Sexism -- is division of labor the key?

[cindysphynx]

Judy wrote:

> 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.  

Uh, oh.  We're already in trouble here.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the division of labor (meaning 
that certain jobs or opportunities are off-limits or less available 
based on gender) is "the cause" of mistreatment of women.  Nor would 
I say that division of labor should be the "main focus" of feminists.

You know what I think might be going on here?  It seems that your 
argument is focusing quite a bit on achieving equality and 
fundamental fairness *between groups.*  In other words, it sounds 
like you're saying that policies should be evaluated based on how 
they positively or negatively impact women *as a group* instead of 
women *as individuals.*  Or in the case of race, how policies affect 
a minority group *as a group* instead of minorities as individuals.

If I'm reading your remarks correctly, I think this focus on group 
advancement could be where we have a difference of opinion.  If all 
women are directed to law and all men are directed to medicine, and 
the career prospects in these fields are identical, I would see a 
*big* problem there, whereas I gather that you would not.  IMHO, 
whether women *as a group* and men *as a group* wind up equally well-
off is *not* the issue.  Restrictions like the one I just outlined 
violate *individual* liberties.  That is what causes them to be so 
offensive.  

I would say that it makes sense to level the playing field as much 
as you can for each individual and let the chips fall where they 
may.  Therefore, if you level the playing field and women are *not* 
advantaged as a group by that level playing field, I would not see 
that as a failure at all.  Should that happen, I would guess that 
there may be other factors at work, and I would say we should 
continue to combat any of those factors that are the result of 
sexism.  

Anyway.  I'll expand further in response to some of the ideas 
expressed below.

Judy:

> I've certainly gotten the message that other women here believe 
>that division of labor is the key to problems facing women.   

I can only speak for myself, but the key to problems that women face 
varies based on the problems that particular women are facing.  For 
some women, division of labor may not a problem at all.  In fact, 
this may well be the case for women who are in the most dire of 
circumstances around the world (although I do find many of the 
arguments persuasive that many of these problems can be traced to 
arbitrary gender divisions of labor).

But for other women, it can be the whole enchilada.  I mean, the 
situation of a woman in a country that allows women to be killed for 
certain infractions of local custom has totally different issues 
from a professional woman who is being denied opportunities on her 
job because of her gender.  They may well be different problems with 
different causes.  I fail to see why we should ignore the problems 
of the professional woman if we are not convinced that addressing 
her problems will improve the lot of all women as a group.


>Can anyone point to any society, now or in the past, where 
>abolishing the division of labor ended the oppression of women?  

No, I can't.  

I think the question is specious, however.  There are *many* factors 
that cause the oppression of women.  That abolishing arbitrary 
divisions of labor is not a talisman does not mean it is not worth 
the bother.

Here's a race-based example.  Civil rights activists in the U.S. 
challenged practices such as segregated seating on buses and 
segregated water fountains.  Abolishing those practices did not end 
racial discrimination, obviously.  Does that mean that civil rights 
activists were wasting their time in challenging those practices?  

Of course not.  That is because ending racial oppression requires 
many small steps on many fronts.  The same is true for battling 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? 

No, I can't.

This suggests to me that there is no place in the world that has 
achieved true gender equality.  Does this mean we should throw in 
the towel?  I'd say no.  I can say with great pride that there have 
been *tremendous* strides in eliminating the gender division of 
labor in the U.S., thank goodness.  


>  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? 

Well, each instance in which a woman is allowed to choose her own 
path unencumbered by arbitrary gender restrictions is a victory -- 
even if the woman in question doesn't benefit by any objective 
measure such as increased wealth.  There is something to be said for 
being allowed to choose the path that appeals to you for intrinsic 
and wholly personal reasons.  

As for whether it is possible . . . well, maybe it isn't possible to 
eliminate every single arbitrary gender restriction.  I fail to see 
why this means we shouldn't accomplish whatever we can accomplish.

 
Judy:

> 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.  

First, I think that you're assuming that if we have obtained all we 
can achieve -- if we have reached the pinnacle of gender equality -- 
that we can declare the battle won and move on.  I, for one, feel 
that it is important to guard against backsliding -- that once 
women's advocates let their guard down or move on, those hard-fought 
gains will be eroded.

Second, I am using a different definition of "women's status" than 
you are, I think.  When I say I hope that women's status will equal 
men's, I mean that both genders will have a choice of all careers 
unencumbered by societal expectations or arbitrary restrictions.  I 
actually think there is plenty of room for improvement in this 
area.  

An example.  I worked for a law firm that had a very liberal 
parental leave policy.  All parents (biological and adoptive) could 
take 8 weeks of paid leave, could take six months of unpaid leave, 
and could work part-time for six months.  In the 12 years I worked 
there, only *one* man took the 8 weeks of paid leave.  Adoptive 
fathers did not take the leave; adoptive mothers did.  Why?  Because 
of gender bias -- the men were afraid that taking the leave would 
make them look less committed and their careers would suffer.

So, no.  I'm not ready to claim that arbitrary restrictions on 
division of labor are a thing of the past.

Judy:

<snip stats suggesting that the percentage of single mothers in 
povery has remained constant>

Again, I think it is a mistake to look at the economic plight of one 
particular group of women (single mothers) and draw conclusions 
about whether strides in workplace equality are unimportant or have 
had no positive effect.  I'd imagine that some of these women have 
benefited from increased workplace opportunity and some have not.  I 
don't think we can draw additional conclusions based on the 
statistics provided.  

I do, however, raise an eyebrow at the idea that these women would 
have been better off in any sense if they had been limited in their 
job search to teacher, nurse and secretary and had been prevented 
from becoming firefighters, plumbers and police officers.

Judy:

> 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.  

Well, I'm a lawyer.  Our profession was once predominately male.  My 
graduating class was about 35% female, and I understand that top law 
school graduating classes today are often over 50% female.  I can 
tell you that starting salaries at the most prestigious places of 
employment have *not* plummeted due to the increased numbers of 
women.  In fact, starting salaries for new lawyers in prestigious 
positions have remained quite lucrative.

Judy:

>This isn't the only example, however - I
> have also seen this documented for tailors, and it now appears to 
>be happening in pharmacy.  

Pharmacy?  I recently read a Wall Street Journal article explaining 
how pharmacies are having such a tough time finding pharmacists that 
they now offer perks like signing bonuses.  The entry of women into 
this profession appears not to have been a drag on prestige or 
salary at all.

As for tailors, I can only guess.  If salaries in that profession 
are declining, that could be related to an influx of new immigrants 
doing that work.  I really don't have enough information to know for 
sure.

In other words, you may well be seeing declining salaries in some 
professions not due to an influx of women, but due to other economic 
factors.

Judy:
 
> In fact, focusing on women in the workplace can have the unintended
> consequence of trivializing women's role in bearing and raising
> children.  

I'm a stay-at-home mom these days, and do I appreciate the efforts 
of those who suggest that the contributions of mothers are 
important.  I really do.

That said, my own opinion is that anyone who wants to stay home 
should stay home regardless of whether others think it is trivial.  
After all, there are *lots* of academic and career choices one can 
make that others may think are a waste.  Some people sneer at any 
choice or profession that does not rake in the bucks.  That's just 
life.

Rather than attempt to change the attitudes of strangers so that 
they will value my choice to stay at home, it would be much more 
helpful if activists could make sure that there are fewer barriers 
to my return to the workplace.  After all, one reason some women 
fear leaving the workplace when they have children is that they 
worry that it will be difficult to re-establish a career when the 
children are older.  Ironically, then, one thing feminist activists 
can do to encourage women to stay home if they would like to do so 
is to eliminate arbitrary divisions of labor so that jobs are open 
to us when we do wish to return.

Judy:

> 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. 

Again, this argument seems premised on the idea that activists in 
the U.S. should examine the plight of women as a group worldwide 
(which is highly variable anyway) and develop policy in the U.S. on 
that basis.  As I've already explained, I'm not so sure about this.

There is one other thing to consider, however, in deciding how to 
pick your battles.  In the U.S., the laws are already on the books 
to prevent a good deal of the mistreatment of women, discrimination 
against women, and arbitrary divisions of labor.  Achieving a 
desired result in the U.S. may be *far* easier than achieving a 
desired result in a country with more intractable problems.  In a 
way, then, gender equality in the U.S. may well be the "low hanging 
fruit."

Is it wholly unreasonable to devote some resources to continuing to 
fight for equality in the U.S., which already has a legal framework 
and culture that is receptive to the idea of individual gender 
equality?

Judy (on laws prohibiting blacks and whites to marry):

> 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. 

Once again, I think there is too much of a focus on how arbitrary 
restrictions impact groups instead of individuals.  

The problem with a law prohibiting the races to marry is that it 
prevented *individuals* from making a fundamental and highly 
personal decision (selection of a mate) based on their race.

Also, I must say that I am not completely persuaded by the idea that 
one objection to these laws is that they prevented blacks from 
marrying *up.*  I think one reason that this argument wasn't one of 
the central arguments is that it ignores the fact that blacks had 
limitations at the time on ownership of property, for one thing.  It 
also ignores the cold hard fact that blacks were not seeking to 
marry whites as a means of wealth acquisition.  

Imagine if we tweak the facts a bit.  Assume that blacks and whites 
as groups were equally wealthy in the 1960s, when these laws 
existed.  Under your analysis, this would mean that a law 
prohibiting interracial marriage would be just fine because it 
doesn't disadvantage either group economically.  Both groups are 
limited to their own race, true, but there are plenty of rich whites 
and plenty of rich blacks, so there would be no reason to object to 
this law.

And that just doesn't feel right to me at all.  


> 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."
> 
Judy replied:

> 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.  

Whoa!  "If we want equal respect for women, we need respect for 
childbearing"?  I don't get this at all.  Many women do not have 
children.  How is their lot in life improved if there is increased 
respect for childbearing?

As a stay-at-home mother, I am not too terribly troubled by the fact 
that some people don't value "childbearing" as much as they might 
value something else (academic success, career success, athletic 
success).  Heck, even *I* don't value my childbearing *as an 
accomplishment* to the extent I value other things I have 
accomplished.  Really, there's hardly any comparison at all.  For 
me, 9 months of pregnancy and a day of labor was a walk on the beach 
compared to the effort required to complete my education.  ;-)

In the U.S., many people value things that pay a lot, and they don't 
value things that pay nothing.  To those people, childbearing is no 
exception.  Seriously, just speaking for myself, I would be *much* 
more interested in policies and programs that made being a stay-at-
home mom *easier* than those that tried to make others respect that 
choice.  

Another example.  When I left the workplace to stay home, I shopped 
around for disability insurance.  If I were disabled, my family 
would have to hire someone to do all of the things I do (and my 
husband might even have to switch to a less demanding career), so I 
thought it would be prudent to look into this.  I learned that I 
could not obtain disability insurance at any price.  The problem, 
you see, is that you can only buy disability insurance if you have 
income.  Stay-at-home moms have no income, so I was refused a policy 
outright.  This is the sort of pointless restriction that 
discourages people from staying home with their kids.  

Judy:

>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 do know some women who are the primary breadwinners in their 
families.  Some have stay-at-home husbands.  And I feel quite 
certain that the thing that has made this possible is the removal of 
arbitrary barriers to the women's career choices.  In the families I 
am thinking of, the women make a lot more money, so the men stay 
home, cut their hours, take leaves, work part-time and such.  This 
is not because the men have been convinced of the value of 
childrearing.  It is simple economics -- economics made possible by 
the reduction in arbitrary gender divisions of labor in the 
workplace.

Cindy