Chapter 6

Work, Work, Work

( Women and Men : Changing Roles in A Changing
Economy )
1.1Introduction

Changes in the roles of women and men, their relations to each

other, and the nature of the families in which most of them
continue to live to have been taking place at a speed that is quite
possibly unprecedented.

This situation has inevitably created stresses and strains.

Not surprisingly, people who fee insure in a world of shifting

boundaries and values are prone to look back with nostalgia
( homesickeness, wistfulness ) to the ‘good old days’ when
women were women and men were men and both knew their
proper place.

1.2 The Nature of Males and Females

As recently as the 1970s, a common interpretation of the

behavior of, and relation between, men and women emphasized
the importance of “man the hunter” and of the biological
maternal function of the female in determining the nature, and
content of her being.

Women life is devoted to being a successful wife and mother.

According, her nature is compliant, not competitive : nurturant,
not instrumental. Here activities, though not necessarily confined
1
to the home, at least center around it, for her primary mission is
to be a helpmate to her husband and to provide a warm and safe
haven for the family.

Men, on the other hand, are not constrained by their paternal

function from fully entering the world outside the home.

On the contrary, their natural role as provider and protector spurs

them on to greater efforts.

1.3The Roles of Sociobiology in Explaining Gender

Differences

Research in the 1960s and 14970s showed the following:

a) Women placed considerable emphasis on finding good

providers.

b) Men look for relatively young women who would bear

children and be good homemakers.

c) Women needed mates who were able and willing to support

them and their children.

d) Men wanted partners who would bear and nurture their

children, as well as tend home and hearth.

e) By virtue of their youth, women at the beginning of their

childbearing age were also likely to process physical
characteristics that came to be accepted as standards of
beauty.

f) Women who conformed to these standards tended to

experience greater reproductive success than those than
those who did not and passed their genes on to their
offspring.
2
 g) Intelligence, aggression and territoriality are some
characteristics of the stereotypical male of Western capitalist
society.

1.4Factors Influencing Women’s Relative Status

a) Ernestine Fridedl, an anthropologists, emphasize the

importance of environmental constraints in shaping human
organization.

Technology employed by the society to produce the

necessities of life has tended, in the past, to determine the
division of labor on the basis of gender.

The status of men and women was very unequal in society

where men provided all the needed resources and women
devoted themselves to transforming these resources into
usable form and creating a pleasant atmosphere in which
they could be used.

b) Prestige from ownership of wealth rather than from any work

they did that give a person the status.

There is no doubt, that property gives owners power over

distribution and that this helps to determine status.

c) In the case of women, it appears that sharing in the

provision for the family’s needs is a necessary, though not a
sufficient, ingredient in achieving a greater degree of
equality.

1.5Women’s Roles and Economic Development

3
a) Primitive.

In technologically primitive hunting and gathering societies,

men and women shared in providing food, clothing and
shelter for their families.

Men hunted large animals and defended the trible, whereas

women gathered a variety of vegetable foods, occasionally
hunted small animals and had the main responsibility for
food preparation and care of children.

b) More Advanced Horticultural Societies

Plants were cultivated in small plots located near the home.

Men continued to conduct warfare and also prepared the

ground for slashing and buring.

Women prepared the food and cared for the infants.

c) Pastoral Societies

Men tended to monopolize the herding of large animals, an

activity that often took them far from home. Herding
provided the bulk of what was needed for subsistence.

Women’s contributions were largely confined to tending the

primitive equivalent of hearth ( fireplace ) and home, and
women never reached more than a subservient ( obedient )
status.

d) Agricultural Societies

The introduction of the plow.

Women help in he fields, looked after small animals and

gardens, worked in the now permanent home taking care of
4
 large families, only men owned and worked the land, and the
disparity in power and influence became great indeed.

Dowry – paid by the father of the bride to the groom, who

henceforth undertake s her support.

Purdah – the practice of hiding women from the sight of

men, came into sue during that period of some of these
societies.

e) Industrialization

Production was shifted to factory and the office.

This shift reduced the burden of housekeeping but did little

to advance the status of women, who, for the most part,
continued to center their activities around the home.

Industrialization began to draw ever increasing numbers of

women into paid labor force, paving the way for a subtle
revolution of gender roles.

1.6The U.S Experience

1.6.1The Pre-industrial Period

In colonial America, the family enterprise was the dominant

economic unit, and production was the major function of the
family.

Most of the necessities for survival were produced in the

household, though some goods were generally produced for

5
sales, the proceeds of which were used to purchase some
market goods and to accumulate wealth.

Men were primarily responsible for agriculture and occasionally

trade,

Women did much of the rest of the work, including what would
today be characterized as “light manufacturing” activity.

Wealthy women were primarily managers, not workers, within

the household.

1.6.2Industrialization

Women worked in the textile mills and other industries that

sprang up in the East.

Girls were employed in the factories, often contributing part of

their pay to supplement family income and using some to
accumulate a ‘dowry’ that would make them more desirable
marriage partners.

1.6.3Industrialization and the Evolution of the Family

a) Larger segment of the population began living in urban

centers.

b) Women found that their household work increasingly came

to be confined to the care of children, the nurturing of the
husband and the maintenance of the home.

c) Along with industrialization, the family shifted from the

production unit to a consumption unit and the responsibility
6
 for earning a living came to rest squarely on the shoulders
of the husband.

If a wife entered the labor market, it was assumed that she

was either compensating for her husband’s inadequacy as a
breadwinner or that she was selfishly pursuing a career at
the expense of her household responsibilities.

1.6.4Women in the Labor market

There were always women who were economically, active

beyond taking care of the family and home.

Most women were in the service sector.

About 10 % of all women were in professional positions, almost

all were school teacher or nurses.

These professions, like domestic services, may be regarded as

extension of women’s domestic roles.