Division of labor (NOT whether it's *the* key)

[lupinesque]

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.  

Which biggie was that?  I haven't heard anyone on here suggesting 
either of these things.  There seems to be a very clear understanding 
that sexism is a many-headed monster and those who, in my favorite 
definition of feminism, "believe that women are human," can be 
usefully employed working on any of them.

Judy wrote:
 
> >  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? 

Cindy wrote:
 
> 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. 

YES!!  "Something to be said...":  ah, the grace of understatement.  
My job is one of the most important things in my life.  The idea of 
being unable, whether by active law, passive law or extreme social 
pressure, to pursue my vocation literally makes me feel ill.   

> > 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 was a major concern in my tradition as women flooded in over the 
past twenty or thirty years.  It's a bit hard to measure 
respect . . . I think simple awe of clergy has dropped considerably, 
but there are other factors causing this shift, e.g. well-publicized 
cases of sexual and other forms of abuse by clergy (nor do I think 
it's a bad thing.  I'll take plain old respect for a hard job done 
well, thanks, and skip the awe altogether).  But as for salaries, we 
have kept them from plummetting upon the entry of women into the 
field through deliberate efforts to make sure this does not occur.  
Some things about the field make these efforts easier (e.g. all UU 
ministers' salary info is tracked by a single office), some make it 
harder (e.g. most UU churches have only one minister, so that 
patterns of discrimination are hard to detect and almost impossible 
to prove; churches are almost the only institutions that are 
permitted by law to discriminate on the basis of sex; etc.).  It 
takes efforts such as instructing congregations on fair pay, 
encouraging women to advocate for fair pay, encouraging congregations 
women to go for the best-compensated jobs (since they vary so 
widely), etc.  So far, so good; women tend to be newer to the field 
so overall are paid less, but when you compare a woman and a man, 
each with 10 years of experience, their pay is equal.  It takes 
CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Amy Z