity in the
  United States and England.

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• Ideology of separate spheres
• Rev. Henry Venn It is therefore nothing less
  than an open resistance to the ordinance of God
  in a wife to affect to rule, or to refuse to
  submit to the authority of her husband.
• Women were assumed to be more naturally
  religious, justifying their position in the home
  to pass this on to children

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• Variation across time
• Womens labor force participation in the 20th
  century increases every decade until now. Social
  movement activity helped change attitudes and
  abolish formal barriers.
• Mens labor force participation simultaneously
  declines, partially because of the increasing age
  of men in the United States and an increase in
  disabilities over time.
• These two trends mean that mens and womens
  labor force participation are now relatively
  close.

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