Journal Article Critique, "Trickle Down Feminism

Jaffe, Sarah. "Trickle-down feminism." Dissent 60.1 (2013): 24+. Academic OneFile. Web. 17 July 2013.
Sarah Jaffe, the author of this article, was the former labor editor at Alternet. She has written many pieces about the economy,social movements and organizing. This tittle of the, “Trickle Down Feminism”, is a term derived from the unsuccessful economic “trickle down” theory. In which the theory stated giving tax cuts to the bourgeoisie would eventually benefit the lower class by providing more jobs. Trickle Down Feminism is similarly that the powerful, often white, and educated feminists focus on the issues that are not directly applicable to most everyday women. She wrote “Trickle down feminism won’t do the job”.

In her article she addresses the issue of the glass ceiling, and the many factors trapping women under it. She says that todays famous feminists are not an accurate representation of working women. They are often white and well-educated, unlike the millions of women who are oppressed in todays patriarchy. Jaffe uses data and statistics to show the economic trends that are preserving male dominance. Jaffe’s article can be closely related to the “Conflict theory”. She expressed the constant power struggle between women and men, employer and employees, feminists and the labor movement. She also confronts the socially constructed view that women dominated jobs are demeaning, stating that domestic work is not less important than other jobs.

Women also face less stability in the workforce compared to the dominant male workforce. Jaffe discloses from the Women’s Policy Research that “some 60 percent of jobs in the public sector were held by women” One factor contributing to the average wage disparities among gender is that of the right to choose. According to th Ramesh Ponnuru, that women choose lowering paying jobs because those jobs are acceptable professions for women. Professions like librarians, custodians, public transportation, are gender segregated, mostly women. Often work like janitors and cleaning is undervalued because of the cultural deems this as women’s work. Jaffe interviews Ai-Jen Poo, the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who says that “All work is gendered. And the economy that we have assigns different levels of value based off of that.” These jobs lack respect, and Jaffe concludes are often “outside of feminism’s realm of concern or influence”. The stereotypical “women’s” work remains a very crucial part of the economy. Jaffe concedes ensuring that work in these fields is stable and justly paid is not just a feminist issue but also a labor issue.

In this article Jaffe effectively conveys that there is too much focus on wealthy, white, educated women and not enough energy places on the economic trends that impact women’s lives. Jaffe adds that labor and class influenced the feminist perspective of the workplace. Jaffe also guides us to shift our attention on the low wage women dominated service jobs that instead of on the boardroom where most mainstream feminist energies have been dedicated. She explains concisely why feminism with principle and stability is also pro-union.

Jaffe writes “the women who look to unions rather than to feminism to help them at work.”With the masses of women working in jobs that earn significantly less than men, it is important for women to use unions at work. Jaffe says that for generations employers have been counting on paying women less. Jaffe uses data from Sargent Shiver Nation Center on Poverty Law that concluded that women are less than half of the national workforce and women make up 60% of the minimum wage workforce, and women make significantly less than men in many fields.

The values of equal pay for equal work, pro-union, equal opportunity is evident throughout this piece. Though, Jaffe herself is white and educated she does effectively convey her point that mainstream feminists need to refocus on the larger issues of the smaller women.The feminist movement and labor movement must work together to protect the women workers of these jobs, and to make sure that they will be valued and respected. Jaffe does a seamless job of bringing these important two issues together by using pertinent data, representative examples, interviews and quotations.