Assignment 8

One form of workplace inequality discussed in the readings is sexual harassment. In the article 9to5: Organizing Low-Wage Women (Bravo et al. 2008) it’s discussed how after the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991, many women called in about sexual harassment. These calls came from women who had experienced sexual harassment up to many years before ever telling anybody. One woman even said, “I’ve never told anyone before. I thought that’s just what you had to put up with” (199). The women were finally finding it within themselves to open up about these issues they had just accepted before, and this came from the hope given to them that it was okay and important for them to disclose this information. The organization 9to5 took action and developed a hotline that they promoted in order to get more women to learn about 9to5 and how they can get involved. This is important because many issues were continually arising, so the growth of 9to5 was key to continuing to make changes and progress. One of the groups main policy areas was to make efforts towards strengthening pay equity and sexual harassment laws (199). These efforts lead to greater awareness, state law protection in multiple areas, and positive changes within the workforce for women.

assignment 7 the second shift

The second shift is the shift worked at home after a full day of working at a job. The second shift is predominantly related to women having to be the ones in charge of taking over the second shift at home which includes cooking dinner, cleaning the house, doing laundry, taking care of the children, etc. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home by Arlie Russell Hochschild with Anne Machung highlights in numbers the way women are highly affected by this second shift more so than men are. Their article mentions information from a national survey which “…found that working women averaged three hours a day on housework while men averaged 17 minutes”, as far as time with children “…women spent fifty minutes a day exclusively with children, men spent twelve minutes”, and as for leisure time “…working fathers watched television an hour longer than their working wives, and slept a half hour longer each night” (124). This shows us how women are the ones to suffer as far as having more put responsibility to spend time with children and do housework, and less time to relax and watch television. When Hochschild and Machung looked at other past studies, they also found “…that women worked roughly fifteen hours longer each week than men. Over a year, they worked an extra month of twenty-four-hour days a year.” (124). Not only is her time being taken up, but the second shift is putting an emotional strain on women as well more so than on men. “More women than men questioned how good they were as parents” (125). Having thoughts like that can have very negative impacts on a woman because not only does she have to manage her work life and house life, but it becomes more hectic with her worrying about such things like how she is as a mother or employee due to each role being so demanding.

Due to these negative factors affecting women who have to take charge of the second shift, it is important to get men to share the responsibility. Unfortunately, The Politics of Housework by Pat Mainardi of Redstockings highlights common issues with getting men to truly commit to splitting the list of responsibilities associated with the second shift at home. Men’s comments such as “I don’t mind sharing the housework, but I don’t do it very well”, “I don’t mind sharing the work, but you’ll have to show me how to do it”, and “I’ve got nothing against sharing the house work, but you cant make me do it on your schedule” are attempts to appear as if they want to help but end up having excuses or getting out of it. Those comments really mean he is trying to say he’s no good at doing chores like washing dishes or cooking, he doesn’t like doing boring jobs, he will complain and annoy you so badly you’d rather do it yourself, and the last comment means I will do things around the house on my time, if I even do them at all (196). All in all women are left with the majority of responsibility, and therefore have to deal with the affects it takes on her emotionally and physically.

Assignment 6 Blue Collar

This week’s readings focus on different aspects of women working blue collar jobs. Many may think that if a woman has a blue collar job that it is a positive and progressive thing. There are many positives and negatives to working blue collar jobs, as these readings make us aware of. “Power Plays” by Burk is a great article to read to just become aware of the ways in which it is initially difficult for women to get into good jobs. She points out how research shows that overall people are more comfortable with others who look like them, which “in most corporate America, that still means white and male” (Burk 483). Because of white males traditionally having all leadership roles, it is difficult to drastically change that when they will continue to want to hire those who are like them into positions. Due companies attempting to display their initiative towards diversity, “…most companies have ‘diversity’ in management only to the extent that it does not threaten the traditional balance” (Burk 483). This is common because they don’t want to be labeled as being discriminatory, but I’m sure it is true that they strategically place these employees into positions that don’t threaten them at a higher level as a company. The part of the article that was a real eye opener was when they started to talk about the culture, values, and norms of those power elites and power groups in companies. The article brings to our attention how a CEO may bring a woman or minority to be part of a corporate board, but that may not help to increase the diversity equally on that board because for that individual to push to bring others like them on board would be looked down upon. Therefore, in these situations women and minorities are probably trying to conform as best as possible to the culture and values of the corporate board and not having the opportunity to help others do the same. This is probably an example of why women get to a certain level in their career and are less likely to help other women (Burk 484).

“Bitter Choices” by Rosen gives us a little more information on the benefits and risks of blue collar jobs, with a focus on factory type of jobs for women. In this article we learn about Maria and how she views the benefits of her job as being that she makes good money, and likes her boss and coworkers. The negative aspects are things such as not having time for the family as much as women would like, and having very hectic schedules with having to work certain hour shifts plus take on housewife duties like cooking and cleaning. Negatives within the job include risks of getting laid off, and destruction of unions. “…they see their already limited control at work diminish; as they see how difficult it may be in the future to earn the money they need to keep their families from poverty…” (Rosen 3). These women are trying to earn a living to maintain the family, even though they may be part of a dual-earning household. The risks they run at work of getting laid off, and not having very much union support threatens their financial contribution to the family.

Blog 1

Wage inequality to put it simple is the inequalities in how much certain people are paid. These inequalities differ based on gender, ethnicity, race, class, and other things. They are inequalities that are not justifiable like it would be to say someone who has a higher degree makes more than others who don’t have that degree. Bernstein gives many eye opening statistics in his article “Women’s Pay: Why the Gap Remains a Chasm”. He does a good job of pointing the fact that women’s average pay is at 77% that of men’s compensation (370), but points out that it is based on studies that look at full time employment. Then he makes us aware that women make up 70% of part time employment and only 44% of full time, so women are making up most of the part time workers in the nation yet those are the women not taken into account when looking at discrepancies in women’s pay to men’s pay. When broken down into different races the drastic drop in earnings women make compared to men of their own race/ethnicity and then compared to white men is astonishing. For example, African American women make 83% of what other African American men make, and only 63% of what white men make. The percentages for Hispanic women are similar when compared to men of their own race/ethnicity, but drop to 53% when compared to white men (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vannerman 2004). Those only represent two minorities, but show how much the wage gap is affecting women, especially minority women.

Race/Ethnicity and gender seem to be key factors that people focus on when discussing the wage gap. There is research that has been done on it, and the fact that it is still a problem is frustrating to people. Class is another issue playing a role in the inequalities that take place in the work force. Still looking at gender and race, the article “Women’s Employment Among Blacks, Whites, and Three Groups of Latinas” (England et al.) analyzes the ways in which women who are privileged may have higher employment and better jobs. Although in the past women of higher classes represented a group that married men who were well off, they are no becoming part of the population of women of higher classes who are using their position of privilege to get the better jobs. The study also tells us that overall minority women represent a greater portion of single mothers than white women. Therefore they are being affected by being part of a lower class, but also struggling to get out of it because higher privileged women are the ones getting the better jobs. So many inequalities continue to exist, but hopefully more will continue to be done to help women progress to better jobs and jobs that have equality among pay, promotions, job security, etc.


-Jessica Vazquez

Assignment 4 (March 26)

In Miliann Kang’s article The Managed Hand focuses on Korean immigrant manicurists and their relations with racially and socioeconomically diverse female customers in New York City nail salons (284), with the study focusing on emotional and embodied labor. This topic is very interesting because it goes beyond looking at the emotional work we read about in Hochschild’s article The Managed Heart of women being nice and pleasant at all times, and adds on to it to encompass the emotional aspect of work that these immigrant women do on bodies. The type of work taken place in the nail salons reflects emotional labor involving women serving women, opposed to mainly women serving men (285). The article on Chicana women and their domestic services also reflects a relationship of women serving women because as domestic workers it is predominantly women who they deal with hiring them and overseeing the work they do in the home. Kang’s framework brings to our attention the various differences in how women have to adapt their work to their customer’s race, class, and gender. For example, “…white middle class customers at this salon place great importance on emotional attentiveness…” (289).

Therefore, it gets more complex as you take into account Korean immigrant women serving customers that are white, black, Latino and from different socioeconomical backgrounds, as well as in other types of work like Chicana women employed by other types of women to clean their homes. “Body labor not only demands that the service worker present and comport her body in an appropriate fashion but also that she induces customers’ positive feelings about their own bodies” (285). This is a great example of the type of labor along with emotional labor that are a part of working women whose jobs include physical contact with their customers. I feel it can even be applied to how housekeepers have the demand of doing things in a certain manner to accommodate to cleaning in a way that satisfies their employer. Especially when dealing with unemployed women who were perceived as picky and not willing to relinquish control (302). It all comes down to women recognizing their role, what is expected of them, and how they can live up to their customers or employers expectations while also creating an ideal work environment.

Work & Home:Seperate Spheres? Unit 7/Assignment 3

This week’s challenge the notion of separate spheres because so much is intertwined when looking at the spheres of work life and home life. Each sphere has its role in someone’s life as well as interacts with each other. It particularly affects women because a lot of methods that can improve the life of working women would occur because of overlapping both spheres. Crittenden’s article mentions “child-rearing is the most important job in the world”, which is a statement we all have heard at some point, yet many actions taken by employers do not recognize the importance of child-rearing. If employers recognized this things such as providing working women with child care options would provide women with the opportunity and ability to work without worrying about how to pay for or find adequate childcare. Raising a family is no longer just a private matter, because of the importance of the role community resources play.

Nina Simone Dudnik’s article “sex and the single (woman) biologist”, also points out the negative ways in which work and home have been issues that overlap each other. As high status professionals in the field of science, Dudnik and her peers face challenges with balancing both. By balancing, I mean having to put their focus in one area and sacrificing success in another. “He and his wife went to graduate school together; now he runs the lab, and she’s sort of a part-time lab manager”, “I know of one professor who runs the lab while her husband works for her. The downside: She has no kids and never stops working” (Dudnik, 110-111). Both are examples how these women have had to sacrifice a personal life or a successful career because of the ways in which being a professional in their field has been stereotyped for men. Therefore, they have had to work twice as hard to accomplish their level of success.

Welfare, Work, and Poverty

The biggest myth about welfare is who is on welfare. The picture painted in most of our minds is that people on welfare are single mothers; most likely an ethnic minority, has a lot of children, is lazy, doesn’t work, and abuses the government’s services to get by. Along with that image implanted in our minds, most people express anger towards believing that their tax dollars are being used to help “lazy” people on welfare, which is not the case. The authors of this week’s readings challenge our stereotypes beyond what we probably thought they could.
Dorothy Allison’s article “A Question of Class” gave us a different visual of someone on welfare when she described her family as white and desperately poor. The way she grew up not understanding how she could be so extremely poor when her mother and stepfather worked such long hours. Allison’s story goes beyond welfare, and being poor. She lived a life of poverty on many different levels because of the horrible conditions she lived in and unfortunate things she had to go through.
Allison’s article as well as Bravo’s “What This Nation Really Thinks of Motherhood: Welfare Reform” challenge our views with the myths and realities they present us with. Bravo’s article also pointed out the myth that people on welfare are mothers who do not want to work, and depend on handouts. In reality there were no dependable jobs for people on welfare, or the system to help them find one was flawed. Programs that don’t provide child care will not be successful for women who need that in order to go to work.
I agree on many of the “feminist’s solutions” that Bravo’s article addresses. Improved transportation is necessary, or jobs near where people live. Other important issues in ending poverty are creating family-supporting jobs, like valuing the work of caring for family members. The training people receive is also important to help them be successful at obtaining a job or at the current job they are at.