Western economies
• Economic and technological developments
created a sexual division of labor and the
splitting of the home (unpaid labor) from
work (paid labor)
• Into early 20th century, U.S. economy was
primarily agricultural.
Changes to Family Economies
• Family economy: wives, husbands, and children
worked on farms and in households to contribute
to the family.
• Rise of Industrialization: the rise of factories
changed the family economy making it a family
wage economy or a family employment system
where fathers worked in factories and paid wives,
children, relatives.
• Development of technology created factories to
produce what once had been produced in the home
by hand: sewing machines instead of hand sewing,
knitting machines instead of hand knitting, etc.
The Splitting
• With goods production moved out of home into
industries, the products of paid labor began to be
more culturally valued than the products of home
labor.
• Geographic separation developed between home
and work severing interdependence of work and
family.
• Urbanization (development of cities) integrated
more new European immigrants
• Family maintained values of interdependence with
industrial workers supporting families (“mill girls”
gave money to family until immigrants took these
jobs)
Different Histories
• Economic development affected cultural groups
differently (see Hoffert):
– African-American class development and family experiences
different because of institution of slavery where workers were not
paid, and families were broken up in South, freed people in North
– Native American experiences of reservations and
geographic/economic dislocations affected relationship to
industrialization. U.S. government negotiated with Native
American men not women undercutting women’s power.
– Immigrant experiences differed depending on when people came to
U.S. and from where: Jews came to be shop keepers; Irish/Finnish
women first came as maids through agencies for middle/upper
class English, immigrant men as miners (Finnish Minnesota Iron
Range, Italian Kentucky mines), Chinese men indentured
servants/rail workers on west coast. Immigrant working classes
experienced economic and family differences—brought their
cultures with them.
Rise of Middle Class
• Greater prosperity resulting from industrialization led to
development of middle class professionals and managers
• Middle class split roles: men became worker and family
breadwinner, women became family mother and
homemaker.
• Role of social institutions (employers, government, labor
unions, law) in institutionalizing this split. Laws created
“protective legislation” keeping women out of some jobs.
• These splits became “normative” set up ideal of family life
for everyone including working classes: white factory
worker men organized in trade unions that kept women and
minority men out and got a “family wage” to support entire
family
Doctrine of Separate Spheres
• Institutionalization of family/work splits in 19th
century gave rise to a doctrine of separate spheres
• Work sphere associated with values good for
development of capitalist markets: competition,
rationality, achievement, independence,
individualism. Values associated with masculinity.
• Home sphere associated with values of
domesticity, purity/piety,
submissiveness/dependence, love/emotions,
harmony, spiritual values—home as ”haven from
heartless world” of work. Values associated with
femininity. In 1890, less than 5% of married
women were measured in paid employment.
Normative Ideals
• “Real” men were “self-made men” in the “good
provider role” of breadwinners (Kimmel, Manhood in
America—”the making of the self-made man” 1776-1865)
• “Real” women were saintly mothers and good
housekeepers, always happy and managing family
emotions by creating culture of harmony and care
(Cott, Bonds of Womanhood—”cult of domesticity/true womanhood
1780-1835)
• Deviants from ideals were not “true” men or
women. Examples?
Dislocations to threaten ideal:
War
• Wars brought women into the labor market in
different capacities from previous generations.
• Crimean War: British Florence Nightingale started
nursing with women as nurses—unheard of before
that to find women in active war role (unless in
drag)
• World War II: Rosie the Riveter—a character
made up to demonstrate how women could/should
take on industrial jobs left by men who went to
war. Of industrial jobs, one out of ten (600,000)
were African American.
• Milkman: all work became women’s work
Post WWII Women in Labor
Force
• With returning WWII male veterans, the Rosies were
kicked out of their jobs and govt. propaganda put them
back in the home making babies.
• 1950s-1960s economically strong, gender ideals of Leave
It to Beaver family strong.
• Challenges: Vietnam War, oil crises early 1970s, around
1977 male wages begin to decline. Late 1970s to early
1990s male wages declined more than women’s earnings.
This factor pushed married women into labor market to
make up lost family wages.
Dislocations: Divorce
• Rising divorce rates: from 1960s to peak in 1980,
stabilized, slight decline. Necessitates women
working.
• Research shows that marital instability may be the
cause or the result of women’s economic
independence. Costs of staying home and rewards
of working for pay greater today than 1970s.
Late
th
20
century Social Changes
• Progressive legislation Legal barriers breaking down with Equal Pay
Act 1963; Title VII of Civil Rights Act 1964
• Second wave women’s movement emphasis on economic
independence and equal opportunities
• 1972 Education Amendments and legal challenges to increase
women’s education: in 1971 18% of twenties’ women had college
degrees, in 1998 29% did.
• Education and job opportunities for women rising.
• Economic development where economy moved from producing
goods to producing services and information. In 2001, half of all
working women were employed in service sector and clerical jobs.
• Heterosexual married couples with children make up ¼ of all
households today. (1960—40%); 1/3 married w/out kids; 1/3 single
parent (18%--86% female head), living alone, or cohabiting. 1/3 all
births to women over 30.
Labor Force Today
• 47% employed workers are women; 53%
men.
• Majority of both sexes work for pay full
time.
• 55% of women with kids work (60%
African-American women; 53.4% Latinas;
60% Asian American, 59.1% white)
Sex Segregation
• Concentration of women and men in
different occupations, firms, jobs
• Occupational sex segregation refers to
concentration of women/men in different
occupations.
• Sex segregation at job level more extensive
than at occupation level.
• Voluntary organizations also segregated
Index of Dissimilarity
• Measure of segregation: index of
dissimilarity (100=complete segregation;
0=complete integration)
• Level of sex segregation approximately
51.5% in 1990.
• Means that more than half of either sex
would have to move to another occupation
to bring about integration.
Race/Ethnic Segregation
• Most studies focus on African-Americans and
whites
• Levels of occupational segregation by race lower
than by sex.
• Women/men more likely to work in different
occupations than blacks/whites
• Sex segregation among blacks/whites greater (60)
than racial segregation among women and among
men (30 late 1980s)
Occupational Sex Segregation
• A feature of all industrial societies. Segregation greater in
countries with large service sectors, lower where low birth
rates and stronger egalitarian belief systems (Scandinavia)
• Declined in 1970s
• Women moved into occupations previously held by men
(librarian, clerical, teacher, bank teller) during early 20th
century, later moved into public relations, systems
analysis, bartending, advertising, insurance, veterinary
medicine (doubled since 1991, men declined by 15%)
• Only three occupations where men increased: cooks,
kitchen workers, maids/housemen.
• Interventionist or non-interventionist government (equal
opportunity legislation, family benefits, state-subsidized
child care/family leave) define sex segregation regimes
(Chang in Wharton).
Time Bind
• Increasing demands from work and family
create a time bind—not enough for either
(Hochschild)
• Men happier going from work to home,
women going from home to work
(constraints vs. freedom experienced
emotionally)
Comparative Examples
Early 2000.
• Sweden: extensive govt. involvement (paid parental leave
80%; maternity/paternity leave; public childcare)
• Netherlands: breadwinner model; women part-time work
(60% of working women); paid maternity leave; limited
public childcare (17% under four)
• Italy: private solutions—traditional family and
grandparents; paid maternity leave; limited public
childcare (6% under three)
• United Kingdom: paid maternity leave; minimal public
childcare (kids “in need”)
• European Union Agreements means some change
References
• Wharton, Chapter 4
• Sylvia Hoffert, A History of Gender in
America: Essays, Documents, Articles
(2003)
• Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood
(1977) also histories of women in America.
• Michael Kimmel, Manhood In America
(1996)