Chapter 3: Economic Life

Chapter 3: Economic Life

Links to Original Sources

1. Khoikhoi Digging Stick

The Khoikhoi were seminomadic herders in southern Africa who also hunted game and gathered edible plants and roots to supplement their diets. Women did most of the gathering, aided by digging sticks weighted with stones, as shown here.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson7/lesson7.php?menu=1&s=5

2. Clay Spindle Whorl, Mesopotamia, 4000 BCE–3100 BCE

In many ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, women specialized in textile production. While few textiles themselves have survived, many objects realted to textile production have, including loom weights and spindle whorls such as the one shown here, which would have been attached to a wooden hand-spindle for spinning thread and yarn.

http://mesopotamia.lib.uchicago.edu/learningcollection/search.php?a_theme=Role+of+Women&lcid=120

3. Women’s Personal Accounts of Their Work, 17th Century Germany

Athough men were able to take greater advantage of the opportunities provided by capitalist enterprise in early modern Europe, women continued to work in a variety of roles. This provides personal accounts written by women living in northern Germany in the 17th century, one a diary written by a Jewish merchant, Glikl of Hameln, and the other a memoir written by a Protestant midwife, Catharina Schrader.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/analyzing/accounts/analyzingacctsintro.html

4. Diary of Elizabeth Fuller, Massachusetts 1790s

Whether in the ancient world or the 20th century, agricultural households depended heavily on the work of women and children. In her diary, Elizabeth Fuller records her many work activities, the most important of which was preparing wool for weaving.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5824

5. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, 1831

This first-person account of the life of slave was written down by British abolitionists and shows the many different types of slave work – plantation work, housework, and work for other slaves. The site offers context for reading this account and provides a list of secondary readings.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/d/23/wwh.html

6. Puerto Rican Labor Movement, 1920–1940

Puerto Rico became an American territory in 1917, and factory production of textiles, cigars, and other products began about this time as well. This series of documents provides evidence about working conditions for women and men and their participation in the organized labor movement.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson16/lesson16.php?menu=1&s=0

7.Women in the Soviet Labor Force, 1930

Industrialization in the Sovet Union brought more women into the labor force in traditionally “male” sectors such as heavy industry, construction, and transportation. Shown here is a chart detailing this; newspaper accounts of women’s work in the Soviet Union are also available on this site.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson11/lesson11.php?menu=1&s=5

8. Debating the Equal Pay Act of 1963, United States

Women in many labor systems were paid significantly less than men for the same or comparable work. In the United States, Congress debated the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in 1963, which would make it illegal to pay men and women differently for similar work The sources below come from the Congressional hearings on the Act. The EPA was passed, but the gender gap in wages remains, although it has grown smaller in the intervening decades.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6196

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6197

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6198

9. Harassment on the Job, United States 1970s

The women’s movement of the 1970s had a far-reaching impact that was felt in every recess of American society. Working-class women began to enter nontraditional jobs in trades and craft unions, and lesbians found a larger community in which to express their sexuality. In both cases, women faced resistance and sometimes violence as they charted new gender territory. Faith Robinson, one of those brave enough to break the gender barrier in the predominantly male telephone technician field, was also a lesbian – she faced a particularly difficult challenge. Robinson remembered one incident in 1979 in which antigay talk escalated to violence on the job site.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6917

9. Child Labor Statistics by Gender, c.2000

Children in today’s world are often employed in the paid and unpaid labor market. The statistics on this chart, collected by the International Labour Organization, provide a detailed picture of global child labor, broken down by gender. The chart shows that the majority of children were employed in agriculture, a significant portion employed in services, and a minority employed in shops, craft production, and manufacture.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/350

Many children today are employed as domestic servants, sometimes given or sold by their families when they cannot support them. This source is a chart that traces domestic service by children aged 5–14 in a number of countries, and provides context for understanding the statistics.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/351

Suggestions for Further Reading

The books in this list are organized by the topics noted below, and then in alphabetical order by author within each topic. Most of them have descriptions taken from the book jacket or from the publisher’s website. These descriptions are written by the author or the publisher to sell the book as well as to explain its contents. They thus do not necessarily represent my opinion of the book, but I have included them here so that you can get an idea of a book's contents and approach and thus better judge whether it would be useful for your purposes.

General Studies

Foraging, Horticultural, and Herding Societies (20,000 BCE–1800 CE)

Agricultural Societies (7000 BCE–1800 CE)

Slavery (7000 BCE–1900 CE)

Capitalism and Industrialism (1500 CE–2000 CE)

Corporations, the State, and the Service Economy (1900–2010)

General Studies

Abbassi, Jennifer and Sheryl L. Lutjens, eds. Rereading Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Political Economy of Gender. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

This indispensable text reader provides a broad-ranging and thoughtfully organized feminist introduction to the ongoing controversies of development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Designed for use in a variety of college courses, the volume collects an influential group of essays first published in Latin American Perspectives. Each part is organized into thematic sections that focus on work, politics, and culture, and each includes substantive introductions that identify key issues in the scholarly literature on women and gender in the region. Demonstrating the rich, multidisciplinary nature of Latin American studies, these essays promote critical thinking about women's place and power, about theory and research strategies, and about contemporary economic, political, and social conditions. They convincingly show why women have become an increasingly important subject of research, acknowledge their gains and struggles over time, and explore the contributions that feminist theory has made toward the recognition of gender as a relevant--indeed essential--category for analyzing the political economy of development.

Baron, Ava, ed. Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

In tobacco fields, auto and radio factories, cigarmakers tenements, textile mills, print shops, insurance companies, restaurants, and bars, notions of masculinity and femininity have helped shape the development of work and the working class. The fourteen original essays brought together here shed new light on the importance of gender for economic and class analysis and for the study of men as well as women workers. After an introduction by Ava Baron addressing current problems in conceptualizing gender and work, chapters by leading historians consider how gender has colored relations of power and hierarchy between employers and workers, men and boys, whites and blacks, native-born Americans and immigrants, as well as between men and women in North America from the 1830s to the 1970s. Individual essays explore a spectrum of topics including union bureaucratization, protective legislation, and consumer organizing. They examine how workers concerns about gender identity influenced their job choices, the ways in which they thought about and performed their work, and the strategies they adopted toward employers and other workers. Taken together, the essays illuminate the plasticity of gender as men and women contest its meaning and its implications for class relations.

Bettio, Francesca. The Sexual Division of Labor: The Italian Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Examining the determinants of occupational sex-typing and the actual features of women's and men's work, Bettio here argues that women's relative contributions as income earners within the family and their historically subordinate role lead to the recurrence of particular patterns of sex-typing.

Boris, Eileen and Cynthia R. Daniels, eds. Homework: Historical and Contemporary Studies on Paid Labor at Home. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Bose, Christine E. and Edna Acosta-Belén, eds. Women in the Latin American Development Process. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995.

This interdisciplinary volume provides a historical and international framework for understanding the changing role of women in the political economy of Latin America and the Caribbean. The contributors challenge the traditional policies, goals, and effects of development, and examine such topics as colonialism and women's subordination; the links to economic, social, and political trends in North America; the gendered division of paid and unpaid work; differing economic structures, cultural and class patterns; women's organized resistance; and the relationship of gender to class, race, and ethnicity/nationality.

Bradley, Harriet. Men’s Work, Women’s Work: A Sociological History of the Sexual Division of Labour in Employment. Cambridge: Basil Blackwelll, 1989.

Ditmore, Melissa Hope, ed. Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work 2 volumes. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.

The cliche is that prostitution is the oldest profession. Isn't it time that the subject received a full reference treatment? This major 2-volume set is the first to treat in an inclusive reference what is usually considered a societal failing and the underside of sexuality and economic survival. The A-to-Z encyclopedia offers wide-ranging entries related to prostitution and the sex industry, past and present, both worldwide (mostly in the West) and in the United States. The topic of prostitution has high-interest appeal across disciplines, and the narrative entries illuminate literature, art, law, medicine, economics, politics, women's studies, religion, sociology, sexuality, film, popular culture, public health, nonfiction, American and world history, business, gender, media, education, crime, race, technology, performing arts, family, social work, social mores, pornography, the military, tourism, child labor, and more. It is targeted to the general reader, who will gain useful insight into the human race through time via its sex industry and prostitution.

Einhorn, Barbara. Women and Market Societies. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995.

This text explores the problems and possibilities for women which arise from the transition to a market economy in East Asia, the dismantling of state socialism in Eastern Europe and the restructuring of the economies and welfare states of the older capitalist market societies in Western Europe. Questioning whether the global trend towards market economies will constrain or enhance women's opportunities, this innovative interdisciplinary work also looks at the consequences for women as workers, and beyond that to the social and cultural implications. A distinguished group of scholars - from China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Europe - explore the issues which must be addressed before women can create a more empowering politics. Such issues include the continuing tensions between paid work in the market and unpaid work in the family and the extent to which Eastern or Western legislative frameworks, providing rights and benefits, have eased or exacerbated these tensions.

Golden, Claudia Dale. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Women have entered the labor market in unprecedented numbers, yet these critically needed workers still earn less than men and have fewer opportunities for advancement. This study traces the evolution of the female labor force in America, addressing the issue of gender distinction in the workplace and refuting the notion that women's employment advances were a response to social revolution rather than long-run economic progress. Employing innovative quantitative history methods and new data series on employment, earnings, work experience, discrimination, and hours of work, it establishes that the present economic status of women evolved gradually over the last two centuries and that past conceptions of women workers persist.

Green, David R. and Alastair Owens, eds. Family Welfare: Gender, Property, and Inheritance Since the Seventeenth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.

The history of welfare provision has generally focused on the rise of the so-called welfare state and institutional provision for the poor. Recent studies have begun to look beyond the state to other ways in which assistance, care, and support were provided in the past, but the focus remains primarily on the poor. This work widens our understanding of welfare by focusing not on the poor but on those who have some wealth. It draws attention to the importance of family as part of a "mixed economy" of welfare provision that also incorporates the state, the market, and the voluntary sector. This book offers an exciting new approach to the history of welfare by focusing attention on the complex range of sources of support drawn on to meet family needs. The chapters highlight the significance of the family as a link in the provision of assistance. They also focus on the role played by gender relations in shaping welfare strategies. An extensive introduction is followed by ten chapters presenting detailed studies of the provision of family welfare across western Europe and the United States over the past four hundred years.

Hamilton, Roberta. The Liberation of Women: A Study of Patriarchy and Capitalism. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978.

House-Midamba, Bessie and Felix K. Ekechi, eds. African Market Women and Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.

An interdisciplinary study of market women from all parts of Africa shows how, from historical times to the present, African women have used the economic power they have derived from market activities and commercial enterprises to improve their social and political status in a man's world. They used their wealth in pre-colonial times to obtain titles and even chieftainship. Because of their involvement in trade, many women acquired considerable property, especially real estate. The authors stress the positive aspect of women's economic activities, but also point out the prevalent sexual division of labor in Africa as a limiting factor. They illustrate the concomitant struggle between men and women over certain market items traditionally associated with one or the other sex. They analyze the cultural, social, and economic barriers that restrict female involvement in some economic activities. Nevertheless, the overwhelming conclusion by all of the writers, who are Africans and Americans, is that women play a major role in the economic sector of all the regions of the continent.

Janssens, Angélique, ed. The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Family? New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998

This collection of essays looks at the origins and expansion of different patterns of breadwinning in both western and non-western history. As a collection it provides new insights into the historical and cross-cultural development of the male breadwinner family and its determinants, and, as such, it provides an important contribution to the ongoing debate on patterns of breadwinning. An important range of factors previously undervalued in the debate are considered: the effects of local labour markets in interaction with family strategies and family values; employers' strategies and the effects of capital accumulation and the rise of international commercial networks; the effects of egalitarian communist ideologies; and the differential ways in which modern welfare states were constructed. The volume calls for a renewed research effort in order to reconstruct the male breadwinner family as the norm and to work towards the integration of different explanatory models.

Jenson, Jane ed., The Feminization of the Labour Force. Oxford: Polity Press, 1988.

This book is an international analysis of the lives of women in paid work. The authors' starting point is the post-war increase in the numbers of women in the paid labour force. They examine how this process took place in Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, Italy, Canada and the United States, and the reactions it provoked from the state, trade unions and employers. Throughout the book, the writers emphasize women's ability to create and maintain their paid jobs despite many obstacles, and the new possibilities for role-changing which a wide variety of women have brought to their work and their lives in general.