Livie Jacobs

Intro Feminist Thought

Professor Lacsamana
March 8, 2018
Wo(men) at Work
Speculate about the sexual division of labor. Why do you think male-dominated careers tend to be valued
more (momentarily and, arguably, socially) than female-dominated careers? Could the “worth point”
system resolve such disparities, or is such a system still subjective? In what other ways might we mediate
arbitrary valuation of work?

Young people across America are often focused on their future. In a society that views

educational attainment as a marker of success, many of these young adults frantically wonder,

“will I get a job when I graduate?” and “will my income allow me to sustain the life I envision

for myself?” Although these fears seem universal to young people (regardless of their level of

education), females have more to worry about as they prepare to enter the workforce. In the

United States, women earn 77 cents for every one dollar paid to men and this wage gap is only

increasing (Tong & Botts, 2018, p. 95). Many argue that this is because a lot of women opt to

work part-time, and/or because they enter low-paying professions. However, this begs the

question, ​why ​are the female dominated fields those with lower pay? Why is men’s labor valued

more than women’s? This paper will highlight two possible reasons for the disparity while

debating the effectiveness of the “worth point” system in ensuring equity, and proposing

alternative ways to rectify income inequality by gender.

One plausible reason for the higher valuation of work done primarily by men is that

society privileges physical labor over emotional labor. Evidence shows that women most often

enter fields that focus on care and service such as teaching, secretarial work, and production of

small products like children’s toys; men more likely work in heavy labor work like transportation

and administrative work like policy creation (Tong & Botts, 2018, p. 95). Emotional/care work

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such as nursing and social work yields lower incomes for workers than heavy labor and

decision-making jobs that supposedly require more intelligence. The notion of the physical realm

being more important than the emotional is reflected more generally throughout American

culture. There is a lasting stigma around receiving help for emotional or mental difficulties, yet

this stigma is virtually nonexistent when it comes to visiting a doctor or health professional about

a physical ailment. At Hamilton, many students devote an hour of their day to working out at the

gym or sports, while only half of recent graduating classes will visit the counseling center at

some point in their Hamilton careers (according to Director of Hamilton College Counseling

Center David Walden in a recent informational speech).

Additionally, capitalist America pigeonholes intelligence as that which one obtains

exclusively from educational institutions. There are, however, multiple forms of intelligences,

many of which no schooling is required to attain. Imagine a society that values child rearing as

an artform requiring admirable levels of ​emotional​ intelligence rather than de facto women’s

work relegated to the invisible sector of the home. In our capitalist society, it would only be

logical to hold mothering in high esteem given that the job is essential to the growth and

development of future workers, but because females are relegated to this work, it is undervalued.

American educator scholar Mike Rose grew up in an impoverished neighborhood, often

spending hours watching his immigrant mother work at a local restaurant. This experience gave

him the ideas he outlined in his blog post ​The Intelligence of the Waitress in Motion. ​Rose

reflects on his mother’s work after interviewing her about it. He recounts how his mother would

be “rushing through a busy restaurant, watching over things, organizing and sequencing tasks,

and solving problems on the fly. She describes a typical scenario where an obnoxious regular is

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tapping the side of his coffee cup with a spoon while she is taking an order. The cook rings her

bell indicating another order is ready, and a few seconds later the manager seats two new parties

at two of her tables that have just cleared. And, oh, as she is dashing back to the kitchen, one

customer asks to change an order, another signals for more coffee, and a third requests a new

fork to replace one dropped on the floor. ‘Your mind is going so fast,’ she says, ‘thinking what to

do first, where to go first…which is the best thing to do…which is the quickest.’” (Rose, 2008).

Rose’s mother exemplifies the kind of multitasking intelligence required to be a great waitress, a

job many view as low-level and unsustainable. The American valuation of certain jobs over

others would radically shift if society was to rethink its narrow definition of intelligence rather

than continuing to privilege intelligence found by way of books and classrooms; the

emotional/care work women traditionally do would be held to a higher value, and wages would

rise.

The worth point, or comparable worth, system of pay equity promoted by many radical

and socialist feminists is effective in that it raises consciousness of gender discrimination in the

workplace, but ultimately is not a resolution for the pervasive wage gap between men and

women in America. The worth point system provides a framework by which employers are to

“objectively” classify the difficulty of a job through four components: “(1) “knowledge and

skills,”...(2) “mental demands,”...(3) “accountability,”...and (4) “working conditions.”” (Tong &

Botts, 2018, p. 97). Equity firm Norman D. Willis and Associates enacted the worth point system

for a study looking specifically at Washington state employment in the 1980s. Their report found

that “A Nurse Practitioner II, at 385 points, had average earnings of $832, the same as those of a

Boiler Operator, with only 144 points. A Homemaker I, with 198 points and an average salary of

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$462, had the lowest earnings of all evaluated jobs” (as cited in Tong & Botts, 2018, p. 98).

Considering these staggering disparities in points for equally difficult, but traditionally gendered,

jobs, the average American would have a hard time debating the fact that women and men are

not on an equal playing field. The worth point system has the power to illuminate gender

discrimination in the workplace, as was the case when Willis and Associates’ findings were used

in a court case that demanded Washington state employers dismantle the pay gap and

discrimination based on type of employment.

Unfortunately, the worth point system does not have the power to eliminate the

disparities it serves to illuminate because of the subjectivity of the four conditions evaluated by

employers. How an employer defines and rates the difficulty of “mental demands” and “safe

working conditions” is muddled by preexisting gender stereotypes. For example, an employer

may not believe that being an exterminator is a “safe” job for women, citing a fear for her

inhaling a toxic chemical that later causes birth complications. This employer’s gendered

mindset is informed by traditional stereotypes revolving around the idea that women need to

protected and kept pure while men are to do the dirty work and make the money. A similar

argument is made when women are granted access to the military. Former Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom, David Cameron, announced in 2016 that women would be allowed to serve in

the infantry and armor units of the military. These units are often the most dangerous, as they are

on the front fighting lines. In response to Cameron’s decision, crime author Kate Medina

weighed in via popular British newspaper. To support her argument against women being

allowed in these units, Medina wrote how “concerns have also been expressed by senior military

figures that male soldiers would feel the need to ‘look after’ their female colleagues, thereby

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reducing their fighting effectiveness and in turn, putting them more at risk” (Medina, 2016).

Again, this thought process harkens back to the idea that men are aggressive, muscular, and

unfailingly martyrish if a precious woman is in danger. Asking employers (many of whom would

be men) to implement the worth point system to prove they are being gender equitable in the

workplace will not work because they will inevitably be influenced by traditional gender

stereotypes and will subvert the loosely worded conditions of the system.

Two alternative ways to rectify the gendered valuation of work are raising children to

embody ​both​ traditionally feminine and masculine traits and by passing legislation that

encourages men to take over part of the domestic workload. Figure 1 (below left) and Figure 2

(below right) are illustrations recently being shared by progressive parenting sites via Facebook.

These figures aim to disrupt many of the messages children receive as part of the gender

socialization process: girls don’t always to have to hold in their farts for fear of being unladylike,

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and boys don’t have to punch their friend on the playground just to prove themselves. The hope

here is that when these children grow up, the women won’t gravitate exclusively to care

professions, just as the men won’t primarily go for the intellectual and/or physical ones. That

being said, changing gender socialization norms will take time, and its results will not be

immediate. Therefore, more immediate change can be made through legislative policies that

encourage men to take responsibility for the invisible labor that goes on in the home. A 2010

New York Times ​article revealed the progress Sweden has made by implementing paid work

leaves for fathers in an attempt to equalize the amount of domestic work being done by mothers

and fathers. The article showed the legislation’s promising results: “Introducing “daddy leave” in

1995 had an immediate impact. No father was forced to stay home, but the family lost one month

of subsidies if he did not. Soon more than eight in 10 men took leave. The addition of a second

nontransferable father month in 2002 only marginally increased the number of men taking leave,

but it more than doubled the amount of time they take” (Bennhold, 2010). Although these

policies can’t guarantee that men are actually doing some of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare

when they are home rather than work, it at least forces men to bear witness to the amount of

work women do when they’re away making money. Legislation like that of Sweden, along with

the slow but steady process of rethinking gender socialization, are two powerful next steps

America can take in the fight against gendered workplace inequalities.

Young women have much to fear as they look ahead to their role in the American

workforce and slowly come to understand the harsh reality: they will not be paid as much as their

brother or father would have doing the same work. They will struggle to contribute to the

household income if they decide to start a family and find themselves taking on nearly all of

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domestic labor. As one fellow classmate recently quipped, if all else fails in our pursuit for

economic and academic success, the plan is to marry rich. This plan is not all that silly, for the

wage gap is only growing, and men are continuing to dominate higher paid professions. If

American women have any hope of closing the gap, all citizens must begin to disrupt the

gendered valuation of work through legislation and an overhaul of the gender stereotypes so

deeply embedded in American ideology.

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 References

Bennhold, K. (2010, June 09). In Sweden, Men Can Have It All. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.html

Gravel, E. (n.d.). Boys can be [Digital image]. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from

http://elisegravel.com/en/blog/boys-can-be/

Gravel, E. (n.d.). Girls can be [Digital image]. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from

http://elisegravel.com/en/blog/girls-can-be/

Medina, K. (2016, July 08). Putting women soldiers like me on the front line is dangerous -

blame our biology. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/putting-women-soldiers-like-me-on-the-front-l

ine-is-dangerous/

Rose, M. (2008, August 22). The Intelligence of the Waitress in Motion [Web log post].

Retrieved March 7, 2018, from

http://mikerosebooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/intelligence-of-waitress-in-motion.html

Tong, R., & Botts, T. F. (2018). Feminist thought: a more comprehensive introduction. New

York, NY: Westview Press.