Work: Through the Eyes of Women
Work, almost everyone does it, for a monetary profit and maybe intrinsic satisfaction. As viewers witnessed from the recent international Women’s March and Women’s strike, equal pay and opportunity for employment are making the headlines. I hope to advance beyond the typical literature of the unequal pay movement and to address the complexity surrounding what constitutes as ‘work,’ who measures it, and the consequences excluding ‘reproductive work’ have on women.
While difficult to find, a prominent practiced definition of work provided by Karl Marx (pg. 59, 1986) categorized work as an activity requiring the worker to give up “his tranquility, his freedom, and his happiness.” This patriarchal definition of work starkly contrasts to the two or three roles women globally have assumed in their daily lives: reproductive work, productive work, and community managing. I would like to focus on the first two, for the last form of work is primarily found in community-oriented societies, which does not include the majority of the United States. Reproductive work, more often than not, has been a woman’s burden due to the assumption of women fulfilling the nurturer responsibility since they have the biological capacity to reproduce. Moser (1998) places men largely in productive work, compared to the other two categories, and this type of work is defined as one being economically active. Another interesting point to consider is while both sexes play multiple roles – men focus on a single productive role at a time while women often simultaneously balance their roles. So, when you hear that women are better multi-taskers than men, consider what kind of ‘work’ women have done to have gained those skills.
What is considered informal and the private sphere of employment is mainly applicable to women: roles of the domestic worker and helper. If you watch TV, the gender roles portrayed in cleaning advertisements, such as Mr. Clean or Swiffer Duster, endorse the stereotypes of women in ‘reproductive work.’ A majority of the workers in this field are in low-paying jobs that offer little or no social protection and security. The ILO provides an idealistic stance of employment through decent work: “opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men (ILO, 2016).” The advancement that “work” has made through Marxism to the 21st century has been progressive and more inclusive, but the current de-valued and exploited work of women does not reflect the message of ‘decent work.’ Internationally, including the capitol of the United States, Washington D.C., foreign diplomats have repeatedly enslaved, exploited, and abused domestic workers while being protected by diplomatic immunity. Other than mistreatment, domestic workers also receive the short end of the stick concerning their salary. For 2015, the average salary of a garbage collector in NYC is $33,800 a year, while a housekeeper in NYC makes about $22,500 (USNews, 2015). While some may say this is not a fair comparison, due to the manual labor of garbage collectors, what about the long nighttime hours housekeepers have to work, the chemical products used to clean, or the limited social protection from management and the government? Are we assessing salaries correctly or is the system set up against the equal recognition, value, and protection of women who ‘work’?
On International Women’s Day, the UN Women (2016) provided a dismal reflection of women in the global economy through statistics: compared to 76 percent of their counterpart, only 50 percent of working age women are represented in the labor force and women have 2.5 times more unpaid work than men. The amount of time women and children spend collecting water each day is 125 million hours – that’s a substantial amount of time that women are not working, not contributing to their country’s economy but instead to ‘unpaid’ or ‘reproductive work’ (WHO, 2015). While some countries are fighting for paternity leave or mandating companies to regulate their gender wage gaps, there is still the core issue of unrecognized work that is disproportionately executed by women.
So, while most people know there is a global gender wage gap, we need to comprehend the structure of the standardized salary structure - where women are currently positioned, where or if women’s ‘unpaid work’ should be included on this scale, and to reassess reproductive work. There are men in power such as Polish politician Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who said at a recent EU Parliament debate, that “women must earn less than men, because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent.” Domestic workers and women working in the ‘caring’ field, will not receive the much needed recognition and social protection while individuals assuming the above stated position are still in power. The employment system and what society deems as ‘work’, does not benefit women but reflects the patriarchal establishments that have been recorded throughout history.
References:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/europe/polish-politician-remarks-women/
http://washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=6787:diplomatic-immunity-poses-big-hurdle-for-domestic-workers-&Itemid=282
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/jmp-2015-update/en/
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/3/press-release-international-womens-day-spotlights-impact-of-changing-world-of-work
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/mdtmanila/training/unit1/groles.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=jdDLCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&dq=the+worker+to+give+up+their+tranquility,+freedom+and+happiness&source=bl&ots=fb8-zrHzpn&sig=1UTSMa3BzkTFsU1210oKGZoacPM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ5ISB6cXSAhVKy1QKHTMBA5EQ6AEIKTAD#v=onepage&q=the%20worker%20to%20give%20up%20their%20tranquility%2C%20freedom%20and%20happiness&f=false
http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/decent-work/lang--en/index.htm
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/maid-and-housekeeper/salary
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/garbage-collector/salary
