Gender and work

There are many different aspects of gender difference that we could look at

There is the whole area of politics, power, policy and political representation: the sorts of areas examined by writers such as Galligan and Hug

There is the area of family and intimate relations: aspects of which we will be looking at in a couple of weeks time

Importantly, there is the whole area of representation: how the mass media, advertising and popular culture depict gender relationships: we will also be touching on these issues later on.

The facet that I want to look at today is the area of gender and work

Karl Marx was one of the first modern social thinkers to point to the centrality of work in our experience of the world.

This gels very much with people’s own experiences: particularly in modern Ireland where the work that you do has become so important in people’s self-definition. For many people work, commuting and talking and thinking about work take up the majority of their time.

Many people spend much of their time socialising with people with whom they work.

Work shapes people’s choices as regards education.

And not to have work, to be unemployed, is becoming less of an option in our society.

Unlike in Australian English (which uses the term ‘dole bludger’) we don’t really have a term of abuse for a person who is seen to be undeservedly unemployed: but it will be interesting to see how long it is before such a term emerges in our new work-obsessed economy.

A key feature of modern societies is how work is changing: cf quote p207 of S of I.

  • McJobs
  • Portfolio workers (Handy)

There are many divisions around the topic of work. A key distinction is between manual work and non-manual work; sometimes seen as a distinction between ‘dirty’ work and ‘clean’ work. There is also a common distinction made between ‘working with people’ and ‘working with things’. Similarly distinctions are made between skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled work.

But a key distinction is also made along gender lines: between ‘men’s work’ and ‘women’s work’. As we shall see, this distinction relates in many important ways to those just mentioned.

Consider this list of jobs and decide whether they are men’s jobs, women’s jobs, or neither:

  • Chimney sweep
  • Nurse
  • Primary school teacher
  • Dentist
  • Car dealer
  • Obstetrician
  • Forester
  • Secretary
  • Chef
  • Lawyer
  • Physiotherapist
  • Social care worker

It appears that in Irish society the majority of jobs are what are called gender segregated.

This means that the majority of positions in an occupational area are likely to be dominated by one gender.

All societies exhibit a high degree of gender segregation but the separation is particularly high in Irish society (see Ohead)

This gives rise to a number of questions, for example:

  • Why is this the case?
  • Is there an argument for saying that it is natural or inevitable?
  • Does it matter?
  • What might be the implications?
  • If it was seen as desirable, how might the situation be changed?
  • What might be the implications of such a change?

We will spend the remainder of this lecture addressing some of these questions and, along the way, looking at some aspects of the relationship between gender and work.

Why is this the case?

Is there an argument for saying that it is natural or inevitable?

One thing that sociologists agree on is that the causes of gender segregation are complex.

‘Natural’ causes: height, weight, physical strength, manual dexterity, a caring nature, spatial ability &c

Historical causes: tradition

Legal and political causes: legislation, social policy (eg re pregnant women/lead; weight), ideological positions (eg women working in Soviet Union)

Take an example: young girls working in the Export Production Zones of countries such as Sri Lanka, Philippines, Vietnam & China.

Young – 16 –25

Rural backgrounds

Single & childless

Contract factories favour young, single, rural girls – why?

  • basically a docile workforce
  • no unions
  • few alternatives within a patriarchal society

Another example: accountancy (segregation within)

Does it matter?

What might be the implications?

One of the earliest feminist demands – dating back at least to 1917 in Ireland – was equal pay for equal work

Yet despite decades of political action across the world, a plethora or regulations and policies at national, European and global level – women still earn less money than men (about 50% in UK). They have lower incomes overall (stats Ireland) and even when people doing exactly the same work are compared, women still earn less than their male counterparts.

Why does this matter?

First, it is manifestly unfair.

Second, given that for most people in or society, work is the key source of income, discrimination has real effects. A very obvious phenomenon in societies such as the USA and the UK, and increasingly the case in Ireland, is that of the ‘working poor’: ie people who have jobs, but who earn so little as to keep them in poverty nevertheless. Many of the working poor are women: concentrated in areas such as cleaning, catering, social care (eg home helps) and retailing.

Third, it may send the wriong signals about what is valued as work in our society. There is a strong connection between the ‘feminisation’ of occupations and their social downgrading: secretary, primary school teacher (2nd level, 3rd level?). There are very few jobs that have become increasingly masculinised (eg nursing, flight attendant) and the effects seem to be contradictory. [eg beauty queens in Australia].

Occupational segregation makes it easier to devalue or even to ignore socially important activity such as care for those that need it; teaching the next generation; or maintaining the fabric of our society (cleaning & catering) [cf ‘definition of skills shortages’ & implications for funding of ITs]

If it was seen as desirable, how might the situation be changed?

What might be the implications of such a change?

  • ‘Skill’ – often used to exclude women from well-paid work (eg assembly vs packing), different types of assembly
  • Definitions of work, job, livelihood
  • Rebalancing the domestic and the public (see overhead)
  • Childcare + family friendly workplaces
  • Changes the dynamics within and between families