Patriarchy at Work E-Book

Sylvia Walby

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 517

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The concept of 'patriarchy' is one which signals a sharp divide between traditions of feminist thought.  Sylvia Walby attempts to conceptualize 'patriarchy' in a way that takes account not only of the complexity of relationships of gender, but also of the subtleties of the interconnections of patriarchy and capitalism.

She rejects those accounts which treat patriarchy as a unified set of relations, or which confine the site of patriarchy to any one privileged sphere such as the family.  Instead, she elaborates a novel view of patriarchy as a set of 'relatively autonomous relations', the connections between which are spelled out through a variety of detailed case studies.  In contrast to many other views of 'capitalist patriarchy', Sylvia Walby characterizes the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy as a relationship, not of harmony and mutual accommodation, but of tension and conflict.

This thesis is substantiated through a comparative historical analysis of three contrasting areas of employment: cotton textiles, engineering and clerical work. These analyses show the shortcomings of much conventional literature in sociology, history and economics on women's employment, which pays insufficient attention to the independence of patriarchal relations. The book draws upon sociological, historical, economic and geographic materials to argue for an understanding of gender relations in terms of the specific tensions and compromises between patriarchal and capitalist relations.  Exploring the impact of the state on patterns of employment and unemployment completes a book rich in theoretical and empirical analysis.

Patriarchy at Work will be recognized as a major contribution to feminist thought and the social sciences.

Leseprobe

Patriarchy at Work

Patriarchal and Capitalist Relations in Employment

Sylvia Walby

Polity Press

©Sylvia Walby, 1986

First published 1986 byPolity Press, Cambridge, in association with Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Reprinted 1985, 2005, 2007

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge, CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Walby, Sylvia

Patriarchy at work: patriarchal and capitalist relations in employment.

1. Women — Employment — History    2. Sex discrimination in employment — History

I. Title

331.4 ’133 ’09 HD6053

ISBN: 978-0-7456-6898-7 (Multi-user ebook)

Phototypeset by Dobbie Typesetting Service, Plymouth, Devon

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Marston Book Services Limited, Oxford

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk

Contents

List of Tables

Acknowledgements

1     Introduction

2     Theories of Gender Inequality: a Critique

3     Towards a New Theory of Patriarchy

4     Theories of Women and Paid Work

5     Gender Relations in Employment: 1800–1914

6     The Two Wars and Between: 1914–45

7     Post-War Progress?

8     Conclusion

Appendix I   Women’s Membership of the Principal Trade Unions, 1870–1918

Appendix II  Industrial and Employment Appeals Tribunals Affecting Women

Appendix III Main Statistical Sources

References

Index

List of Tables

5.1

The Proportion of Women in Engineering, 1841–1911

6.1

Changes in Women’s Economic Activity, by Industry, 1921–31

6.2

Changes in Regional Female Employment, 1921–31

6.3

Percentage Changes in Men’s and Women’s Employment, by Occupation, for England and Wales, 1921–31

6.4

Employment of Women in the Civil Service, 1928–34

7.1

Changes in Regional and Female Employment Rates, 1951–79

7.2

Persons Aged 16 and Over in Employment, by Ethnic Origin, Industry Division and Sex, Great Britain 1981

7.3

Persons Aged 16 and Over in Employment, by Socio-Economic Group, Ethnic Origin and Sex, Great Britain 1981

7.4

Number of Establishments, by Most Severe Form of Job Loss Employed

7.5

Distribution of Types of Job Loss in the Sample of Establishments

7.6

Changes in Men’s and Women’s Employment by Industry Group, 1979–81

7.7

Regional Changes in Women’s Activity Rates, 1979–81

7.8

Employment in Cotton Textiles, 1970–82

7.9

The Proportion of Women in Engineering, 1951–82

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the people who have helped me in the writing of this book: especially, my colleagues, friends and students at the University of Lancaster; in particular, the Lancaster Regionalism Group, especially John Urry, and the Women’s Research Group; the EOC for financial assistance with the job loss project and Anne Green for her superb interviewing on that project; the careful editors at Polity Press and Basil Blackwell; and Heather Salt and Mave Connolly for typing the various drafts of the manuscript.

1

Introduction

As the available pool of unemployed labour is expanded among men by their relative repulsion from industry and trade, it is expanded even more among women by their increasing attraction into industry and trade … The logical cumulation of these trends is the equalisation of the labour force participation rates of men and women.

(Harry Braverman)

We, as an organisation are opposed to the introduction of women as a general principle.

(Jack Tanner, President, Amalgamated Engineering Union, 1940)

Why has the extent and nature of women’s paid employment changed so markedly since industrialization? What are the implications of this for the position of women in society more generally? The theme of this book is the tension between the social forces which shape gender relations. As the quotations above suggest, there is on the one hand a tendency, thought by writers like Braverman to be overwhelming, for women to be drawn into the expanding industries, while on the other, there have been significant social forces, represented by Jack Tanner, the leader of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in 1940, to prevent this from happening. In assessing the practical and theoretical significance of these social forces, I will challenge many orthodoxies in social thought. This book will develop a view of women as significant actors in resisting their exploitation. It will depart from the dominant view of women as acquiescing in their fate. Conventional class theory, which pays little attention to gender relations, will be found wanting, and replaced by a more comprehensive and rigorous approach to the analysis of social inequality. Against the traditional view, that the position of women in the labour market is determined by their position in the family, I will argue for the importance of labour market structures in confining women to a subordinate position in the household.

The book is a challenge to conventional views on stratification in British society. The social division of labour, such a prominent part of most analyses of social stratification, cannot be understood without an understanding of the gender division of labour. It is not merely that an analysis of sexual divisions needs to be added onto the existing literature, but rather that on its own terms stratification theory, and especially narrowly defined class analyses, cannot be adequate without taking gender inequality into account.

I will not stop at merely criticizing orthodox accounts of social inequality but will engage with and revise feminist approaches to the analysis of gender inequality and propose an alternative. I will attempt to develop a theory of gender inequality, to build an adequate model of patriarchy and to demonstrate the significance of patriarchal relations in employment for the explanation of the position of women in contemporary society.

Chapter 2 starts with a review of existing theories of gender inequality. These fall into five types, according to whether gender inequality is viewed as: theoretically insignificant or non-existent; derivative from capitalist relations; an autonomous system of patriarchy, which is the primary form of social inequality; so intertwined with capitalist relations that they form one system of capitalist patriarchy; or the consequence of the interaction of autonomous systems of patriarchy and capitalism. While the last of these is the only one that I consider to be theoretically adequate, the existing formulations of this approach have severe problems. I try to construct my own model of patriarchy and its relations with capitalism, and this is to be found in chapter 3.

One of the major problems of existing models of patriarchy is that they either tend to treat patriarchy as a monolithic unity, and underestimate the significance of the relative autonomy of different sets of patriarchal relations, or they tend to include so many different aspects in an ad hoc way that they degenerate into mere description. My model of patriarchy tries to overcome these problems by constructing patriarchy as a set of relatively autonomous patriarchal relations which are interrelated in a definite manner. A further problem in existing models of patriarchy is the inadequacy of the analysis of the relationship between patriarchal and capitalist relations. Most approaches tend to give too much effectivity to either patriarchal or capitalist relations and, further, they characterize this relationship as one of harmony, which the empirical evidence does not support. I have characterized the relationship between patriarchy and captialism as one of tension and conflict and tried to assess the importance of both patriarchal and capitalist relations. Further, I have argued that patriarchal relations in paid work are of crucial importance in the articulation of the two systems.

Thus the first part of the book constructs a new theoretical model of patriarchy and its relations with capital. The remainder is an attempt to demonstrate the model’s effectiveness in a particular empirical area which is of central importance in the relation between patriarchy and capitalism; that of gender and employment. The quotations from Braverman and Tanner demonstrate the contradictory nature of the social forces affecting women’s employment. Braverman assumes that employers’ demands for cheap, deskilled labour will determine the pattern of employment. Here we see the delightful prospect of capitalists enforcing equality between men and women, at least in respect of paid work. Yet this scenario immediately strikes us as unlikely, even absurd. Why should this be so? What are the forces which prevent such a development? Tanner gives voice to patriarchal objections to women’s employment. It is patriarchal work-place organizations such as his male-dominated union that have been the immediate obstacle to Braverman’s vision of gender equality. Yet the question is only transformed, not answered. Why should these worker organizations be so opposed to women’s employment? This opposition is rooted not merely in men’s fear of women undercutting their wages and conditions of work, but also in a system of patriarchal relations which women’s employment threatens to disrupt. Yet again, this is too simple. The forms of patriarchal organization are varied and they intersect in complicated ways with capitalist relations and the technicalities of specific production processes. All these must be explored before an adequate analysis can be built up.

Women’s labour is a central issue in the conflicts and tensions between patriarchal and capitalist interests. Thus chapter 4 turns to an examination of the literature on gender and employment. By means of a historical analysis, the processes which have culminated in the present gender division of labour in employment are laid bare in chapters 5, 6 and 7. The analysis uses archive material of employers and unions as well as a range of secondary sources. It focuses on three contrasting areas of employment: cotton textiles, engineering and clerical work. In these three types of work, not only is patriarchal workplace organization found to be a major force in determining gender patterns of employment, but patriarchal organizations themselves take a variety of forms. The present pattern of gender and unemployment will be seen to be the outcome of overlapping of rounds of restructuring, a process in which these different patriarchal forms of workplace organization play a key role.

2

Theories of Gender Inequality: a Critique

Explanations of gender inequality are often classified either as radical–feminist or socialist–feminist (e.g. Coote and Campbell, 1982). Other writers have developed classifications with many complicated divisions (e.g. Sebastyan, 1979), while others reject any such classifications on the grounds that they are too constraining (e.g. Stanley and Wise, 1983). The dichotomy between socialist–feminist and radical–feminist, while picking up on an important division in writings on gender relations, fails to accommodate significant writings which do not belong on either side of such a divide, and which indeed explicitly attempt to make a synthesis out of the two opposing positions. This dichotomous classification is now surpassed by recent writings which themselves fall into two: some argue that dichotomy in the explanation of gender inequality should be overcome by saying that this inequality results from a single system of capitalist patriarchy; others argue that inequality is the outcome of an interaction of autonomous systems of patriarchy and capital.

This would produce four categories of writings on gender inequality–and a fifth, as well, for the sake of completeness, for those writings based on the theoretical insignificance or non-existence of gender inequality:

gender inequality as theoretically insignificant or non-existent;

gender inequality as derivative from capitalist relations;

gender inequality as a result of an autonomous system of patriarchy, which is the primary form of social inequality;

gender inequality as resulting from patriarchal relations so intertwined with capitalist relations that they form one system of capitalist patriarchy;

gender inequality as the consequence of the interaction of autonomous systems of patriarchy and capitalism (dualist writings).

The first category includes the writings of many mainstream sociologists. Gender inequality is theoretically insignificant for these writers because of their emphasis on class relations and their use of the family as the unit in analysis of stratification. Also included in the group are functionalists who characterize gender relations in terms of social roles which are considered different but equal. The second category is that of writings which seriously examine gender relations in their own right but conclude that they are ultimately, if not directly, derivative from capitalist social relations. The so-called ‘domestic-labour debate’ is an important example of this type of position. Writings of the third category make a decisive break with traditional ways of looking at gender relations and see patriarchy as a system of social inequality in its own right which is not derivative from any other. A wide range of social institutions are taken as the basis of patriarchy, but reproduction and sexuality are given particular importance. The fourth set of writings attempts a compromise between the previous two by arguing that capitalist and patriarchal social relations are so intertwined that they should be properly considered to be part of one social system of capitalist patriarchy. The fifth approach attempts this compromise differently, by arguing that patriarchy and capitalism are two separate social systems which can neither be reduced to each other nor conflated into one system. Here patriarchy and capitalism are seen to interact and affect each other whilst being analytically independent.