the politics of work and family feminism: lecture 1
TRANSCRIPT
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THE POLITICS OF WORK AND FAMILYFeminism: Lecture 1
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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
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TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION FACED BY WOMEN RELATING TO WORK
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK
1. Explicit Sex Discrimination
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK
1. Explicit Sex Discrimination
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in
Employment: Job Descriptions
Examples:
Height and weight requirements
Expected working hours and overtime
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in
Employment: Job Descriptions
3. Disadvantage in the Family: Women are far more likely to do far more housework and be primary caregivers for children
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in
Employment: Job Descriptions
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
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK
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
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DISADVANTAGE & DISCRIMINATION RELATING TO WORK2. Structural Disadvantage/Discrimination in Employment:
Job Descriptions
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
Part of and one of the effects of this cycle of disadvantage is Disadvantage/Discrimination in Divorce Settlements
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SHOULD WE TRY TO END OR MITIGATE THESE TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE?
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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?
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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
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SHOULD WE TRY TO END OR MITIGATE THESE TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE?
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
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SHOULD WE TRY TO END OR MITIGATE THESE TYPES OF DISADVANTAGE?
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
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PRACTICAL PROPOSALS
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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
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PRACTICAL PROPOSALS
Family Friendly Policies
Parental Leave
Part-time work and flexibility
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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
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‘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)
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‘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)
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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
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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
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MITIGATING GENDER ROLES
Socialisation into Gender Roles
Stereotyped Perceptions at Birth
Watching Parents
Workplace policies
Toys, Books, Films
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TOYS
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TOYS
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CHILDREN’S BOOKS
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CHILDREN’S BOOKS
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CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Male characters are central characters in 57% of children’s books published each year. 31% have female central characters
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FILMS
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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
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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
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MITIGATING GENDER ROLES
Arguments Against Mitigating or Ending Socialisation into these Gender Roles
No one believes in Gender Roles anymore
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MITIGATING GENDER ROLES
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
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RADICAL PROPOSALS
Should we abolish all gender roles?
Should the family be abolished then?
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A LITTLE CLOSERCASE STUDY: JOBS IN PHILOSOPHY
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WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY
Explanations:
1.Women’s preferences or ability
2.Women are impeded by implicit bias and stereotype threat
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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.
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STEREOTYPE THREAT
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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
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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
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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
Journals and Refereeing
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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
Refereeing
Stereotype threat even for successful philosophers
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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
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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
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NEXT WEEK
Sexual Harassment
Feminism and Language Change
Required Reading: Saul, Feminism, Chapters 2 & 6