Sexism -- is division of labor the key?

[judyserenity]

My internet connection was down, and so I was offline most of
Thursday.  I get back on and - Wow, there's been a lot of comments. 
I'll respond to as many as I can of the comments that seem addressed
to me. 

There's really three topics being discussed here.  The original topic
was how gender is presented in the JKR books. Then, the topic moved to
division of labor, and whether that's central to sexism.  In between,
there was a detour in which the meaning of the word "sexism" was
discussed. 

I'm going to talk about the biggie first-- whether division of labor
is the cause of problems such as violence against women, and whether,
as a result, feminists should focus on division of labor as their main
issue.  I'll talk about the Harry Potter book issues next, and the
language issues (i.e., what the word "sexism" should mean) last. I'm
going to put each topic in a separate post, because I have a feeling
that this will be long. 


Before I say anything else, I want to say that I care deeply about the
treatment of women, and feel that on a worldwide basis, women are
seriously oppressed in a variety of ways.  A few posters seem to think
that I am trivializing the problems women face, or that I there's no
need to fix the division of labor because everything is already fine,
and that's not what I think at all.  In fact, people who know me
sometimes accuse me of being obsessed with the problem of improving
women's situation. I've spent a lot of time thinking about questions
like "What causes some men to be violent towards women?" or "What is
the best way to reduce the feminization of poverty?" 

I've certainly gotten the message that other women here believe that
division of labor is the key to problems facing women.   What I don't
understand is why other women here feel that way.  Can anyone point to
any society, now or in the past, where abolishing the division of
labor ended the oppression of women?  Can anyone think of any society
where the gender division of labor has been abolished *at all*,
regardless of whether this fixed the problem of oppression of women? 
 What are the grounds for thinking that abolishing the division of
labor is even possible, let alone that women's low status will
disappear as a result? 

Maybe what people here are saying is "We've reduced the division of
labor, and women's power in society has gone up some as a result. 
Therefore, if we keep working on the division of labor, eventually it
will be abolished and women's status will equal men's."  While I see
why people might believe this, I don't think it's true.  I think there
was some improvement in women's power and status as a result of making
gender discrimination illegal, but it has now more-or-less leveled
off.   The achievable by campaigning for equal access to jobs were
modest, and we've already gotten almost all of them.  Don't believe
me?  Well, consider the following:

1) In the 1950's, the percentage of single mothers in the US who had
incomes below the poverty line was 30%.  And in the 1990's, the
percentage of single mothers in the US who had incomes below the
poverty line was - you guessed it -- 30%.   Equal opportunity
legislation and the opening of more professions to women didn't reduce
the feminization of poverty.  In fact, during the past few decades,
the feminization of poverty dramatically increased, mostly due to the
huge increase in female-headed families. (By the way, I do not think
feminism caused the increase in female-headed families.  But, that's
another topic.) 

2) Cindy talked about physicians, and asked what happened if this
profession moved from being 100% male to being 50% male, 50% female. 
David replied: "Either women doctors will get respect, or doctors
generally will lose respect on the grounds that they are women. The
men will then leave."

What David describes - a profession losing respect because women
joined it, resulting in men abandoning that field - is in fact well
documented.  Probably the clearest example of this is secretarial
work, which was almost exclusively a male profession about a century
ago.  Women joined the field, pay and prestige plummeted; and
virtually all the men left.  This isn't the only example, however - I
have also seen this documented for tailors, and it now appears to be
happening in pharmacy.  These are just ones I've seen studies on, and
it's not even a topic I've paid a lot of attention to; I'm sure
there's plenty of other examples. 

In fact, it happened in my own field - I thought I was so clever,
going into a male-dominated field!  Unfortunately, a lot of women had
the same idea.  The good jobs that had attracted me suddenly were no
longer offered, replaced by low-paying, supposedly part-time jobs that
had different titles, but were in fact the exact same jobs, with the
exact same hours.  All this was accompanied by very blatant "there go
the neighborhood" comments, and even published editorials, by men in
the field.  I've never been able to make more than $15,000 a year,
even working 60 or more hours a week, and have never received
benefits.  When the (predominantly female) people in my job situation
tried to unionize, the State of Michigan said we were not entitled to,
because we were (supposedly) not full time.  

So, in regards to women moving into male-dominated professions - I've
been there, I've done that, and it was a total disaster for me.  

3) Most high-prestige occupations require long hours, and there is a
great deal of competition to succeed in them.   This means that if
women are still doing the bulk of the childcare and the housework,
they will be at an extreme disadvantage.   I remember pointing this
out to classmates when I attended (a politically very conservative)
college, and having people tell me "Well, women will just have to try
harder, then."   This is bunk.  In many of these professions, people
are trying as hard as is humanly possible - medical students and
residents often work to the point of collapse - so "trying harder"
just isn't an option.  In politics, business, and a variety of other
fields, people scratch and claw their way to the top; anything that
disadvantages women means that fewer women will succeed.   So,
focusing on making men's work available to women, without reducing the
share of "women's work" that men do, will have only limited success.

In fact, focusing on women in the workplace can have the unintended
consequence of trivializing women's role in bearing and raising
children.  It makes it sound as if having and raising children is
something one can easily do in their spare time, without compromising
one's ability to climb the ladder of success.  Sure, mothers realize
that children require major effort, but what about other people (men,
say)?  I very vividly remember a conversation I once had with a young
man active in the Right-to-Life movement.  I was saying that even if
one believes a fetus is a person, forcing a woman to remain pregnant
is a very big deal, on the order of requiring a person to donate bone
marrow, or maybe even a kidney.  He flat out said that he thought
pregnancy and childbirth were no big deal.  He said, "I knew a woman
who gave birth, and went back to work the same day."  He seemed to
think that having children was something women could do on their lunch
hour, perhaps sandwiched in between a trip to the dry cleaner and
stopping by the bank, and still make it back in time for their 1:30
p.m. meeting.   For many years, a large part of my time and effort has
been spent trying to have children (with no success) so I see giving
birth as a major accomplishment, not as some little trivial thing. 

4) Even if all the gender-based barriers in the workplace vanished,
that might not affect all that many women on a worldwide basis. Of the
6 billion plus humans on Earth, I don't think very many get to pick
the type of work they do. Throughout human history, if your parents
farmed, you farmed, end of story. For most people around the world, I
suspect that this is still true.  Even in the United States today, I
suspect most people don't feel that have much say in the type of work
they do - they do whatever work they have to, to earn a living.  Some
posters have said that in the past, men could do whatever they wanted,
while women had very little choice in what they did.  I don't see it
that way.  Until about 100 years in the US (probably a little longer
ago in England), most people worked in and around their homes.  Males
and females both had a wide variety of tasks to perform, but neither
had much choice in what tasks they did.  This is probably still true
for most people worldwide.  Reducing gender barriers in the workplace
seems like a minor issue to me, because most of the human race isn't
even in the workplace; they are effectively self-employed, working at
home.  And, I'm not totally convinced that the current Western model
of working in a specific occupation, outside the home, will be the
most common model in the future.  It seems just as possible to me that
most people in the future will work on a variety of (probably
information-based) tasks at home, as that they will go off to work at
an assembly plant.  


So, that's why I think working to end the division of labor is mostly
a dead end at this point. 
But, if ending the division of labor isn't the answer, does that mean
it's hopeless to try to fix women's problems?  I don't think so at
all. There seem to be societies where women's status is good, or at
least was good, despite a division of labor on the basis of gender.  
I referred to this earlier, when I said that women's status in
matrilocal societies generally was high, despite the fact that these
societies often had a rigid gender division of labor.   True, there
were only a few of these societies and we don't have that much
information on them, but it's quite possible that women had more power
in these societies than in any modern societies.   For example, it is
true that in these Native American societies, men were the warriors,
and generally only a man could be the "Chief Warrior" and represent
the village at tribal councils.  But, how did a man get to be Chief
Warrior?  In at least a few tribes, he was appointed by the Chief
Mother, who could replace him at will.   That sounds like a lot of
power in women's hands to me.  

So, it seems likely that societies have existed where women had a lot
of power in spite of (or perhaps even because of) a gender division of
labor.  That's why I can't agree with statements such as Naama's claim
that "So far, when women and men have been expected to act
differently, the brunt of most of the restrictions and sanctions were
on the women." (Naama)


So, to sum up:
1) I think there is little more to be gained by pushing for an end to
the gender-based division of labor in the workplace.  
2) Based on the historical data, it appears possible to have a
gender-based division of labor without women having low status and
power. So, I don't buy the argument that the gender-based division of
labor is the cause of women's low status and power in modern
societies.  I think it's possible for mistreatment of women to end,
even if tasks are still divided on the basis of gender. 


Let me also try to reply to some of the specific comments people made:


I said that:
 >> Women's organizations have their hands full with domestic
violence, the feminization of poverty, female infanticide in Asia,
genital mutilation in Africa, and far too many other problems. They
just don't have the resources to also tackle problems where men and
women are impacted equally<<

Naamagatus replied:
>isn't domestic violence easier to deal with when the woman is capable
of earning enough to supporting herself and her children? And from the
little I've read, female infanticide in Asia is *directly* linked to
economic considerations. Feminization of poverty - is that not related
to the ways and means in which women can earn a living?<

These are reasonable questions, but I'd still say fixing the division
of labor isn't going to help that much here.  I've already talked
about how the emphasis on the reducing the division of labor hasn't
helped reduce the feminization of poverty. On the topic of domestic
violence, the idea here again seems to be that reducing the division
of labor reduces the feminization of poverty, which then makes it
easier for women to leave.  Even if this were true, reducing the
gender division of labor would be at best a partial solution to the
problem of domestic violence.  My concern is that if one woman leaves
an abusive man, he's just going to look for a new woman to abuse.  And
if that woman leaves, there will be nothing stopping him from trying
to find a third woman to abuse. Solving the problem of abuse requires
sanctions on abusers (which could be social disapproval, jail, or
various other things.)  Saying, "The victim should leave" doesn't fix
the underlying problem. 

About female infanticide in Asia being linked directly to economic
considerations, I absolutely agree with the idea that economic
considerations are the primary reason for female infanticide.  In some
societies they may be the sole reason.  However, I think the
particular economic considerations involved have nothing to do
division of labor.  Boys are preferred because these societies are
strongly patrilocal - that is, girls leave their parents and move in
with their husbands; boys remain at home and support the parents in
their old age.  Even if a gender-based division of labor was somehow
abolished in these societies, the problem would still remain -
daughters' labor would go to benefit a different family, so parents
would still prefer sons.   And, in plenty of societies with a rigid
gender-based division of labor, girls are no more likely than boys to
be killed in infancy. (In a few, they are less likely to be killed in
infancy.).  So, I just don't think focusing on division of labor is
the way to fix infanticide. 


AV said:
>And even FGM [female genital mutilation] is often justified within
the cultures that practice it with the insistence that "if you're not
cut you won't get a good husband." Well, why is having a husband such
a matter of life and death? Rigid division of labor, that's why!<

Really? Do you think that without a rigid division of labor, girls
would stop caring about their popularity with boys?  I don't.  I think
a desire to be popular with the opposite sex is instinctive (except
for a few people who want to be popular with their own sex.)   Women
who succeed in male-dominated professions want to be desired as
romantic partners.  Men want to be desired as romantic partners. 
Almost everyone, especially during adolescence, wants to be desired as
a romantic partner.  "Do this, or you won't be desirable," is going to
be a very compelling argument, no matter how labor gets divided. 

Cindy said: 
> I really do think we can try to improve the lot of all women facing
any form of gender discrimination or inequity without spreading
ourselves too thin.
Using racism as an example, apartheid existed in South Africa at a
time when African Americans in the U.S. were fighting for things like
integration of schools and workplaces. The fact that the plight of
South African blacks was far more dire than that of African Americans
wouldn't have struck me as an especially compelling reason to ignore
racism or racial discrimination in the U.S. at the time.<

On the topic of feminists spread themselves too thin, the reality is
that feminists often have very little resources and political capital.
 A good example is MS magazine, which has only been able to publish
sporadically throughout its 30-year history because of a lack of
funds.  When you consider just how many magazines are out there
spreading the message that women's proper function is to be men's
sexual playthings, it's pretty depressing to think that not even one
feminist magazine can be stable in the long run.  So, spreading
themselves too thin sounds like a crucial issue for feminists, as far
as I can tell.  

On the topic of whether it's possible to focus simultaneously on
problems abroad and at home -- Cindy, I agree that there's no moral
reason to avoid working on problems that occur in one place, just
because one is working on problems that occur elsewhere. However,
there is the practical problem of only having so much time to spend
writing letters, only so much money to donate, etc.  So, I think
prioritizing is very important.  

Cindy said she:
>was thinking more about why [she's] not too happy about the idea that
arbitrary gender restrictions on occupational choice are not
especially troublesome if they do not favor one gender over the other.
Not too long ago, there were laws in the U.S. prohibiting interracial
marriage between whites and blacks. These laws applied to both races
equally, didn't they? These laws didn't favor or advantage one race
over another or even one individual over another. <

I'd say the laws disadvantaged Blacks.  At the time the laws were
made, almost everyone with lots of money and social power was White. 
The laws made marrying these rich, powerful people off limits to
Blacks, therefore reducing the competition Whites faced in finding a
rich, powerful person to marry. This isn't the only reason these laws
were bad, but it's one of the reasons they were bad. 

I'd like to point out a parallel with divorce laws, which also seem to
apply equally to both genders, but in fact work to men's advantage. 
Right now, divorces are easy to obtain in the US, for both men and
women. 200 years ago, divorces were almost impossible to obtain in the
US, for both men and women.  So, the divorce laws are fair because
they affect men and women equally, right?  I'd say no. Divorce was
hard to obtain back in the days when there was a shortage of women,
and divorce is easy to obtain now that there is a shortage of men.  In
other words, when there were lots of single men around, and married
women could have easily found a new man, the men in power made
divorces hard to obtain (and adultery was often technically punishable
by death, although that was rarely enforced.) Now that there are lots
of single women around, and married men can easily find a new woman,
the men in power have made divorces easy to obtain (and adultery isn't
really punishable at all.)  Is it fair to blame modern divorce laws on
 "the men in charge"?  I'd say yes; the big change in divorce laws
occurred around 25 years ago, when there were hardly any women in
government. 

AV also said, tongue-in-cheek:
"Hey, blacks make great janitors, and we really shouldn't bother
fighting for our rights to be lawyers 'cause that's too
low-priority--but we should get more respect for our traditionally
Black roles! Let's honor janitors! We can hold our heads up high
regardless of the division of labor, 'cause that's just a side issue."

The difference is that it is possible, in the right political
environment, to divide labor evenly between Blacks and Whites, so that
Blacks don't get disproportionately stuck being janitors.  There is no
way to divide childbearing evenly between males and females.  If we
want equal respect for women, we need respect for childbearing.  And,
it seems that the process of childbearing bonds mother to their
children, so that women then do the bulk of child*care*, too.  Is it
possible to get men to do half (or more) of the childcare?  I'm not
sure; I know of no human society where this happens. It may be that
men will only be willing to do half the childcare if childcare is
respected, which would mean that respect for women's traditional roles
would have to happen before an equal division of labor could be
achieved. I want to be clear, I'm not saying feminists should focus
their efforts on "educating people about the value of women's roles."
I'm just saying that I don't agree with the analogy that you are
making. 

Of course, this brings up the question of what feminists should do, if
they are not going to focus on gender barriers in the workplace, and
not going to focus of educating people to think of women's traditional
roles more positively. And, I do have some ideas there.  (No surprise,
right?)  But, I've said an awful lot -- over 5000 words in these three
posts, not counting quotes.  So, I'm not sure anyone wants to hear
anymore from me at the moment. I can talk later about my ideas of what
feminists should do, if anyone is interested. 

Exhausted!Judy