SOCI2050 30th October 2020

Week 12: Class, Gender and work

Hakim’s theory to explain women’s subordinate position

1. Things are getting better for women (social, political, and economic progress,
equality). Increased employment opportunities women enjoyed as a result of
World War II.

2. Women now have equal opportunity.

 Changes in legislation: Anti-discrimination law.

 Changes in economic structure: decline in manufacturing industry and
incline in service sector jobs.

3. Yet women do not occupy many positions of power, business, and politics and
leadership and management positions. They tend to be clustered at low-skilled,
low-pay, and low-status employment.

4. Though women have equal opportunity, they are still doing low-quality jobs.
The reason is that women choose not to take the opportunities that are available
to them. Women are making choices! Women’s preferences influence the choices
made.

Other theorists to explain women subordinate position

 Goldberg: The subordinate position is determined by a combination of

psychological factors and social factors.
 Becker: Rational choice theory. Family is making choices based on
efficiency. The investment of human capital (women do domestic work and
men do market work because of high productivity) reinforces women
subordinate position.
 Hartmann: Men organise themself politically and typically as trade unions to
suppress women to pursuit their own interests.

Liberal freedoms and choice

Class and gender have always been connected and reinforced one another in the
context of capitalism.
SOCI2050 30th October 2020
The development of capitalism relied upon and took advantage on patriarchy
(women as a free labour in the home to support men to go out and work, thereby
reducing the costs of labour ).

Choice does not mean to freedom and self-determination (Actually-existing

choices are made in the context of oppression and state violence as well as
structural and cultural constraints).

Gender in economic lives

 Pay inequality
 Discrimination
 Sexual harassment
 Workforce segregation
 Poverty, especially in old age
 Wealth inequality
 Parenting

Workforce segregation

Men and women are segregated in different parts of the labour market.

Gender pay inequality

SOCI2050 30th October 2020

Parenting (one of the factors lead to gender pay gap)

Poverty in later life

 Single women over 60 are the lowest earning income group in Australia.
 34% of single women over 60 are living in poverty.
 Superannuation is a system designed for people who have full-time ongoing
employment but not for majority of women (most women are engaging in
part-time employment).

There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not

live single-issue lives. -Audre
Lorde