FREE ESSAY ON WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE

WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE

Western female thought through the centuries has identified the relationship between
patriarchy and gender as crucial to the women's subordinate position. For two hundred
years, patriarchy precluded women from having a legal or political identity and the
legislation and attitudes supporting this provided the model for slavery. In the late
19th and early 20th centuries suffrage campaigners succeeded in securing some legal and
political rights for women in the UK. By the middle of the 20th century, the emphasis had
shifted from suffrage to social and economic equality in the public and private sphere
and the women's movement that sprung up during the 1960s began to argue that women were
oppressed by patriarchal structures. 
Equal status for women of all races, classes, sexualities and abilities - in the 21st
century these feminist claims for equality are generally accepted as reasonable
principles in western society; yet the contradiction between this principle of equality
and the demonstrable inequalities between the sexes that still exist exposes the
continuing dominance of male privilege and values throughout society (patriarchy). This
essay seeks to move beyond the irrepressible evidence for gender inequality and the
division of labor. Rather, it poses the question of gender inequality as it manifests
itself as an effect of patriarchy drawing from a theoretical body of work which has been
developed so recently that it would have been impossible to write this essay thirty years
ago. 
Feminist Theory and Patriarchy
Although patriarchy is arguably the oldest example of a forced or exploitative division
of social activities and clearly existed before sociologists ever examined it, the
features of patriarchy had been accepted as natural (biological) in substance. It was not
until feminists in the 1960s began to explore the features and institutions of
patriarchy, that the power of the concept to explain women's subordinate position in
society was proven (Seidman, 1994).
The feminist engagement with theories of patriarchy criticized pre-existing theoretical
positions and their ideological use, tracing theoretical progenitors of popular views
about gender, gender roles etc (Cooper, 1995; Raymond, 1980). Developing theories to
explain how gender inequalities have their roots in ideologies of gender difference and a
hierarchical gender order, feminist theoretical concepts of patriarchy are able to
explain and challenge gender inequality and the gendered division of labor in the private
and social spheres (Seidman, 1994). They have done this by challenging concepts of
gender, the family and the unequal division of labor underpinned by a theory of
patriarchy that has come to reveal how it operates to subordinate women and privilege
men, often at women's expense. 
Patriarchy, Structure and Gender Inequality
Walby (1990) reveals how patriarchy operates to achieve and maintain the gender
inequalities essential for the subordination of women. Crucially for this essay, she
shows how it can operate differently in the private and public domain but toward the same
end. She identifies patriarchy as having diverse forms of and relationships between its
structures in the public and private spheres, and yet still operates in a related
fashion. 
Walby's explanation sees the household and household production as being a key site of
women's subordination but acknowledges that the domestic area is not the only one that
women participate in. She shows how the concept of patriarchy is useful in explaining the
relationship between women's subordination in the private and public arenas by showing
that they work equally to achieve this subordination as well as supporting, reflecting
and maintaining patriarchy itself. 
Firstly, Walby points out that the structures of patriarchy differ in their form. The
household has a different structure to other institutional forms, e.g., the workplace.
This is an important point because if feminist theories of patriarchy are to stand they
must show that patriarchy operates to the same end in both the private and public sphere,
even if it uses different strategies, otherwise it could not be the main reason for the
continuing inequality of women in both the private and public sphere. 
Walby shows that within the private structure and the public structures, patriarchy does
use different strategies to maintain gender inequality and these strategies both achieve
the subordination of women. The household strategy is considered to be exclusionary and
the public structures strategy as segregationist. 
The exclusionary strategy in the private arena is based on household production.
Application of this strategy in the domestic sphere depends on individual patriarchs
controlling women in the private world of the home. The male patriarch in the household
is both the oppressor and recipient of women's subordination. This strategy is direct ?V
women are oppressed on a personal and individual basis by the individual patriarchs who
share their lives. 
The segregationist strategy used in the public patriarchy actively excludes women from
the public arena using various structures to subordinate them. Application depends on
controlling access to public arenas (Golombok and Fivush, 1995). This strategy does not
benefit the institution directly, but it does ensure that individual patriarchs are
privileged at the expense of women, and it maintains gender differences. 
The way in which individual patriarchs and public institutions use there power further
reveals how related the structures of patriarchy are. Public institutions do not have the
power to oppress individual women or exclude them directly from public structures; this
work is carried out in the home. Power in institutions is used collectively rather than
individually, and the segregationist strategy pursued in the public arena maintains the
exclusionary strategy used in private that in turn supports the segregationist strategy
used in public. Yet, the institution can only pursue its segregationist strategy because
the individual patriarch subordinates the individual women daily. 
Walby's description of patriarchal structure looks powerful where there are fewer
variables (e.g., when women and men seem to share the privilege of being exploited
equally as a labor force working equal hours for equal pay in equal conditions (Haug,
1998). Haug (1998) cites research from East Germany, which allows her to calculate that
women do 4 hours and 41 minutes of domestic labor against men's 2 hours 38 minutes. Men
split their extra two hours between leisure time and paid employment. She asks if it is a
realistic possibility that patriarchy could be so completely and comprehensively asserted
in as little as two hours a day. 
Haug does not answer this question (perhaps it is rhetorical) but I think that Walby's
(1990) theory of patriarchy is so powerful because it can reveal the answer to questions
like this. Walby's theory stands because she shows that the power of patriarchy is
asserted in both the private and public sphere simultaneously supporting, reflecting and
maintaining itself, regardless of the economic and social framework that prevails. In
Haug's case, patriarchy is not being asserted in two hours per day, rather it is an
expression of patriarchy, i.e., a symbol of male privilege, which could only be expressed
if the general strategies of patriarchal structure were intact and functioning. 
This description of the relationship between patriarchy and structure demonstrates how
inequalities in the workplace and in inequality in the home are two sides of the same
coin and individual males are involved in the direct and indirect subordination of women
simultaneously. The concepts that allowed Walby (1990) to define patriarchy as she has
are discussed below, with reference to the work of second and third wave feminist
thinkers. 
Gender and Gender Inequalities in the Domestic and Occupational Divisions of Labour
Feminist concepts of gender and gender inequality allow us to refer more or less directly
to a theoretical framework for understanding how they have come to form a basis that
helps structure the whole of society according to the concept of patriarchy (Seidman,
1994). The gender differences, which lead to gender inequality in the division of labor,
and presented as natural by patriarchy and unequal gender order has been normalized and
legitimated by science, medicine and popular culture (Raymond, 1980). Feminists hold that
this normalization conceals the social and political formation of an unequal male order,
arguing that gender difference is socially produced in order to sustain male dominance
(Seidman, 1994). 
Frable (1997) points out that there is no basis for a biological account of gender
difference since gender identity can only refer to the psychological sense of being male
or female. Gender is now understood as a social category (Frable, 1997) and so liberal
feminism was correct to deny that nature requires rigidly separate and unequal social
roles based on gender (Ruehl, 1983). 
The patriarchal concepts of gender criticized by feminists are used to ascribe the roles
that result in gender inequality in the division of labor (Sarup, 1993). This view is
supported by Garnsey (1991) when she describes the division of labor as the
differentiation of work tasks organized in structured patterns of activity. These
activities are imposed and remunerated in a specific and unequal manner. When the
evidence allows us to place the words according to gender into the last two sentences,
and the new sentences mean something, then the concepts of patriarchy argued by feminists
begin to take on an explanatory power. 
Occupational Labour and the Economy
Liberal feminist provided concepts of gender that account for pay differentials and might
even account for why women can receive less money than men for doing the same job
(Golombok and Fivush, 1995). They can be used to explain why the political and social
change which has allowed substantially greater numbers of women to enter the labor force
has also concentrated them in the poorest employment (Golombok and Fivush, 1995). This is
especially so if Garnsey's (1991) description of the differentiated and imposed tasks of
the division of labor is used to structure the argument. 
However, they do not explain the reasons behind women's oppression and in order to do
this Marxist feminists to begin to argue that gender inequality has been shaped by
capitalist development, highlighting explanations which connect gender inequality with
economic needs (e.g., Mitchell J, 1966 used Marxist theory in Women: The Longest
Revolution). However, while most feminists see the close links between the organization
of production and the division of labor many thought that there was a limited future for
feminism under theories which reduced the specifics of women's lives to the extent that
the subjective and interpersonal flavor was not captured (e.g., Firestone S, 1970; The
Dialectic of Sex: the Case for Feminist Revolution). 
The socialist or Marxist feminist proposition positions class as the most basic form of
human conflict but this position was challenged by radical feminists according to whom,
equality does not mean being like men (Sarup, 1993). Radical feminists successfully
argued for the substitution of gender conflict as the source of all other conflict and
fighting for equality in the occupational field became subordinate to challenging the
social and cultural order (Sarup, 1993). 
Asserting that a female identity and subjectivity could only be defined without reference
to the patriarchal framework, many radical feminists looked for ways to identify and
develop a female culture and way of being which was free from the influences of
patriarchy. For example, Irigaray (1985) proposed that this be done through the promotion
of entre-femmes, a kind of social form specific to women. A cultural terrain distinct
from women's usual site - the family. 
Household Labour
Feminist writers have taken the family as a central feature of their explanation of
patriarchy but they do not always agree about its role in shaping women to serve
patriarchal ends in domesticity and work (Sarup, 1993). Liberal feminism recognized the
gendered, social roles of wife and mother but advocated choice for women with respect to
marriage, family, career etc., proposing to achieve this through a process of education
and reform (Seidman, 1994). In radical feminism, the family is viewed as a major
institution whose role is to foster gender inequality through the socialization of
children and subordinate women by forcing them to conform to feminine stereotypes (e.g.
Greer G, 1970, The Female Eunuch). Postmodern feminism based on Foucault's work
explicitly criticizes the emphasis on the family as the unit in charge (Sarup, 1993). 
In order to carry out its functions, the family relies on differential relationships
(Broderick, 1993). Coole et al (1990) point out that the functional needs served by the
nuclear element of the nuclear family are neither exclusive nor universal which indicates
that differentiation it is not essential to the performance of the vital functions of the
family. This means that the social roles of wife and mother as conceived by liberal
feminism are a gendered and manufactured choice. The differential relationships that
identify the roles of wife and mother are part of the nuclear family model promoted by
patriarchal ideologies for more than one hundred and fifty years (Coole et al, 1990;
p43). This suggests that the one or some of the roles ascribed to the family by other
feminists may be more accurate. 
Despite the differences, feminism's main assertion, that gender identities and roles are
socially formed, makes the theoretical proposition that a social and political
explanation (patriarchy) can be given for male dominance and patterns of gender
inequality possible (Seidman, 1994). 
Conclusion
The strength of feminist perspectives on patriarchy is that most of them have been
developed from the standpoint of women's lives (Seidman, 1994) and yet this is also a
criticism of what women's lives does the standpoint reflect? If feminist perspectives of
patriarchy are to be useful they must not only make sense structurally, they must also
make sense of all women's lives. 
Lesbian, Black, Third World and post-colonial critics have demonstrated some of the
limitations of western feminist agendas that prefer patriarchal accounts of equality to
racialised and cultural accounts (Burman, 1998). For example, the promotion of
reproductive choices by western feminists in the 1970s focused on contraceptive and
abortion rights. However, many women at that time were being discriminated against
because of their color, sexuality or physical abilities and were fighting to keep their
children, born and unborn (Burman, 1998). 
Whilst these criticisms of western feminist raise questions about how and why the
priorities of the issues and campaigns these women choose to think and act on were
agreed, they do not suggest an alternative account of inequality in which the public and
private oppression of women is explained (Seidman, 1994). Critics are however right to
point out that the feminist account of patriarchy developed by western liberal feminists
needs to be expanded to ensure that the experiences of more women can be included but
they must also acknowledge that the priorities and concerns of liberal feminists have
resulted in some of the most far reaching and important education and legal reforms of
this century taking place in the last the last twenty years. 
These reforms particularly reflect the western feminist concern with differential
relationships. In the area of social policy and the law, reformers have begun to focus on
protecting the individual rights of vulnerable household members like women, children,
and the elderly (MacLean & Kurczewzki 1994) at the expense of patriarchal privilege.
Crucially, whilst the law has become aware of the potential for the exploitation of
family members and in acting underlines the importance of public attitudes and
legislation in maintaining gender inequalities and differential relationships; the reform
approach cannot be seen as an open acknowledgement that socialization patterns and family
arrangements are male dominated (MacLean & Kurczewzki 1994). 
Following the vote of the General Synod in 1992, the ordination of women in the Church of
England has challenged hundreds of years of patriarchal authority and tradition in the
church. The implicit relationship between individual men and institutions can be viewed
explicitly in the complex provision made to protect those who are individually opposed
using the church's own structures. 
Regardless of the refusal of key patriarchal institutions to acknowledge the extent to
which man have been and are systematically and deliberately privileged by their
structures and actions, these dominant forms of power can help produce social change,
even if they are only attempting to keep in touch with contemporary society (Cooper,
1995). The process of power is therefore open to change and feminist theorists have shown
using their account of patriarchy that the ??by products?? of power (e.g., inequality)
can be mediated by the institution which represents it and moderated to be less damaging
to individuals (Cooper, 1989). 
Works Cited
Burman E (ed.) (1998). Deconstructing Feminist Psychology. Sage: 
London. 
Broderick CB (1993), Understanding Family Process. Sage: USA. 
Coole A, Harman H and Hewitt H (1990) Changing Patterns of Family 
Life, in Eekelaar J and MacLean M (eds.) (1994), A Reader On Family Law, Oxford
University Press: England, pp 31:62 (idem. The Family Way, Institute of Public Policy
Research, 1990, chap. 2) 
Cooper D (1995). Power in Struggle: Feminism, Sexuality and the State. Open University
Press: Buckingham. 
Frable DES (1997). Gender, Racial, Ethnic, Sexual, and Class Identities. Annual Review of
Psychology (48): 139 -162. 
Garnsey, E (1981). The Rediscovery of the Divisions of Labour. Theory and Society (10):
337. 
Graham E, Hinds H, Hobby E and Wilcox H (Eds) (1996). Her Own Life: Autobiographical
writings by seventeenth century women (3rd Edition). Routledge: London. 
Golombok S and Fivush R (1995). Gender Development. Cambridge University Press: USA. 
Haug F (1998). Questions Concerning Methods in Feminist Research in Burman E (ed.)
(1998). Deconstructing Feminist Psychology (q.v.): 115 ?V 139. 
MacLean M and Kurczewski J (eds.) (1994). Families, Politics, and the Law, Clarendon
Press: Oxford. 
Raymond JG (1980). The Transsexual Empire. The Women??s Press: London. 
Ruehl S (1983). Sexual Theory and Practice: Another Double Standard. In Cartledge S and
Ryan R (1985). Sex and love: New thoughts on Old Contradictions (4th Edition). The
Women??s Press Limited: London. 210-223. 
Sarup M (1993). Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Harvester Wheatsheaf: Hemel
Hempstead. 
Seidman S (1994). Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era (3rd edition).
Blackwell: USA. 236-254. 
Skeggs B (1997). Formations of Class and Gender. Sage: London.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Burman E (ed.) (1998). Deconstructing Feminist Psychology. Sage: 
London. 
Broderick CB (1993), Understanding Family Process. Sage: USA. 
Coole A, Harman H and Hewitt H (1990) Changing Patterns of Family 
Life, in Eekelaar J and MacLean M (eds.) (1994), A Reader On Family Law, Oxford
University Press: England, pp 31:62 (idem. The Family Way, Institute of Public Policy
Research, 1990, chap. 2) 
Cooper D (1995). Power in Struggle: Feminism, Sexuality and the State. Open University
Press: Buckingham. 
Frable DES (1997). Gender, Racial, Ethnic, Sexual, and Class Identities. Annual Review of
Psychology (48): 139 -162. 
Garnsey, E (1981). The Rediscovery of the Divisions of Labour. Theory and Society (10):
337. 
Graham E, Hinds H, Hobby E and Wilcox H (Eds) (1996). Her Own Life: Autobiographical
writings by seventeenth century women (3rd Edition). Routledge: London. 
Golombok S and Fivush R (1995). Gender Development. Cambridge University Press: USA. 
Haug F (1998). Questions Concerning Methods in Feminist Research in Burman E (ed.)
(1998). Deconstructing Feminist Psychology (q.v.): 115 ?V 139. 
MacLean M and Kurczewski J (eds.) (1994). Families, Politics, and the Law, Clarendon
Press: Oxford. 
Raymond JG (1980). The Transsexual Empire. The Women??s Press: London. 
Ruehl S (1983). Sexual Theory and Practice: Another Double Standard. In Cartledge S and
Ryan R (1985). Sex and love: New thoughts on Old Contradictions (4th Edition). The
Women??s Press Limited: London. 210-223. 
Sarup M (1993). Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism. Harvester Wheatsheaf: Hemel
Hempstead. 
Seidman S (1994). Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era (3rd edition).
Blackwell: USA. 236-254. 
Skeggs B (1997). Formations of Class and Gender. Sage: London.