I often make the point that the left should target a broad working-class coalition. Every now and then to the point of sounding like a broken record. This includes an approach from multiple vectors – not only people on the job, but also unemployed people and the precariat. But while I often talk about race and about tenants unions, I don’t talk as often about gender. I’ll do that here by looking at the feminization of work.
Readers who know me might be surprised that I haven’t written as much about gender. After all, I have a background in feminist philosophy and activism. So, in that spirit, I’ll use this post to share one key data point on the feminization of work. I think it addresses why it’s so important for leftists to address issues of gender, especially in the world of work.
The Feminization of Work
Plenty of activists focus on the idea of the ‘feminization of work.’ Usually they do so in the context of pointing out diversity in the workforce. Angela Davis, for example, did this effectively. Women now make up an outright majority of workers in many industries.
But I’ll look at recent data that show troubling reasons why this happens. These data explain quite a bit about corporate behavior and where the left needs to go. Evidence suggests that something happens when a job moves from majority men to majority women: pay drops. And it drops for everyone working the job, both women and men. The same research suggests that this phenomenon accounts for up to half of the gender pay gap.
It’s not that we should find any of this surprising. The US remains a sexist society. And we should’ve already known that Economics 101 isn’t very good at explaining wages. As I’ve pointed out plenty of times, social attitudes and standards play a deeper role than supply and demand when it comes to explaining wages.
Academia, Male Resentment, and Feminism
This all reminds me of my experience on the academic job market almost 10 years ago. We had a tight job market. And lots of young men on the market tossed around allegations at women for their ‘unfair successes.’ Lots of these young men blamed women for the fact that they remained unemployed or underemployed.
Those men were wrong to do so. And the research tells much of the story. Insofar as women did better than men (note: it’s unclear whether that even happened), it was likely due to the feminization of work. Women have taken on a larger role in academia over the last few decades – which was long overdue. As that happened, academic salaries stagnated and declined, universities undermined tenure, and professors came to occupy a less prestigious place in society.
Those things seem related. As feminization of academic work moved along, a sexist US society broke down academia. If men in academic want to pin blame, they should blame sexism. That’s the core problem.
The Left and Feminism
And so, I think all this shows some of why leftists should join feminist movements. It’s our role to work past capitalist divisions on the basis of race. And it’s also our role to work past capitalist divisions on the basis of gender. Women in the workplace aren’t the enemy of men in the workplace. And, for women, ‘girlboss feminism‘ is just a road to an underpaid, overworked, feminization of work.
