Reference: Hanson, S.,
& Pratt, G. (1995). Gender, Work, and
Space. New York, NY: Routledge.
This week, my task was
to read Gender, Work, and Space by
Hanson and Pratt (1995), which explores the relationships among women in
particular, their occupational opportunities and the places in which they
inhabit. The area of research for the study was Worcester, Massachusetts, which
according to the researchers reflects national trends regarding employment
statistics. Some of the areas of interest in this book were the dynamics of
male-dominated, female-dominated and gender-integrated occupations and how
these occupations are mapped and become altered over time. These gendered
divisions of employment are of particular interest to Hanson and Pratt in terms
of how women are impacted and what this means for their career aspirations and
opportunities. Other major topics of interest (which I will explain in greater
detail when I break down significant quotations) that were explored in this
book were the differences between men and women with regards to their distance
from work and how this distance reflects the priorities of each gender (the
vast majority of women did most or all of the housework and child-rearing, and
thus often chose occupations close to home to be available to their family),
the reasons and implications of women in part-time employment, the relationship
between upward and downward mobility regarding women’s decisions to take
child-rearing breaks, and the discrimination (as well as targeting) of women
from and for certain jobs by employers based on sexist stereotypes.
The information
collected in this book was through means of interviews that occurred in 1989
(although there has also been some information taken from other interviews
conducted in 1987 included). Hanson and Pratt interviewed men and women from a
variety of walks of life (as best they could, anyway: they acknowledged that
the majority of the population in Worcester is white) from four main
neighbourhoods: Main South, Upper Burncoat, Blackstone Valley and Westborough,
all with unique geographical characteristics and demographics. Although the
researchers opted for a quantitative mean of collecting data (using statistics
and figures throughout the text), they acknowledge that most studies in their
field are conducted by means of qualitative research and that their decision to
use a more quantitative mean of collecting information left some gaps in their
understanding. To counter this, however, the researchers do in fact include
quotations from the individuals they interviewed to not only show the
complexity of the issues they are investigating, but also to breathe some life
into their statistics. So even though their research is overall quantitative,
there are still some qualitative elements woven in to enhance the reader’s
understanding of this geographical location and the people who live there.
I should also note that
the quotations I have selected were not chosen as a means of summarizing the
most important points in the book, but rather were selected for being the most
important to my research topic. Hanson and Pratt include lengthy discussions
about the relationship between space and both race and class especially. While
I do touch upon this as I believe forgetting about different
intersectionalities can be detrimental to research as it causes the researcher
to fall into the trap of making generalizations often in favour of a white
middle-class demographic, my main focus is on the differences between men and
women with regards to work. Thus, the majority of the quotations I have
selected and produced commentary/questions for are specifically aimed at
illuminating my interests in gender relations first and foremost.
Before I begin my
notes, I have a couple other concerns that I think are important to mention.
This study was conducted in the late-1980s: can the information attained still
be useful in a modern-day context? Pretty much all of the women in the study
with husbands and/or children admitted to at least doing the majority of the
housework (some of them did all of it). If this study was conducted today,
would these findings still be legitimate? While I think it is still a major
issue, my hypothesis would be that the sharing of housework has improved, but I
will need further research to know for sure.
I also wonder if
Worcester is really a good representation of the state. While it might be a
fair representation of the United States, I want to know if it is comparable to
Canada. I find Canada and the US tends to get muddled together and described in
“North American” contexts as though they are the same country. I would be
especially interested to read a book like this that explores a Canadian city to
see if the findings are comparable.
Now that I have gotten
my initial summaries and observations over with, I can get into some specifics:
“Typically the sectors
and occupations filled by women tend to have lower income ceilings, poor
benefits, and less career mobility” (3)
“The Marxist and
socialist feminists who were engaged in this debate disagreed about whether the
burden of domestic work was thrust upon women y capitalist or by men as
patriarchs, that is, they disagreed about the relationship between capitalism
and patriarchy, but there was general agreement that subordination within the
home in large part explained women’s subordination in the labor force” (5)
Women’s unequal
treatment in the home (being given the bulk of responsibility) is being argued
to transfer to the workforce where oftentimes women do the same amount of work
or even more than men but still get paid less.
“…[as a result of
rising female waged labor] many men felt immensely threatened by the loss of
traditional masculine jobs and were torn between rejecting new forms of
employment as ‘girls’ jobs and resenting the fact that young women were taking
these jobs while older men were left unemployed”
So based on this
statement, apparently older men believe that they are more deserving of an
occupation than young women? This isn’t just sexism, this is ageism as well.
You make a wage to earn a living, and according to this statement older men
believed they were more worthy of earning a living and supporting themselves
than young women. Reading this I find it really hard not to throw my book
against a wall at how absolutely idiotic that complaint is. I won’t even get started on their rejection of these
supposed “girls” jobs…I don’t want to keep you here all day.
“The results of
numerous studies documenting that women typically commute very short distances
to paid employment suggest that this traditional definition of spatial labor
markets, and by extension localities, is rooted in men’s experiences, particularly
those of white, middle-class men” (13)
Does this statement
have anything to do with binaries? Like when you think of women existing only
in the context of men?
“In homogenizing the
experiences of women (and sometimes combining them with those of all visible
minorities), these accounts share a weakness with the literature on
occupational segregation; they both tend to treat the category ‘woman’
unproblematically, and differences among women are only superficially explored”
(15)
This quotation connects
to my previous point about the problems with not considering other
intersectionalities when studying the experiences of women: there are many
other components, such as race and class, that contribute to a woman’s
relationship to the world around her and it is dangerous to forget this.
Thesis of book: “…we
are arguing that individuals are connected to others according to the city’s
spatiotemporal layout in ways that make a difference to their experiences of
gender, class, and race, among other social relations” (22)
“…feminists have long
argued that theories are the products of embodied subjects, situated in the
contingency and partiality of the theorist’s experience” (22)
I would definitely
agree. All theories, no matter how “objective” they appear to be, derive from
the interest of the theorist, and without that subjective interest, there would
not be theories. There is always some sort of experience, curiosity,
whatever…attached that leads to the development of a theory.
“Certain jobs,
especially those considered most ‘skilled,’ were closed to women, usually by
dint of men having organized to block women’s access to their jobs” (29)
“…the segregation of
jobs according to gender, the low status and wages accorded to women’s work,
the lack of opportunity for advancement or on-the-job training, the role of
employer discrimination in shaping job opportunities—all faced Worcester (and
American) women seeking employment in the late 1980s as they did in the early 1900s”
(29)
Not much has changed.
We often try to convince ourselves that they have, but fast-forward 35 years
and we’re still in the same place!
“…Worcester resembles
many other American cities; the imprint of immigration on urban neighborhoods
and labor markets—and the role of this imprint in the gendering of work within
the U.S.—is a reminder of how gender and work are shaped at multiple scales,
from the global to the local” (43)
“Meagher (1986) traces
these attitudes from Ireland to Worcester and attributes the enduring pattern
to the abiding authority of the Catholic Church: married women were to be
‘sweet, good mothers,’ remaining at home to the exclusion not only of paid work
but also of clubs and volunteer activities” (44)
Just like in Federici,
the oppression of women in the workforce is being connected to the values
preached by the Catholic Church. Once again, I am given yet another reason to
not be religious!
“More than three
quarters (77.4 percent) of the workers in health, education and welfare, for
example, are women, as are nearly four-fifths (78.9 percent) of the workers in
consumer services. By contrast, women comprise less than one-fifth of the
workforce in construction” (58)
This quotation
highlights the gender divisions of occupations: why do women dominate the
sectors mentioned? I can understand construction to an extent because there is
the argument that men are on average biologically stronger (not in all cases
though…I’m a little skeptical about this as a fact and I will need to look into
it) but why must occupations such as health and education be gendered? I think
it all goes back to those stereotypical qualities of women as being naturally
more caring and nurturing…which is of course pure bullshit.
“…women in
female-dominated and gender-integrated occupations earn significantly less than
do women in male-dominated occupations” (62)
This makes me wonder:
the fact that male-dominated occupations earn more money than female-dominated
occupations suggests that “male work” is more valuable than “female work,”
which in turn also suggests that stereotypically male competencies (such as
strength and rationality…as I write this I’m rolling my eyes…) are more
valuable than stereotypically female competencies (the book mentions patience
and “nimble fingers” as positive female qualities in the workforce). I want to
know WHY, but I have a feeling that the answer will (ironically) be far from a
rational one. If I were to guess, I would say this all goes back to those
oppressive binaries that have worked throughout history to prize “male
characteristics” over “female characteristics,” whether or not there’s actually
good reason to do so or not.
“Female-dominated work
is frequently perceived as being low status and dead end as well as low wage”
(62)
I’m thinking that the
reason for this might be to dissuade women from taking up paid employment and
keep them in the home. This way, men would no longer be threatened by women
potentially taking over their jobs, which, as we all should know…are meant for
men (if it isn’t obvious…this is me being extremely sarcastic).
The following is a
quotation taken from the Worcester
Telegram in 1965, as quoted by Hanson and Pratt: “About 60 percent of
Sprague’s employees will be women…They must have good eyesight and a high
degree of manual dexterity, but the company will train them. The remaining 40
percent of workers will be men, many of them electronics technicians who must
have the equivalent of a degree in electronics or chemistry from the Worcester
Industrial Technical Institute at Boys Trade High School” (74)
It is especially
interesting to me how women were specifically targeted to do the unskilled
labour while they asked specifically for men to do the skilled labour: sure it
was a different time, but it’s just funny to me how apparently only men can be
skilled workers and only women can be unskilled.
“What does ‘available
in this geographic area’ really mean? The phrase suggests that women’s labor
force participation depends on the ‘availability’ of ‘appropriate’ jobs in the
‘right’ locations. In fact, geography lies at the heart of any understanding of
how women’s situation in the labor market is different from (and often more
difficult than) a man’s” (93)
When women are entering
the workforce (especially if they have a husband and/or children to take care
of), they have a lot more to consider when choosing their jobs that especially
ties into geographical location. The women in this study on average desired
their work to be closer to home so they could be closer to their families,
while the men had no such concerns (this is explored further a little later
on!).
“‘Urban life and men
tend to be thought of as more aggressive, assertive, definers of important
world events, intellectual, powerful, active, and sometimes dangerous. Women
and suburbs share domesticity, repose, closeness to nature, lack of
seriousness, mindlessness, and safety’ (Saegert 1980: S96-S97)” (94)
“…women were to be kept
out of the labor force by being spatially removed to the suburbs…Distance,
then, was to be the prime instrument used in isolating women not only from jobs
but also from power and involvement in the body politic” (94)
Even though it may not
be as common today as in the late 1980s, the fact that most middle-class homes
only had one vehicle further contributed to women’s isolation and their need
(if they did happen to decide to enter the labour force) to find a job close to
home for either on-foot or public transit transportation. Also: who gets called
when one of the kids needs to come home sick from school? The woman is
obligated to be close by so she can be at the beck and call of her family at
all times.
“We now know that this
frequently documented gender difference [short commutes to work for white
middle-class women versus longer commutes for men] to work holds only for
whites and that it obscures important differences among women…McLafferty and
Preston (1991) showed that the commutes of Latina and black women service
sector workers were as long as Latino and black men’s commutes and were
significantly longer than the work trips of white women” (98)
This quotation once
again emphasizes the importance of keeping in mind racial differences. Even
though white women on average have a shorter commute to work than men, this is
not the case for Black and Latino women.
“…in contrast to women,
men were much more likely to explain their very short worktrips by saying they
simply did not like to spend time commuting” (99)
Of course, this has
nothing to do with being close to their wives and children: men just don’t like
sitting in traffic.
“Analysis of
work-trip length shows clearly that
women work closer to home than do men and that women in female-dominated
occupations work closer to home than do other women” (103)
“Most often the
decisions women make about where to work—the decisions that lie behind their
shorter work trips—are deliberate choices made within the context of
constraints such as unreliable transportation, inadequate child care
facilities, and husbands who are not equal partners in homemaking and
childrearing” (104)
One of the most
frustrating quotations I came across in the entire book was the following: “In
the life stories that follow in this particular, woman after woman, modern
Pauline after modern Pauline, tell of the perils of a long commute and the
complicated arrangements that they have made –nannies, relying on friends
within the neighborhood, compensating neighbors in the evening and on
weekends—to offset their daily absence. Their
husbands, who undoubtedly also commute, appear to feel none of the strain”
(my emphasis, 120)
Why is it always the
woman’s job to be concerned about the well-being of her children? Last time I
checked, a baby is made with equal parts from the mother and father…and since
the father escaped one of the most miserable parts of having children (carrying
them and giving birth) you would think that they would step up throughout the
child’s life. This, of course, is not the case: so while his wife runs around like
a chicken with her head cut off trying to balance work, her home and her
family, he is dilly-dallying by stopping at Tim Horton’s to grab himself a
coffee before taking his time home (which happens to be 40 minutes away. And
since he isn’t in a rush to get home to make dinner as it will be there waiting
for him when he gets there, he can enjoy listening to the radio and never go a
kilometer over the speed limit the entire way home).
“Studies that report
that men are affected by their wives’ employment (Pleck 1985) find that their
response comes in the form of increased ‘availability’ to their children, but
not in terms of housework or more narrowly defined child care” (120-121)
Men apparently are more
available for their kids when their wives work, but nothing else. This greater
amount of “availability” to their children, I would speculate, comes through as
pure obligation (“well, my wife is at work 30 minutes away so I guess I’m the
only one who can pick up the kids from school”…this isn’t in the text, I just
made up a scenario)
“…women who have never
married are far less likely than are other women to search for a job from a
fixed residential location and, with 32 percent of never-married women finding
their residence after their job, their profile looks much like the profile of
men” (125)
It seems that when you
get married and have children is when you are forced to make some extreme
sacrifices…especially as a woman! I think it is safe to say that this is even
more reason to avoid marriage altogether!
“…residential moves that
are prompted by a change in a partner’s job location have an impact on women’s
job histories but not on men’s. Roughly 10 percent of the women in our sample
had had to leave a job in order to accommodate a change in their partner’s job
locations; not a single man had left a job for this reason” (127)
This made me really
angry. I would hope that a finding like this would not come up if this study
was conducted in Niagara Falls (for example) in 2015. Why is it always the
women’s responsibility to pick up and leave everything for her husband’s job?
And why are there no primary female breadwinners in this entire book? Once
again, I hope that can be attributed to the time period in which this book was
written. I want to have a successful career and if I got an excellent job
somewhere in Toronto, for example, I would like to think that my husband would
not hesitate to come with me (if I even do
get married at this point…it’s looking grim!).
“Women who shorten
their commutes after a childbearing/rearing break are more likely to experience
downward occupational mobility. One in five women who shortened their commute
by at least ten minutes experienced downward occupational mobility” (131)
These findings reflect
the sacrifices women make to be closer to their children. For white
middle-class women, in this study the researchers addressed that many could
afford to take on part-time work because their husbands made enough money to
allow it. In addition to that, these white middle-class women could also afford
a reduction in pay by means of a change in occupation (once again) because
their husbands make enough money to allow it. I know it’s not appropriate to “blame”
anyone in these circumstances but I’m tempted to put some oneness on women
here. It makes me really angry that many women then (and even today…) aren’t
passionate about finding meaningful careers (and I’m definitely not
generalizing here! I myself do not fit into this category) because they either
want to be homemakers or think that their husbands will make the bulk of the
money so they won’t have to worry about bringing in that almost six-figure
paycheck that will support them and their four kids and golden retriever (there’s
that analogy again!). I would be interested in investigating if this sort of
thought process still pervades our society, and to what degree. I’ve heard of “gold
diggers” and women in particular are always demonized for “going after a man
solely for his money.” Like I said, “blame” isn’t the right approach to this…but
I want to know who, or what, is responsible for these attitudes. I think
Federici’s text shed a lot of light on that, but I want to know more!
“Glass (1990) found
that as percent female in an occupation increases, jobs have less flexibility,
fewer unsupervised breaks, and are generally harder to perform” (132)
Can this statistic be
attributed to a patriarchal society’s underlying desire to push women out of
the workforce and put them back in the home?
“This use of sequential
scheduling strategy has implications for timing as well as the type of paid
employment chosen by different household members. It is significant that in the
majority of cases it is the woman who takes the less optimal or less ‘conventional’
time slot” (136)
The woman needs to be
at home with the kids, which means that during the day they must be available
for them. Thus, many of these women will take the “second or third shift,”
which are either evening or overnight shifts, to make sure they are there for
their children. My question would be: if these women are working overnight
shifts and they have to be with their children during the day, when the heck
are they sleeping?!
“It is readily arguable
that we see patriarchal relations played out through these serial scheduling
arrangements. Women tend to arrange their paid employment around the schedules
of their husbands and children” (137)
“Anticipating that
women will leave employment for childbearing/rearing, employers have
indiscriminately slotted them into certain low-wage, dead-end jobs (Peterson
1989); similarly, employers, male workers, and unions have justified the
exclusion of all women from certain job categories on the grounds that the job
poses a danger to fetuses” (140)
What if I didn’t WANT
to have kids?! And what if this supposed danger to a fetus is not a concern of
mine, even if I did happen to get pregnant accidentally? Why does society think
that they can make decisions for you based on their own moral code? In all
honesty, this just seems like an extremely poor excuse to keep women out of the
higher-paying jobs. My guess is that there probably isn’t much of a risk at all
in most cases.
“The division of
household tasks is starkly divided along gender lines…women carry out the bulk
of the chores having to do with cooking, cleaning, shopping, and some aspects
of child care, whereas men bear the brunt of yard work, and house and car
repairs” (142)
It’s funny to me how
the responsibilities of the woman are tasks that are all day, every day…whereas
for the man, this is not the case at all. How often do you need to fix your
car? How often do house repairs need to be done? Even for yard work…you’re not
doing anything in the winter! What are these men doing on a daily basis? Oh
wait…nothing.
“Men in households in
which women are employed in male-dominated occupations are especially likely to
contribute domestic labor” (144)
Fascinating! Could this
be because the man somehow respects his wife more for doing what is often
considered “men’s work” and is thus more sympathetic and willing to pick up the
slack?
“Almost all women with
high incomes have what can be termed ‘nontraditional’ family circumstances:
they are single, divorced, or married without children. Only one woman in our
entire sample was juggling childbearing with a relatively well-paying job”
(151)
This is so incredibly
depressing! If these stats were taken from this area in this time period, I don’t
think we’d see the same results. But at the same time…when I think of my mother
(who is the VP of Niagara Helicopters)…she is divorced, and her career did have
something to do with the rift in my parents’ marriage. So maybe there is some
truth to this finding…
“Women, we are told,
are better suited for repetitive, precision tasks because they have dexterity
and patience, and ‘men just can’t hack sitting there.’ On the other hand, women
were protected from some better-paid production jobs because the workplace was
too hot or ‘not a feminine environment’; they were excluded from others because
of their assumed inability to lift 50 or 70 lbs.” (157)
“In general, employers
know much more about the family circumstances of their female than of their
male employees: one in ten employers could provide information only about women
employees, and one employer told us that: ‘Marital status isn’t as much a part
of a man’s identity’” (157)
I’m really not
surprised by this…but that still doesn’t mean I can’t be angry about it. This
quotation in particular will be really useful in my discussions about feminist
marriage specifically.
“A woman at a footwear
factory in Main South told us: ‘I’ve worked here for ten years but I’ve never
been upstairs. That’s where the men are” (182)
“Because job
information flows through gender-biased networks, the jobs women are most
likely to learn about are the jobs that their female informants know about or
have held, and, given women’s general propensity to work close to home, these
job opportunities are most likely close to home” (199)
This is a classic
example of women holding some responsibility for continuing the cycle of
oppression: women are being placed in these mediocre jobs with help by other
women!
“These women’s
experiences [working in male-dominated occupations] also underline the
continuing strength of patriarchal relations both at home and work, and the
boundaries that restrict women’s access to male-dominated occupations. In
Worcester, these boundaries are often permeable only through the consent, help,
or reputations of male family members” (202)
Good summary of
section: “…the use of local networks for job information—so prevalent among
those living in Worcester—sustains local and spatially disjointed labor markets
and sex-based occupational segregation” (204)
“Five years ago,
cutting in the blanket department was a male preserve; now seven of the nine
cutters in the department are women: ‘We women are taking over…Two women
started in the shop before me…They [the men] weren’t too happy having women
come in. They didn’t treat us too well” (206)
Why was this the case?
Did these men feel emasculated? Threatened? In the context of a male-dominated
occupation, the space has been made hostile to women as a result of the men’s “claim”
to this space. The rise of female-dominated labour was already bad enough…but
now men feel the need to defend their occupational spaces from the take-over of
women to avoid more occupations being branded as “girl’s work.”
To go along with this…
“…male-dominated
occupations to which women gain entry are often quickly feminized, and the
wages then stagnate” (207)
It’s almost like once a
woman enters a male-dominated job it becomes some sort of taboo for men…like
the job has been cursed or something. Through female entry into these jobs, the
job is thus branded as “girl’s work” and then no man will come near it. Do I
even have to mention how incredibly stupid it is for this to happen? And why is
doing “girl’s work” something of such shame to men, anyway? This sort of
reminds me of those Always ad
campaigns about doing things “like a girl” and how that has become an insult in
our society. Why should doing anything like a particular gender ever be an insult?! Oddly enough, even girls get insulted when told they are
doing something “like a girl”:
“From an employer of a
sheet metal company, we heard: ‘We are supposed to have 5 to 6 percent females
by federal guidelines but we have only 2 percent. Our work is very physical. If
there’s a woman on the job, who gets the bathtub on the second floor?’” (208)
I’ve always wondered
about the sexist assertion that men are stronger than women. This might be true
in many cases just from a biological standpoint, but if a woman can prove that
she can keep up with the men then there is no reason that she should be
excluded from the work. Besides! I’ve seen women who could probably
single-handedly carry two bathtubs at once...and I know for a fact that all men
do not have the same amount of strength as these women!
“But when Westborough
employers did indicate that they value women employees for certain qualities,
they emphasized personal ones: they mentioned that women are hard working,
dependable, loyal. These are rather positive, respectful, perhaps ‘wifely’
characteristics” (210)
Excuse me while I try
to hold back my vomit…
“One of the reasons
that so few Main South employers hired women to work on the evening or night
shifts is intrinsically related to the characteristics of the place: it has a
reputation as a dangerous part of town” (212)
Sounds like another
excuse to me! If a woman is willing to brave these supposed “dangers” then that
should be up to her, not up to the
employer. This passage also suggests that women are apparently incapable of
defending themselves and they assume that men can be hired in these positions
because they are men and are automatically safe from these “dangers.”
Once again, we can’t
forget the implications of class and race: “…middle-class women can afford to
work outside of the home part time; local firms in Westborough offer part-time
hours to attract female workers;
part-time work is then more readily available to middle-class women. Local
employment opportunities then support and enable a particular middle-class
ideal of arranging mothering and paid work” (215)
“We find, for example,
no evidence that women take jobs in female-dominated occupations as part of a
long0term strategy to maximize their life-time earnings; rather, taking such
jobs—and taking them close to home—is usually part of a time-management
strategy to meet the simultaneous, and very immediate, daily demands of earning
a wage and caring for a family” (223)
One of the key,
overarching questions of this book: “Are women disproportionately in
low-paying, dead-end jobs because they choose them and because they have less
education, fewer ‘skills,’ and less work experience, or because employers
discriminate against women by assigning them certain jobs while reserving
better-paying jobs for the men?”
An important concluding
point: “Certainly the women we interviewed in Worcester did not see themselves,
or present themselves, as victims. They were actively making decisions about
how best to sustain themselves and their families. Yet they were making these
decisions within the existing (and often very constrained) structures of
family, friends, employment opportunities, and place” (225)
PLACE MATTERS!: “Women
in different places live different schedules of work, have different work experiences
and concerns. Mothers in different parts of the city are familiar with
different child-care arrangements and household divisions of labor; they live
in different moral culture and have different beliefs about what are acceptable
ways of combining parenting and waged work” (227)
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