THE POLITICS OF WORK AND FAMILY Feminism: Lecture 1

THE POLITICS OF WORK AND FAMILYFeminism: Lecture 1

PLAN

Some types of disadvantage and discrimination relating to work (and work in the family) that women specifically face

Whether we should try to mitigate all these types of disadvantage

Some proposals to mitigate these types of disadvantage

A closer look and case study: women in philosophy

TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION FACED BY WOMEN RELATING TO WORK

DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK

1. Explicit Sex Discrimination


1. Explicit Sex Discrimination

DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in

Employment: Job Descriptions

Examples:

Height and weight requirements

Expected working hours and overtime



3. Disadvantage in the Family: Women are far more likely to do far more housework and be primary caregivers for children




4. 2&3 lead to a cycle of disadvantage


1. For the most part expected (and expect

themselves) to take time off and care

for children if they have them

2. Choose jobs that allow them

to do this

3. These jobs are lower paid

4. Because they are in lower paid jobs

= more likely to be the one who quits

5. Less able to get a job, and a good job

once quit job

6. Dependent on their partners

to maintain standard of living

DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in Employment:

Job Descriptions


4. 2&3 lead to a cycle of disadvantage

Part of and one of the effects of this cycle of disadvantage is Disadvantage/Discrimination in Divorce Settlements

SHOULD WE TRY TO END OR MITIGATE THESE TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE?


The Choice Argument: Mothers choose to be primary caregivers. And disadvantage that is the result of free choices need not be mitigated

(i) Someone had to be the primary caregiver

(ii)Not a free decision to be caregiver or not

(iii)Not a free decision to get married

(iv)But isn’t it still your choice to become a mother?

(v)Do choices really matter this much?

SHOULD WE TRY TO END OR MITIGATE THESE TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE?The Private Sphere Argument

The family is a private area where we and the state should not intervene

Without a ringfenced private existence we would have no privacy

Responses

Privacy is crucially important. But it is only possible to have privacy if one is protected from abuse

Life in a private family still involves power dynamics that can be dangerous for women

Violence in the family is not a merely private matter

Families are social institutions backed up by laws. The existence and limits of a private sphere are the result of political decisions


The Different Norms for the Family Argument

Families are not within the purview of justice

Families, unlike the rest of society, are governed by norms of love and affection (or ought to be)

Principles of justice should not govern dishwashing


Equal Opportunities

The Rawlsian Argument

A just society is one whose institutions act in line with principles chosen in the original position

In the original position agents reason from behind the veil of ignorance

Okin: agents behind the veil of ignorance would want to bring an end to the link between gender and family and employment roles

Rawls held that any inequalities in a society must be attached to positions or offices which are open to all - but not only formally open to all

Utilitarian Concerns

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

Daycare

Problems:

Only helps those with enough to pay for daycare

Universal Free Daycare?

Norms of good motherhood

Mothers should not have to place their child in childcare centres in order to have careers

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

Family Friendly Policies

Parental Leave

Part-time work and flexibility

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

A New Model of Work and Family

Part-time workers should be allowed to advance at a rate proportionate to their accomplishment not to the fact that they are part time

Workweeks shortened & no mandatory overtime

In divorces where one partner earns substantially more because the other is caring for their child, courts should view income as jointly earnt

Objections

Impracticality

‘Andy Marks is a successful Washington lawyer with an intensive commercial litigation practice. Two part-time lawyers work with him at a senior counsel level on litigation matters. This is remarkable because the nigh-unchallenged common knowledge is that part-time work is impractical in litigation because lawsuits proceed according to court deadlines over which lawyers themselves often have little control.None of which deterred Marks or his firm. “Both of these extremely talented and experienced attorneys were in the process of leaving their existing firms and were looking for a new firm that would enable them to spend more time at home with their young children than a full-time commitment would permit. We decided that we could and would hire them on a less than full-time basis.” In thinking this through, Marks recalled an incident several years earlier.We had an outstanding woman associate who had been working with me on a piece of major litigation and who became involved in a second matter that required her to work two days a week outside the office for a different partner. I was faced with the choice of whether to have her continue to work on my case three days a week or to find a different associated who could devote full time to my case. I decided to take three days a week. And then I realized: Virtually every associate who works with me works on cases for other partners and is therefore a part-time lawyer as far as my cases are concerned.All lawyers regularly find ways to accommodate the demands of other cases; finding a way to accommodate an attorney’s desire to work on less than a full-time basis is not all that different…’(Williams, Unbending Gender, pp. 84-85)

‘One strong message of the existing work/family literature is that no single solution works best in all workplaces…The Engelhard Corporation addressed the 150 percent rate of turnover, high absenteeism, high accident rates, and large amount of product waste in its Hunstville, Alabama, chemical plant by allowing workers to vote on a flexible schedule. They chose a four-day workweek with work beginning at 5 A.M and ending at 3 P.M. When the schedule was implemented, absenteeism dropped from an average of twenty to three days a year and both turnover and product waste decreased to less than 1 percent…

For other businesses, flexible hours are less important than on-site child care. Marquette Electronics president Michael Cudahy called the company’s on-site chilldcare centre “the best business decision [he] ever made in business.” One of the nation’s largest design and construction firms, BE & K Engineering and Construction Company, provides a mobile child care center that follows workers from one construction site to the next(Williams, Unbending Gender, p. 86)

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

A New Model of Work and Family

Part-time workers should be allowed to advance at a rate proportionate to their accomplishment not to the fact that they are part time

Workweeks shortened & no mandatory overtime

In divorces where one partner earns substantially more because the other is caring for their child, courts should view income as jointly earnt

Objections

Impracticality

Discrimination against non-parents

PRACTICAL PROPOSALS

But even these reforms would still leave women doing too much in the family

Proposals: Mitigating or abolishing Gender Roles regarding (a) women’s work & (b) women’s role as only ever supporting men

MITIGATING GENDER ROLES

Socialisation into Gender Roles

Stereotyped Perceptions at Birth

Watching Parents

Workplace policies

Toys, Books, Films

TOYS

TOYS

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Male characters are central characters in 57% of children’s books published each year. 31% have female central characters

FILMS

FILMS

The Bechdel Test

To Pass a film has to

Have at least two women in it

Who talk to each other

About something besides a man

Most films don’t pass this test. Of those that do most pass this test because the female characters talk about marriage or babies

PROPOSALS TO MITIGATE GENDER STEREOTYPES

Toys - Successful campaigns & stamp

Films - Bechdel test rating in Sweden

Could mount similar campaigns for books & TV

Successful campaigns would stop mothers stereotyping their children in the long-run mitigate expectations about women & work

Distinguish: not about objectification


Arguments Against Mitigating or Ending Socialisation into these Gender Roles

No one believes in Gender Roles anymore


Splitting work along these gendered lines is natural

Cross-cultural uniformity

Women have ability to tolerate dull and repetitive tasks

If women are naturally better suited and more inclined to childcare and housework than men, then

(a)We ought to keep women in childcare and housework

(b)It is pointless to try to change current arrangements

Evolution and Arguments from nature

RADICAL PROPOSALS

Should we abolish all gender roles?

Should the family be abolished then?

A LITTLE CLOSERCASE STUDY: JOBS IN PHILOSOPHY

WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY

Explanations:

1.Women’s preferences or ability

2.Women are impeded by implicit bias and stereotype threat

IMPLICIT BIAS

Most people, even explicit and sincere egalitarians, have implicit biases against groups such as women, black people, gay people

Academics are affected by implicit Bias

The Journal, Behavioural Ecology went from non-anonymous to anonymous review and found a 33% increase in representation of female authors

CVs. 238 academic psychologists (120 f/118m) evaluated CVs randomly assigned a male or female name. All gave the male CVs better evaluations and were more likely to hire the males.

STEREOTYPE THREAT

STEREOTYPE THREAT

Under perform at a task because unconsciously preoccupied by fears of confirming stereotypes about their group

E.g. if you ask 5-7 year old girls to colour in drawings of girls holding dolls before taking a maths test their performance is reduced

IMPLICIT BIAS & STEREO TYPE THREAT IN PHILOSOPHY

Not so implicit bias

Logic

Objectivity

Lack of women in Philosophy (and the history of philosophy) leads to stereotype threat



Logic

Objectivity


Journals and Refereeing



Logic

Objectivity


Refereeing

Stereotype threat even for successful philosophers

REMEDIES

Breaking down stereotypes about women and women in philosophy. Exposing people to excellent women in philosophy

Blocking effects of stereotypes: anonymising

Altering thought patterns than enhance effects of stereotypes

Raising awareness of implicit bias and stereotype threat

Abandon the view that if you’re biased against stigmatised group, then you’re a bad person or blameworthy

Reasons to be hopeful that remedies can work

SUMMARY

The disadvantages that women face in relation to work and family

Why we should do something about these disadvantages

How we can do this

NEXT WEEK

Sexual Harassment

Feminism and Language Change

Required Reading: Saul, Feminism, Chapters 2 & 6

Documents

THE POLITICS OF WORK AND FAMILY Feminism: Lecture 1