Doing Women's Studies: Employment Opportunities, Personal Impacts and Social Consequences
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Doing Women's Studies: Employment Opportunities, Personal Impacts and Social Consequences
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Overview
This volume is the first to explore what happens to women who have undertaken Women's Studies training in the labour market. Factors influencing their actual employment experiences include employment opportunities for women in each country, their expectations of the labour market and gender norms informing those expectations, how far equal opportunities are actually enforced and the strength of local women's movements.
Doing Women's Studies provides unique information about, and insightful analyses of, the changing patterns of women's employment in Europe; equal opportunities in a cross-European perspective; educational migration; gender, race, ethnicity and nationality; and the uneven prevalence and impact of Women's Studies on the lifestyles and everyday practices of those women who have experienced it. The contributors are prominent feminist researchers from nine European countries. Their findings will be of interest to sociologists and gender studies experts working in the areas of gender, employment, equal opportunities and the impact of education on employment.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781842775011 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2005 |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d) |
About the Author
Gabriele Griffin is Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Hull. She is the co-founding editor of The Feminist Theory Jourbanal. Recent publications include Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain (2003), Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women's Studies, co-edited with Rosi Braidotti (Zed 2002), and HIV/AIDS and Representation: Visibility Blue/s (2000).
Read an Excerpt
Doing Women's Studies
Employment Opportunities, Personal Impacts and Social Consequences
By Gabriele Griffin
Zed Books Ltd
Copyright © 2005 Gabriele GriffinAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84813-129-3
CHAPTER 1
Employment opportunities for women in Europe
NICKY LE FEUVRE AND MURIEL ANDRIOCCI
We have prepared this chapter with the aim of providing a basic framework for understanding the employment opportunities for Women's Studies graduates in nine European countries (partners in the EWSI project – see Introduction to this volume). We thus take a systematic look at the national variations in women's labour market participation generally. The project was based on the idea that, due to the particular training they receive, Women's Studies graduates are in a better position to contest the gender stereotypes that shape women's experiences of the work-life interface than are most other women of their generation. In order to verify this hypothesis, we thought it important to provide some knowledge about the dominant 'gender order' (Connell 1987) or 'sexual contract' (Pateman 1988) that characterizes the different European Union (EU) member-states at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
We therefore briefly propose a theoretical framework for understanding the potential influence of Women's Studies on women's employment expectations, aspirations and experiences, before going on to present a general statistical overview of women's employment rates and patterns in the partner countries of the EWSI project. With reference to the recent research on gender and welfare states, we attempt to illustrate the dynamic nature of society-specific gender relations, in relation to women's labour-force participation, to the domestic division of labour and caring, and to public policy decisions. As many authors have stressed, these three dimensions of gender relations have all been contested and transformed in recent years. Since the second wave women's movement has played an important role in redefining the relative positions of men and women in employment and in the family, and in encouraging equal opportunity public policy innovations, and since the knowledge-base for Women's Studies was inspired by the women's movement, it seems logical to conclude that Women's Studies training provides students with the ability to negotiate the terms of existing gender relations. Women's Studies training not only provides students with detailed knowledge of the social processes that produce gender discrimination and inequality, it also enhances their self-confidence and ability to negotiate more egalitarian relationships in their daily lives. In the third part of this chapter, we discuss the potential impact of Women's Studies training on women's employment patterns in the EU and conclude with an analysis of the potential role of Women's Studies for improving the efficiency of European and national equal opportunities measures in the future.
Theoretical perspectives on women's employment in Europe
In the EWSI project we decided to adopt the 'gendered welfare states' analytical framework developed throughout the 1990s by several European researchers. This approach was particularly relevant for our project, since it places the question of women's employment in a global societal context. It suggests that three dimensions of contemporary European societies, which traditional academic disciplinary boundaries have all too often dissociated, need to be analysed together: first, the process of industrialization and the specific labour market characteristics of industrial and post-industrial societies; second, the family sphere, seen both from the angle of marriage and parenting, and from the angle of the domestic, educational and 'caring' activities carried out there; and, lastly, the state, or rather the public policies which have historically shaped the relationship between the two above-mentioned spheres, and which are also liable to determine the precise forms of this relationship in a given national context, in particular as regards the social positions and roles collectively attributed to men and women (see Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 is useful for a comparative analysis of the employment aspirations and opportunities of graduates in Women's Studies, since it relates simultaneously to the social structures that characterize a society at a given time in its history and to the collective representations which constitute the 'mental aspect' of gender relations (Godelier 1984; Guillaumin 1992). We can thus understand not only why job opportunities, for women in general and for Women's Studies graduates in particular, are not identical in all European societies, but also why women's employment aspirations and experiences also vary according to their societal and historic context. Thus: 'State policies can affect, notably, women's demands for employment, the way in which women define themselves as active or inactive within the labour market, the costs and profits generated by the decision to take up paid work, given the costs of child care and other constraints' (European Commission 1996b: 2).
Women's employment and welfare state regimes Although academic feminist research has always been interested in the role of the state in maintaining or combating gender inequalities in the labour market, the debate on European comparisons of women's employment patterns was refuelled in the early 1990s by Gosta Esping-Andersen's (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Esping-Andersen was not directly interested in the question of gender relations, and was to be severely criticized by a wide range of feminist scholars for his neglect of this question (Daly and Lewis 2000; Jenson 1986; Lewis 1992; Sainsbury 1994, 2001; Ungerson 1990). This book can nevertheless be seen as a major milestone in attempts to analyse the role of the state in shaping women's employment in contemporary western societies. With the explicit aim of analysing the potential for 'convergence' between the different 'welfare regimes' of the EU member-states, Esping-Andersen's work was an extension of the previously available frameworks for analysing the role of the state in contemporary western (capitalist) societies (Titmuss 1963, 1974).
The question of the dynamic nature of these societal models is at the heart of the feminist Birgit Pfau-Effinger's work. According to Pfau-Effinger, the new 'gendered welfare state regime' models need to be refined, notably in order to account for changes over time. Through a comparative analysis of the 'modernization of motherhood', Pfau-Effinger claims that women's employment patterns are not solely determined by state intervention in the labour market and childcare provision. In order better to understand the national and historical variations in women's employment patterns, all the 'gendered' aspects of modern societies need to be analysed. In addition to the 'gender systems' highlighted in previous feminist research on welfare state regimes, Pfau-Effinger introduces the notion of 'gender culture', which refers to the specific set of standards, norms and values that define gender relations and the sexual division of labour in a particular national and historical context. Thus, men and women do not only live in societies where the objective possibilities for more egalitarian relations between the sexes vary considerably, they also adhere to very different beliefs about the 'ideal' nature of men and women's place in society (Pfau-Effinger 1996). The societal 'gender arrangement' must therefore be analysed in a way that accounts for the 'objective' social structures and for the 'subjective' relationship of individuals to those structures. According to Pfau-Effinger, the nature of the 'gender contract' in each country can be identified by means of the following indicators: (a) the fact that men and women are either assigned to 'specific spheres' or that both sexes are expected to articulate their professional, their parental and their personal commitments to society; (b) the degree to which equal opportunity measures are institutionalized at all levels of society; (c) the fact that childcare and other forms of care are either primarily assigned to individuals and families, to public sector institutions or to the market; (d) the degree to which heterosexual marriage dominates lifestyle choices, in comparison to alternative living arrangements (single-parent families, staying single with or without children, community-based living arrangements, etc.) (Pfau-Effinger 1993: 390). Pfau-Effinger is particularly interested in the ability of different social groups to impose changes on the dominant social structures and norms in a given social context. Although she does not deny that there may be structural inequalities between the different groups involved in the negotiation of new social norms, she insists on the fact that women's ability to initiate changes should not be denied, not only in relation to institutions but also with respect to other social groups (men). Her aim is thus to restore women's potential for action and to take account of the contribution of feminist movements to the negotiation of new social norms (Pfau-Effinger 1999: 67). Pfau-Effinger thus refines the 'male breadwinner' model. She is particularly interested in understanding the factors that explain that a given national welfare state regime has integrated a specific vision of gender relations at a certain time in its history, but she is also concerned with the factors that influence the evolution of this societal model over time. Although she does not pay explicit attention to the question of intra-country variations, her conceptual framework also enables us to consider the 'infra-national variants' identified by Claude Martin (1997).
Hence the comparative analysis of women's employment is no longer envisaged solely from the angle of the state and public policy. A more appropriate typology for the analysis of women's employment should integrate both the structural (social) and subjective (cultural) elements that combine to form the societal framework within which women's labour market participation patterns are determined. As we have seen, this enables us to analyse the evolution of models within a given society over time, and to consider the role of feminist movements (and perhaps even academic Women's Studies) in inducing change. In her own research, Pfau-Effinger defines a typology comprising five different 'gender cultural models'.
1. The family economic gender model. This is the model that corresponds to the pre-industrial situation in most European countries. It is characterized by cooperation between all the individuals who constitute an autonomous economic entity (farming, commerce, craft unit, etc.), which is built around a domestic entity (family, often extended to several cohabiting generations). There may be a strong sexual division of tasks, but men and women are dependent on one another for the survival of the economic entity and for each other's 'welfare'. In a way, it is the pre-industrial model of the sexual division of labour in European societies.
2. The male breadwinner/female home-carer model. This model is based on a differentiation between the public and private spheres to which individuals are assigned according to their sex. Men are considered as the main breadwinners, whereas taking care of the activities connected with the home is primarily assigned to women. The latter are therefore responsible for caring for dependent persons and for performing all the domestic tasks. In this model, men and women are envisaged as complementary, in an organization of 'separate spheres' which are in fact articulated through the marriage contract.
3. The male breadwinner/female part-time worker model. Pfau-Effinger characterizes this model as a 'modernized' version of the 'male breadwinner/female home-carer model' (Pfau-Effinger 1999: 63). Adult men and women are all expected to work at the end of their school years, but the arrival of one or more children in the household serves to redefine the pattern of women's labour market participation. The delicate task of 'reconciling work and the family' falls solely on female shoulders (Junter-Loiseau 1999). In most cases, 'reconciliation' usually takes the form of a reduction in women's paid working time (with a move from full-time to part-time jobs, for example) and an intensification of men's professional investment.
4. The dual-breadwinner/state carer model. Men and women are first and foremost considered as individuals and they are not assigned primarily to either of the two spheres. Each individual is expected to work. A diverse range of 'family patterns' is tolerated, since there is no functional need for men and women to exchange breadwinning and caring services in a stable family unit. When people choose to live together, they operate as 'dual-breadwinners', for themselves and for their children. In this model, the 'reconciliation of work and the family' is facilitated by the collective organization of household services, in particular as regards childcare. In countries that adopt this gender cultural model, 'The State is regarded as more competent for fulfilling this task than private households are' (Pfau-Effinger 1999: 63). Despite public policies aimed at increasing men's investment in the family sphere (generously funded parental leave measures, for example), it nevertheless remains the case that women tend to use the policy measures directed at 'reconciliation' to a greater extent than their male counterparts.
5. The dual-breadwinner/dual-carer model. Here, men and women are not only considered equal, they are also 'interchangeable', both in the labour market and as regards unpaid caring activities. Contrary to the previous model, the burden of caring activities does not revert directly to the state (through the provision of a wide range of 'social services' to households), but rather to individual men and women. However, in order to make it structurally (and culturally) possible for individuals of both sexes to combine their professional and caring responsibilities, state intervention is required in order to ensure that 'the labour market is organized in such a manner that structurally allows for parents to fulfil a "dual responsibility"' (ibid.).
From previous comparative research findings, it is possible to add a sixth model to Pfau-Effinger's typology:
6. The dual-breadwinner/market carer model. Here, the 'externalization' of domestic care activities is left to market forces and new inequalities emerge between those households whose 'dual earnings' are high enough to allow the purchase of a wide range of domestic and care services on the labour market and those households that, through lack of economic resources, are excluded from the household services market, except as (low-)paid providers of such services (Crompton 1999; Le Feuvre et al. 1999a).
Historical comparisons of the east-west divide in Europe The typology of the 'gendered welfare states' was initially founded on capitalist market economies. The countries of the former Eastern bloc were not explicitly included in the first feminist-inspired analyses summarized in the previous section. According to Pfau-Effinger: 'An extension of the analysis to Central and Eastern European societies and societies outside Europe would, of course, extend the range of gender cultural models' (Pfau-Effinger 1999: 64). In order to include the EWSI partners who previously formed part of the Soviet regime (the former GDR, Hungary and Slovenia), in our analysis, we have attempted to identify the principal elements of the 'Soviet social policy regime' which influenced women's employment patterns in these countries. After the Second World War, the countries which were later to form the Eastern bloc switched rapidly from being agrarian societies to socialist-type industrial regimes, based on the Soviet model, collectivization with control and planning of production and consumption. The two pillars of the socialist ideology at the time were: 'That all people, regardless of sex or race, were equal politically, economically and socially [and] that all those capable of working in the paid labour market should do so and rewards in the new society were to be based on this form of worker participation' (Makkai 1997: 189).
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction - Gabriele Griffin 1. Employment and Women's Studies - Nicky Le Feuvre and Muriel Andriocci 2. Equal Opportunities in cross-European Perspective - Isabel Carrera Su rez and Laura Vi¤uela Su rez 3. The Institutionalization of Women's Studies in Europe - Gabriele Griffin 4. The Professionalization of Women's Studies Students in Europe - Harriet Silius 5. The Impact of Women's Studies on its Students' Relationships and Everyday Practices - Gabriele Griffin and Jalna Hanmer 6. Educational Migration and Gender: Women's Studies Students' Educational Mobility in Europe - Borbala Juhasz, Andrea Peto, Jeannette van der Sanden, and Berteke Waaldijk 7. Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Nationality - Gabriele Griffin 8. Comparative Research in Europe - Jalna Hanmer References Notes on Contributors Index