welsch@houxu.UUCP (09/25/83)
The entire September 1982 issue of the Scientific American is devoted to "The Mechanization of Work." It contains an excellent article by Joan Wallach Scott called "The Mechanization of Women's Work." The article is filled with charts and figures developed from data collected from the U.S. Department of labor. [Those of you with the statistics lie obsession, should see my foot note]. There are two facts which are clear from the data. The first is that: The occupations dominated by women are for the most part unskilled and poorly paid. Those dominated by men are a mixture of well paid skilled jobs and blue collar jobs. The second fact is that: Women's earnings are less than those of men in the same occupation in almost every field. ... The differential exists in both skilled and unskilled occupations; it exists in occupations dominated men and those dominated by women. The article is excellent and must reading for anyone interested in the inequities that persist today. The final paragraph especially worth thinking about. Those who insist that only a revaluation of women's status can lead to greater economic equity and the integration of women into all sectors of the labor market address the problem directly. Until the social and cultural conception of the value of women's work has been changed there can be no revolutionary transformation of women's status as workers. The mechanization of work affects those who work and society at large only through the social context in which the machinery is employed. For women mechanization has confirmed rather than altered their economic and social valuation. In spite of the political and industrial revolution of recent centuries the revolution for women is yet to come. Larry Welsch houxu!welsch P.S. A note on "statistics can lie." My first reaction is a tongue in cheek "gee no kidding, it never occurred to me." More seriously, I think we all know statistics can lie. Statistics are just masses of numerical data. How to look at the data, interpret it and evaluate it is an art. If you believe the interpretation I am ascribing to the statistics is wrong then you must either gather new data or reinterpret the statistics I am using. The tired cliche "statistics can lie" is a cop out used when one is not interested in looking for the truth.
howard@metheus.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) (05/22/84)
Those who have been following the discussion on Allstate Insurance may be interested in an article titled "Vernacular Gender" by Ivan Illich in a recent issue of CoEvolution Quarterly. One of the points he makes is that the ratio of women's pay to men's pay has remained utterly constant at 59% plus or minus 3% across all times and all cultures for which this data exists. (Note: I'm not 100% sure I remembered this figure right, but I think it is.) This hints at the existence of a cause independent of specific cultures. THERE HAS BEEN NO IMPROVEMENT IN THE LAST 100 YEARS. The only thing that has changed is that more women are now earning salaries and are thus subject to this easily measured form of discrimination. Illich argues that this is a necessary effect of industrial society, and that it cannot be undone without a lowering of economic expectations. He has many interesting examples, such as a German town where the divorce rate boomed when the people changed from subsistence farming to cash crops. In the olden days, there were well defined gender-related economic roles that people played out. Even the tools used for similar tasks were different for men and women. Modern economics has crushed this by demanding that all work be unisex, i.e., performable by either men or women. He views this as necessary to the discrimination we now observe. Illich does not attempt to explain in this article why men, and not women, ended up on top in this inequality. He merely tries to show why and how the inequality was able/forced to develop, and what he feels must be done to eliminate it. I don't agree with all of it, but it is well-argued. Howard A. Landman ogcvax!metheus!howard
mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) (05/25/84)
From: howard@metheus.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) [referring to an article by Ivan Illich]: One of the points he makes is that the ratio of women's pay to men's pay has remained utterly constant at 59% plus or minus 3% across all times and all cultures for which this data exists. Although I'm reluctant to challenge Ivan Illich, he (or Howard) has erred on this. Pay equity is closer to 89% in Sweden, and other progressive countries have also made large strides. The problem is political and economic, not genital. Mike Kelly ..!ihnp4!tty3b!mjk