Women and Work

The Age of Post-Feminism?

Liz Sperling, Mairead Owen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138734456
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351739511
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000:  The 1990s have been heralded as the 'age of women' based on the facts that, globally, more women are benefiting from formal education and are in paid employment in greater numbers than ever. As such, the possibility that an age of post-feminism has been reached, in which battles for women's basic rights have largely been won, is implied. This book, based on research across academic disciplines, challenges such claims. Using women and work as the basis analysis, the authors consider whether such things as flexible working, equal opportunities initiatives and even contemporary conceptions of citizenship are universally beneficial to women. The book presents research ranging from issues of immigrant sex-workers in Japan to the implementation of EU equality policies and raises the ironic question that, as the global economy increasingly depends on women, could a growing but uneasy alliance be developing between capitalism and feminism?

1 Introduction: Women and Work in the Age of Post-feminism

LIZ SPERLING

This book considers the position of women and work in the modern economy. From the legislative effects on 'freeing' women to work and initiatives to attain status as equal s within the workforce, to the choices that women make in relation to paid employment, it is possible to measure the extent to which we live in a post-feminist era.¹ The concept of 'post-feminism' is not one that I would choose to posit. It is, however, an idea that has been bandied about as a result of the measurable increase of women's visibility in the public sphere. The argument that opportunities exist for women to grab, and the consequent focus on the individual for failure to progress in whatever field, is attractive to those attempting solidarity or sympathy with 'disadvantaged' groups such as women electors, employees and consumers, whilst simultaneously clinging to power. The fact that more opportunities for women do exist in paid employment, which empowers women in other activities (Blumberg, 1995:5), is undeniable. How far such opportunities have created an epoch of equalitarianism is open to question.

The Women Have Arrived!

The mid- to late 1990s, in Britain, have been heralded as the 'age of women' by journalists, employers and researchers who have become aware of the presence of large numbers of women in paid employment (Carvel, 1996; Younger and Warrington, 1996). The trends, according to such intrepid commentators, are set to continue as more girls and young women are successful in public examinations. For example, since 1993 in the United Kingdom (UK), girls have generally outstripped the performance of boys at GCSE and A level (Times Education Supplement, 6.9.1996 and 13.9.1996; EOC, 1994 and 1998). Whilst the education of women globally may not present quite as promising a picture as that of the UK and other developed countries, certainly educational opportunities for women throughout the world are improving (Joekes, 1987:16; Blumberg, 1995:7; United Nations, 1995a:7; Seager, 1997:9). Moreover, as modes of work change universally, women are more likely to fit the model of 'worker', based on the traditional patterns of women in work (United Nations, I995a:49). For example, in developed countries as work becomes increasingly less secure, manifested by the increase in part-time and temporary contracts, employers' identification of women as primary carers, who desire 'pin-money', becomes obvious. Such workers' 'flexibility' in terms of conditions of work is heaven-sent in a free-market economy. Similarly in developing countries, poverty and the detrimental effects of, for example, structural adjustment programmes, which often have a greater impact on women provide rich pickings from among women for employers in a global economy (United Nations, 1992:95; International Labour Office, 1995:3; United Nations, 1996). Thus, the United Nations (UN) Platform for Action notes

due to, inter alia, difficult economic situations and a lack of bargaining power resulting from gender inequality, many women have been forced to accept low pay and poor working conditions and thus have often become preferred workers

(1996:94, my emphasis),

and the report of the Secretary General to the United Nations states that 'the majority of newly created jobs have tended to be atypical. As it turns out, these atypical employment patterns correlate with the feminisation of the labour force' (United Nations, 1995b: 182).

Naturally, it is not difficult to challenge the concept of the 'age of women'. While more women may, indeed, be entering the workforce, and the conditions of work favour the 'ideal type' of married mother working for extra household income, the reality of women and work does not present a picture of social and economic advantage. As Seager notes, 'women's participation as workers in this new world economy is not an unalloyed sign of progress' (1997:9). This is not to fall into the trap of essentialism. Examples of highly 'successful' women, such as Nicola Horlick, 35-year old mother of five children, who managed pension funds for Morgan Grenfell, for a salary of around £lm a year, and Marjorie Scardino, first woman to run a FTSE 100 company in the UK, serve to illustrate that not all women are oppressed by organisations or circumstances.² Moreover, in striving to render all women equal in their disadvantage, we may deny the possibility of achieving success in developing equality of opportunity. Women's inequalities in work, and in society generally, are not just seen in relation to men but between women themselves. This does not just concern pay and conditions: the 'good' and 'honest' woman worker is not one who works in the sex industry; lesbians may face discrimination in work, or in finding work, when they declare their sexuality; the opportunities for better educated women and presumably those from more affluent or 'cultured' backgrounds differ from those of unqualified, unskilled women; the commitment of women with children, especially lone parents, may be questioned at interview or in post; and women from different ethnic backgrounds may suffer the prejudices of both racism and sexism in the workplace, or the queues to it. It may be argued that such disadvantage is peculiar to Western experience. This will be true to some extent. However, UN surveys (1991; 1995a) demonstrate the universality of women's disadvantage in the workforce, citing themes familiar to Western researchers: men's domination of trade unions, reluctance to train and hire women, the potential for women to demand equality legislation for things like maternity or parental leave, and the general perception of women that suggests it is best to give them marginal jobs (United Nations, 1991:88). Moreover, research in this book indicates the international phenomenon of discrimination between women. Whilst being aware of the differences of women, for this volume we are concerned with issues of commonality between them.

New Economy: New Opportunity

The expansion of the female labour-force is a global phenomenon (Mitter, 1986; United Nations, 1992; Blumberg et al., 1995; OECD, 1996). Indeed, many analyses note that the changing global economy is directly responsible for women's increased, and men's declining, proportion of the workforce (ILO/TNSTRAW, 1985:21; Mitter, 1986:14; OECD, 1996:186 Table A). This may be especially noticeable, although not necessarily more prevalent, in developing countries with the growth in industrialisation and the international search for cheap labour (ILO/TNSTRAW, 1985:21; Pettman, 1996:163; Steans, 1998:134). It is here that more women are moving into the public sphere from, for example, family farms (ILO/INSTRAW, 1985:23). Unfortunately, increased opportunities for women in the workforce have not alleviated the differential between the types of jobs that women and men do, and the remuneration received for work (ILO, 1995:3; Joekes, 1987:18-19). The Second Review and Appraisal of Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women notes that

while trade expansion led to an increase in the supply of jobs for women, the quality of those jobs was often poor and they were insecure, paid only a fraction of the male wage for the same job and lacked social protection

(United Nations, 1995b:36-37).

Indeed, a major characteristic of the emergent global economy is the creation of what Moghadam quotes as 'global assembly line' (1995:20; see also Pettman, 1996; Mies, 1998). In this model, developed countries control production of goods which is transferred to the cheaper labour markets at the periphery, that is, to the developing nations. In fact, many indebted governments of the Third World have set up Export Production Zones (EPZs) where factories, staffed predominantly by poorly paid and otherwise exploited women, specifically produce goods for the global market (Steans, 1998:136). Thus the nineteenth century Western tableau, inscribed with capitalist industrialists using women as low paid, insecure industrial workers operating in often unsafe conditions (Miles, 1989), becomes the global norm. While women in developed countries may be perceived as benefiting from belonging to the 'core' nations, and certainly better off economically than their 'sisters' in the Third World, the shift from manufacturing to service industries has destabilised the tenured job market.

It may not seem so paradoxical, then, that despite the increase of women in the labour force throughout the world, female unemployment is also prevalent. The rightward shift towards market practices in the developed countries has resulted in the contraction of manufacturing industries and the public sector, in contrast to the simultaneous expansion of private sector employment (United Nations, 1995a:52-53; ILO, 1995:3). These first two sectors traditionally favoured women workers. Thus, for example, in OECD countries the growth in the service sector is peopled mainly by women working on non-standard contracts; part-time, temporary and fixed-term (OECD, 1994:111). Coupled with what the UN calls 'the re-employment challenge' in which 'women experience greater difficulties than men in finding re-employment' as a result of the decreasing public sector and continuing discrimination, patterns of female unemployment should not be surprising (United Nations, 1995a:52). Of course, unemployment in developing countries does not necessarily compare easily to that in developed market economies. However, structural adjustment programmes, in which loans may be acquired on working towards and meeting progressively strict conditions imposed by the IMF (Steans, 1998:142), and which rely on export-led economic growth together with cuts in public expenditure, have an uneven impact on women which are familiar to the West. For example, cuts in public expenditure result in loss of welfare jobs and services, both of which affect women as workers and as providers of primary care in health and social welfare services (Tickner, 1991:196). Moreover, the UN notes that in nations where agricultural, self-employed and home work still prevail, female unemployment may be grossly underrepresented in official statistics (United Nations, 1995a:53), a phenomenon quantified by the ILO (1999:para 18) which stated that the inclusion in national accounts of women's work in the informal economy would add 25 per cent to GNP.

A clear connection exists here in consideration of another recognisable global phenomenon, that of the extra burden that working women carry. Thus, in both developed and developing countries, women undertake the majority of household and caring duties (United Nations, 1991:101-102), and in developing countries women are also responsible for much unpaid, subsistence work such as growing and processing food for home and market (United Nations, 1995c:51; Mitter, 1986:142). While men may contribute to unpaid domestic work, they do not do so in proportion to their status as 'partner' in the household. The situation of women is made worse by structural adjustment programmes in which export drives pass much control over agricultural production to mechanisation and to men. This not only serves to undermine women's subsistence farming, with its resultant consequences for domestic food production, but it forces women into yet greater reliance on the informal economy, homeworking and making 'luxury' goods for First World markets, prostitution and everyday survival services for their families (Pettman, 1996; Mies, 1998). Thus, it appears that familiar patterns of un/employment based on traditional perceptions of gender and work appear not to have been greatly affected by the opportunities afforded women in the new global economy.

Equal Opportunities in the New Labour Market

Attempts to increase equal opportunities through legislation are not necessarily universal. Western Europe and the United States (US) may have well entrenched, if not well implemented, equality legislation. Despite such initiatives as the European Union's (EU) series of Medium Term Action Programmes which recognise the constraints of the private sphere on women's equal opportunities in work,³ equality legislation per se operates in the public sphere alone, albeit acknowledging that working mothers require maternity and childcare provision of some sort and, more recently, joint parental leave. A further point at issue is that of how equality legislation and initiatives suit developing countries where women comprise up to 40 per cent of unpaid subsistence food growers on family farms and an indeterminate proportion of the informal, unregulated and largely undocumented economy, including such occupations as prostitution (United Nations, 1991:90 and 93-94; United Nations, 1995a:58; Moghadam, 1995:21). Even in developed countries, the increase in the informal sector (Blumberg et al., 1995) further decreases the force of equality legislation. Thus, legislation often can do little to ensure integral or comprehensive equality of opportunity in employment markets.

Equal opportunities has been described by some as a 'feminist fallacy' (Quest, 1992). Whereas the increasing rhetoric of the market economy relies on concepts such as choice, equality of opportunity, and individual empowerment, collectivised equal opportunities denies such achievement. Indeed, McElroy states that, 'the preferential treatment of women in employment is nothing less than a frontal attack on the rights of the individual and the free market' (1992:113). Certainly, Western feminism may not be appropriate to women in developing countries. Indeed, feminism may seem 'inappropriate' to many women throughout the world. However, it surely cannot be claimed that the free market is non-discriminating in terms of gender. The historical patterns of gender segregation of occupations, status and pay manifestly point to the failure of the market to ensure liberty and equality of opportunity between the sexes in global employment markets and between the gendered workforces of developed and developing states. The gendered global assembly line increasingly assumes the hierarchical nature of domestic capitalist production relations played out between rich and poor countries. Moreover, the fact that historically, in developing and, increasingly, in developed countries, women's wages are an essential part, and often the whole, of household income (OECD, 1995:19),⁴ would logically assume a more balanced workforce than is apparent from labour statistics (ILO/United Nations, 1985; United Nations, 1991; ILO, 1999:para 17). Critics of legislation to improve conditions for women in work allege that it is the increasing number of women workers that has driven down the price of their labour (Papps, 1992), an idea analysed by Linda Walsh and Liz James in this volume. Conversely, the historical and continuing overwhelming number of men in the labour force seems to have kept their wages universally higher than women's (United Nations, 1995a:73-74). As David (1986) implies in her analysis of the family and New Right ideology, markets can only function on the basis of women's work in the home and other unpaid economic activity.

The work of the UN to audit and address the issue of women's disadvantaged position in general, and in work specifically, is an example and acknowledgement of the fact that 'natural' forces do not engender equality, or equality of opportunity, and that changes in markets globally overtly affect women differentially. For example, rationalisation of working practices and organisational structures may lead to higher paid workers, usually men, being most badly affected. While this may result in more jobs becoming available for women, it also perpetuates their economic disadvantage in terms of pay and working conditions (United Nations, 1995:x-xi).⁵ Moreover, equal opportunities legislation is an attempt to redress a socio-economic and political imbalance created from the pursuit of self-interest. However, such legislation, whatever the diverse motivations of the initiators and instigators, has to operate within existing and developing frameworks.⁶

In this respect, Joanne Cook (ch.2) considers the concept of increased flexible working within the EU, a system relatively advanced in temis of equality legislation. Here, the growth of 'atypical' work is seen to fall outside the parameters of the legislative framework. Hence, the part-time retail workers and homeworkers in the manufacturing sector of Cook's study, mainly women, have unequal access to legal processes set up to ensure employment rights. The concentration of women in insecure, non-unionised jobs, often undertaken in isolation from other workers, ensures that women are unaware of their rights, and that the risk of attempting legal action in the case of discriminatory employment practices minimises use of available channels of redress. Moreover, Cook, like Nicola Piper (ch.9), brings into question the definition of 'worker' in relation to employment rights. Where legislation applies to those in formal paid employment, it may increasingly encompass fewer workers as flexibility creates more self-einployed, sub-contracted and homeworkers.

Of course, where equal opportunities legislation exists, the potential for differing interpretations and levels of implementation is evident. While Cook's study indicates that member states of the EIJ can play with words to affect the parameters of legislation and those who may claim redress,⁷ Hilary Rollin and Jean Barrel 1 (ch.3), and Catherine Fletcher (ch.4), in their comparative studies of EU member states, consider how different traditions of work, as well as the state's attitude to women in work and equality issues, account for differential female employment patterns. For example, as globalised patterns of female employment become increasingly evident in the EU, the suspicion in Spain accruing to part-time work, together with an historical dearth of nursery school provision, means that the increase of women in the labour force has outpaced demand for female labour. In France and the UK, on the other hand, temporary fixed term and/or part-time contracts have been taken up with gusto, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Women and Work in the Age of Post-feminism
• 2 Citizenship and Flexible Employment: Homeworkers' and Part-time Workers' Access to Social Rights in the UK
• 3 Equal Opportunities at Work in France and Spain: Theory and Reality
• 4 Vive la Différence?: Equal Opportunities and Access to Training at Work for Women in France and Britain
• 5 'It's No Place for a Lady': An Empirical Study of the Implementation of an Equal Opportunity Policy within Northshire Fire Service
• 6 Women Choose Low Pay?
• 7 Balancing Acts: On the Salience of Sexuality and Sexual Identity for Understanding the Gendering of Work and Family-Life Opportunities
• 8 Working Life for Spanish Women of the 1980s and its Reflection in the Novel Amado Amo by Rosa Montero
• 9 Female Labour Migration to Japan: Myth and Reality
• 10 Conclusion: That 2020 Vision?
• Bibliography
• Index