Gender: Modern Liberal Perspective

Gender as a topic in political economy is seriously lacking. The role women play during different times in the society they belong to seem to be a topic that is rarely touched upon in works that we have read from many of the economists throughout history. Yet, women, and the general topic of gender, are very much relevant to every topic that relates to political economy whether it labor, unemployment, government, market, and education. I chose to focus on the topic of gender and women, because they are such an important segment in all populations, and therefore are significant topic to discuss within any type of forum. I am also interested in the topic of gender because and I am constantly reminded of the inequalities between the two sexes whether it be though social roles, wage gaps, and just the overall gender stereotypes that exist and perpetuate the discrimination of women. The position I have taken when it comes to discourse of Gender is that of the Modern Liberal. Clark, in his chapter, The Political Economy of Gender, discussed the three historical phases of Modern Liberal Feminism. In the first phase, the feminist movement did not believe in equality between the sexes. Women, they had claimed, were less aggressive and individualist than men. And because of their given traits, women contributed to a, “decent society by promoting nonviolence, cooperation and civic virtue” (232). The second phase, which occurred during the 1960’s was characterized by the National Organization for Women (NOW). Feminists during this time sought to eliminate any law that perpetuated the stereotype of a woman just being a homemaker or caregiver. These feminists saw the women’s lower wages as a way to give another example of how gender stereotypes played a role in the discrimination of women in the workforce. Modern liberals were advocating for new laws and more government intervention to make, “capitalism more efficient and fair” (233). The third phase of Modern Liberal feminism, like in the first phase, had been about bringing out the differences in the sexes. A difference, according to Nancy Chodorow, that can be traced back to the early stages of a childhood development in the genders. As they develop their sense of independence and separation from others, boys will be ready for the business world, while girls, will be better mothers as a result of their greater sense of self and sympathy for others. (233). To illustrate the inequalities that have existed between genders we can look no further than the work of Modern Liberal thinker John Stuart Mill and his work on the subjection of women in England. In his 1869 work, Subjection of Women, it concentrated on the role of women and men during that time. Men were of the bread winners and were the ones to hold high positions in parliament. “The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural” (128). Mills was very vocal in his opinion of women having the same rights as men. According to him, the things that had been keeping women from receiving the same rights as men were the construction society has of gender. Women had been seen as property of their husbands once they were married. The role of wife was raising the children and taking care of the household. Education was limited for women during this time. According to Mills and other Modern Liberals it was social conditioning of preferences that led women to have limitations of what they could and could not do. From a young age, women were set on a path to keep them oppressed. Mills stated that in order to advance in society (morally as well as intellectually) women needed to have the same rights as men. A great point is brought up by modern liberals who realized the power of parents, peers, and society have in influencing the types of aspirations and achievements girls will have. Though, this statement can be applied to both genders. Clark called this “educational tracking” as directing girls’ towards coursework that would gear them to more traditional female roles. In an article by Sharron Joyson in USA TODAY, she brought some interesting data to show just how this type of ‘tracking’ is still affecting women even today. According to study done by the Pew Research Center, women were preferred in professions in education (elementary school teacher), bankers, a family doctors, while men were preferred in positions like being an air pilot, surgeon, police officer and attorney. We can see that the careers favored for women directly deal with the family. How can these gender inequalities be overcome? Well, it can start by closing the gaps that are still exist in institutions, especially those in education for women. Mills talked about women being set at a certain path in terms of aspirations and achievements, well, Naila Kabeer, in her article, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, goes on to discusses the third Millennium Development goal which deals with closing gender gaps in education. Education increased the likelihood of women being able to look after themselves, as well as being able to care for their families. Education has also has the power to help women participate in a wider range of decisions than those with no education. (16). Kabeer brings in a good point in that not all goals work to measure the empowerment of women in their societies. It is very much dependent in the time and place in which these goals are being applied. The oppression of women, for example, in Palestine, is not seen by feminist as coming primarily from the Palestinian men, but from the occupation that has occurred in Palestinian territories by Israeli forces. When talking about equality, they speak of their right to have their own nation-state. (Hasso, 2005). I want to present the case of Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinian women, during the Second Intifada, began to join certain factions in Palestine in order to fight the occupation. This was seen by many as defying the characteristics that are associated with femininity. Some of the women were clearly violating everything that is seen as feminine when they proclaimed themselves as legitimate militant actors or active agents, and most importantly the traditional gender roles in their patriarchal society (Hasso, 2005, Bloom 2011). Can this be seen as empowerment for women in their society? Well, Kabeer said that empowerment come with the ability to make choices. A person can have choice and not be empowered though, because to be empowered, one must be disempowered, first. Disempowerment for these women comes in the form of settlements, checkpoints, and fences. Kabeer also notes that the concept of empowerment can be explored though three closely inter-related dimensions: agency (represents the process by which choices are made and put into effect), resources (medium though which agency is exercised), and achievements (which refers to the outcomes of agency) (15-16). To some of these women, they are changing their roles from mothers/daughters to fighters and becoming agents of change. Not all thinkers’ believe that there is something wrong with the gender gap that exists between men and women. Conservatives, for example, believed that women and men’s different temperaments and abilities are good indicators to define gender roles. Women are weaker physically and men are strong, therefore they are disadvantaged when performing certain tasks. They viewed, “men as strong, aggressive, and inclined toward rational analysis, while women are nurturing and emotionally expressive” (Clark, 1998). I do not agree with anything they believe, especially because those assumptions were based on the stereotypes of both genders. Even today we can see that that is not the case, and an example of that it women that are working in jobs that have traditionally been for men. An example of this is the military. Though, wage discrepancies and inequalities within the market do exist, most of these inequalities because of the social environment women live in. Women’s ability to work and any type of career is not dependent on the indicators proposed by conservatives. Through most of the discourse of gender, women have always been at the center of it. They are faced with many forms of discrimination when entering the workforce. In terms of the market, women are faced with the imperfections within it. According to Modern liberals it was these unions, corporations, which prevented women from getting into certain positions because qualifications for a certain job tended to screen out women as potential candidates. Jobs also tended to stay within the “old boys’ network.” (234). There is also the discrepancy in pay, or wages paid to women. Michele Barrett and Mary Macintosh (2005), both from the radical perspective, have discussed the differences in wage labour and the domestic household work within the different ethnic groups in Britain, helping distinguish how each run their households. In their study they were able to find, for instance, that single women with dependents, especially ethnic minorities worked longer our noting that the West Indian women showed more injustice and irrationality of a male family wage system (72). Wages were dictated by the market and the demand for labour, in which women were always underpaid when compared to men, and even more so if they were minorities. Even today, as explained by Laura Walter in her article, Workplace Gender Inequality Still Alive Worldwide, women do not do well in all measure of equality in their countries. “Italy, for example, ranks first in wage equality but is 20th in the number of women employed. Sweden is No. 1 in women’s employment but is only 14th in full-time work. While Belgium is first in occupational integration, it is 18th in women’s employment.” I should note that this information comes from data collected in number of countries that are part of the ongoing Luxembourg Income Study. Also, the division of labor within the family leaves women with little options it terms of what careers they can pursue. . Because of their social environment, they are left with the responsibilities of being homemakers and caregivers. In turn, this leaves women with little option of what jobs they could get. Modern liberals noted how women that had to balance a family and work always tended to go for jobs that offered flexible hour or part/time. The market itself can be seen as a major stakeholder; especially corporations that move their business to developing countries in order to be able to compete with other industries. This is possible because developing countries now have the ability to offer employers cheap labor. Another major stakeholder in gender, besides women and the market are men. A perfect example of how they could control men’s status and, in a way, assert their dominance over one gender, can be seen in the creation of the census. In her work, Unproductive Housewife, Nancy Folbre looked into the creation of the census and how women where factored into the data collected in England, Germany and U.S. During the late 19th century, 40 percent of single women and 6 percent of married women were seen as occupied, and only 10 percent of women in England were listed as having occupations in their census. Later this term would be replaced with “Unoccupied Class.” Why? Well, women did not contributing with ‘productive’ work, because no wage was earned. The census figures, of course failed to show the contribution women made to the families’ economic welfare. Women aside from performing domestic labor also had market income coming in. (participation in family enterprises). Housewives performed household services to other people. Men viewed women’s work as a moral responsibility. “Most political economists reinforced this distribution between moral (or private) and the economic (or public) world, nearly assigning women and the family to one, men and the market to the other” (468). In England there was the emergence of the ‘male breadwinner norm’, which basically came from unionists who feared that women would work for less money, so they benefited from women doing domestic work. When women were checked in a ‘dependents’, economic dependence was used to explain the lower wage their received and in turn the men who provided for women got the benefit of demanding higher wages to support these ‘dependents’. According Elizabeth Prugl (1999) the separation of home and work had affirmed the men as the breadwinners and, “constructed an image of workers as independent and unattached to homes. The masculine workers was a free agent, free to sell his labor power, free to enter contracts, and capable of representing himself in political society” (39). This group was considered not being able to provide for themselves, the census helped men, in terms of numbers, in their demands for higher wages and the market to assert their position as head of household. The next step is to figure out what these stakeholders can do to remedy some of the problems women face the workforce. One way policy proposed by Modern Liberals was comparable worth. This alternative would allow each job to be evaluated by a certain criteria that determines the, “level of responsibility, physical difficulty, and amount of training required” (Clark 1998). Each category would mean a point (measuring the value), and a numerical rate would be made for each job and a person would be paid according to that rating standard. By being paid more than the market-determined wages women begin to feel like they are treated fairly because wages for both men and women would be measured according to the task. Modern Liberals also see the benefits of using comparable worth in the home. There is more efficiency. If adults grow in a nurturing family they are more like to work productively, and contribute to the good of society. Is this a feasible proposal? Perhaps it will take time to figure out the logistics of it because who will be the people responsible to measure the value of the work? One thing I do see as feasible is helping understand the importance of women, not only as bear of children and keeper of the home, but as professional in the workforce.

References
Barrett, M., & McIntosh, M. (2005). Ethnocentrism and socialist-feminist theory. Feminist Review, 0(80), 64-86. Retrieved April 2, 2012, from the JSTOR database.
Bloom, M. 2011. Bombshells: Women and terror. Gender Issues, 28, no.1/2 [June]: 1-21. doi:10.1007/s12147-011-9098-z (accessed September 20, 2011)..
Clark, B. S. (1998). The Political economy of gender. Political economy: a comparative approach. 2nd ed., (pp. 219-240). New York: Praeger
Egeland, C. (2004). Contentions: What’s feminist in feminist theory? European Journal of Women’s Studies, 11(2), 177-188.
Folbre, N. (1991). The unproductive housewife: Her evolution in nineteenth-century economic thought. The University of Chicago Press, 16(3), 463-484. Retrieved February 5, 2012, from the JSTOR database.
Hasso, F. S. 2005. Discursive and political deployments by/ of the 2002 Palestinian women suicide bombers/martyrs. Feminist Review, no.81. 23-51. JSTOR (accessed April 20, 2011).
Jayson, S. (2008, September 26). Gender equality settles in at home, but not in certain jobs - USATODAY.com. News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Accessed April 27, 2012, from http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/2008-09-25-gender-power-side_N.htm.
Kabeer, N. ( 2005). Gender equality and women 's empowerment: A critical analysis of the third Millennium development goal. Gender and Development, 13, 1, 13-24.
Mill, J. S., & Alexander, E. (1999). The subjection of women. On liberty (pp.119-217). Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press.
Prügl, E. (1999). Motherly women- Breadwinning Men: Industrial homework and the construction of wester welfare states. The global construction of gender: Home-based work in the political economy of the 20th century (pp. 37-38). New York: Columbia University Press.
Stimpson, C. R., Shulman. A. K., & Millett, K. (1991). "Sexual politics:" Twenty years later. Women 's Studies Quarterly, 19(3/4), 30-40. Retrieved April 2, 2012, from the JSTOR database.
Walter L. (2010, February 23). Workplace Gender Inequality Still Alive Worldwide | EHS Today. EHS Today - The Magazine for Environment, Health, and Safety Leaders | OSHA. Accessed April 28, 2012, from http://ehstoday.com/international/news/workplace-gender-inequality-alive-worldwide-4787/

References: Barrett, M., & McIntosh, M. (2005). Ethnocentrism and socialist-feminist theory. Feminist Review, 0(80), 64-86. Retrieved April 2, 2012, from the JSTOR database. Bloom, M. 2011. Bombshells: Women and terror. Gender Issues, 28, no.1/2 [June]: 1-21. doi:10.1007/s12147-011-9098-z (accessed September 20, 2011).. Clark, B Egeland, C. (2004). Contentions: What’s feminist in feminist theory? European Journal of Women’s Studies, 11(2), 177-188. Folbre, N. (1991). The unproductive housewife: Her evolution in nineteenth-century economic thought. The University of Chicago Press, 16(3), 463-484. Retrieved February 5, 2012, from the JSTOR database. Hasso, F. S. 2005. Discursive and political deployments by/ of the 2002 Palestinian women suicide bombers/martyrs. Feminist Review, no.81. 23-51. JSTOR (accessed April 20, 2011). Kabeer, N. ( 2005). Gender equality and women 's empowerment: A critical analysis of the third Millennium development goal. Gender and Development, 13, 1, 13-24. Mill, J. S., & Alexander, E. (1999). The subjection of women. On liberty (pp.119-217). Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press. Stimpson, C. R., Shulman. A. K., & Millett, K. (1991). "Sexual politics:" Twenty years later. Women 's Studies Quarterly, 19(3/4), 30-40. Retrieved April 2, 2012, from the JSTOR database.