(FEM2a) Gender at Work, Gendered Work I: Work and Family Life

Gender intersects with other axes of identity to create particular experiences of working life. Women, girls, and marginalized groups earn less, have fewer opportunities for employment, education and training, and contend with poverty, health challenges, discriminatory norms, policies and practices that do not adequately consider the needs of diverse women or mothers. Their work is often sorted, segregated, and routinely devalued and devalorised. Acknowledging ongoing and persistent gender inequalities in workplaces and the labour market, this session invited papers that explore and consider the material conditions of gender and work under capitalist patriarchy. We also invited scholars to consider the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated, reified, or transformed intersecting inequalities. Tags: Equality and Inequality, Feminism, Work And Professions

Organizers: Sonia D'Angelo, York University, Linda Christiansen-Ruffman, Saint Mary’s University, Ronnie Joy Leah, Athabasca University; Chairs: Ronnie Joy Leah, Athabasca University, Rashmee Karnad-Jani, Public Scholar

Presentations

Susan Cake, Athabasca University

Childcare in Alberta: Navigating the Path to Universal Childcare

With an investment of over $30 billion, the federal government has set Canada on a path to create what has become known as the $10-a-day universal early learning and childcare system. Alberta, in particular, has secured $290 million in funding over four years to implement this program. Despite being one of the most significant investments in a social program since Medicare, uncertainties persist as Alberta attempts to integrate elements of its previous childcare programs into its version of the $10-a-day system. These include the dominance of the for-profit sector, the use of demand-side funding, and structures facilitating what is termed "parental choice." In many ways, Alberta is seeking to embed aspects of a free-market structure within the federal governments efforts to create a nationwide universal program. This policy analysis reviews several components of Albertas attempt to integrate elements of its prior programs into the $10-a-day initiative. The analysis includes provincial legislation regulating childcare spaces, the original Canada – Alberta Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement (2021-2026) , and the For-Profit Expansion Plan and Cost Control Framework agreement. The analysis also delves into the Alberta Governments efforts to lower parental fees, incentivize space creation, and address the shortage of Early Childhood Educators (ECEs). This project draws on the feminist political economy concept of social reproduction, which focuses on the labour ensuring peoples survival and the continuity of the capitalist economic system. States, through their legislation, regulation, and program development strongly influence how and what families must do to maintain themselves and meet the demands of a capitalist system. Key early learning and childcare policy and program components examined include operating grants, parent subsidies, space creation grants, and the early childhood educator wage top-up program. The project also analyzes Albertas training initiatives for early childhood educators. Alberta aims to retain elements of its previous system, which obliges families to adhere to the neoliberal notion that individuals and families must be self-responsible units. For instance, the insistence on retaining an income-tested demand-side funding stream kept a voucher style system in Alberta. As well, the use of wage top-ups for ECEs have kept base wages low and the lack of efforts to train more ECEs contributes to the current shortage of a predominately female workforce. The limited action on growing the non-profit and public sectors has constrained space creation, mainly confining it to dayhomes. Additionally, the province has allowed providers to begin charging additional fees to families with no regulatory oversight. These policy and program decisions compel many families to still rely on individual and family-based childcare solutions, often falling onto women, rather than granting them access to a universal system. This analysis suggests that Alberta appears to be reluctantly participating in the creation of a universal early learning and childcare system. This reluctance is evident in their policy and program implementation, which mirrors a free-market-based system and approach. Additionally, the governments inaction on various fronts has impeded childcare growth in Alberta, leaving many families waiting on the sidelines and resorting to increasingly limited care options.

Laxana Paskaran, York University

The International Wages for Housework Campaign 1972-1978: Contributions and Critiques

Through an analysis of the literature documenting the International Wages for Housework (WfH) Campaign (1972-1978), this research outlines some of the movement’s major contributions and critiques. As such, the research draws from various literatures situated in different geographical contexts, mainly Canada and the United States, to locate the impact of the WfH movement. Further, the research will consider the intersections of race, class and gender, as it privileges the viewpoints of Black women and Black queer feminists and scholars regarding the movement and its theorization of gendered and domestic labour as a whole. To investigate the contributions of the International WfH Campaign, it is essential to define social reproduction. The definition of social reproduction typically includes three main prongs (Bakker 2007). Firstly, it encompasses the biological reproduction of the working population. This also includes the social and political constructions of motherhood (Bakker 2007). These constructions of motherhood are different across race and class (Roberts 1997). For example, racist constructions of motherhood devalue poor Black women’s social reproduction within their homes but inscribe value and construct racist but acceptable figures that care for white families in America (Roberts 1997). Secondly, social reproduction includes the necessities such as care work, education, and training to reproduce the labour force (Bakker 2007). Historically, women have been responsible for domestic labour, which includes cooking, cleaning, and raising children, all of which, according to Marxist feminists, are essential for capital accumulation (Bakker 2007, Luxton 2010). Thirdly, social reproduction also encompasses the family income or state support used to reproduce care work as it pertains to the labour force (Bakker 2007). In other words, capital accumulation depends on the family units securing and paying for care work in different ways to support the reproduction of the labour force (Bakker 2007). Further, this can be paid for through household incomes and in other cases, government support (Bakker 2007). Paying attention to race unveils the workings of White supremacy within social reproduction. Thus, this research considers groups such as Wages Due Lesbians (WDL) and Black Women for Wages for Housework (BWfWfH) and their critiques of the WfH movement’s ignorance of the unique relationship Black women have to social reproduction, one that includes a connection between enslavement and capitalist accumulation, the state’s control of Black women’s bodies and reproductive autonomy, and finally, the constructions of “othermotherhood,” (Lewis 2018). A comprehensive definition and understanding of social reproduction lay the foundation for a nuanced view of the International WfH Campaign. Understanding social reproduction produces transformative ways to understand the labour force. Moreover, scholars trace the beginnings of theorizing social reproduction to the formation of the WfH Campaign (Montgomerie and Tepe-Belfrage 2017). However, as this research will explore, can the theorization of social reproduction produce valuable praxis to solve the issue of the devaluation of housework? The WfH Campaign was initiated by Marxist feminists who believed that placing waged value on domestic work may challenge and bring awareness to domestic houseworks devalued and invisible nature (Toupin 2018, p. 83). The movement sought to share a “political perspective” and was not necessarily concerned with solving the issue (Federici 1975, p. 74-75). Further, the WfH Campaign’s main mission was to organize women against the capitalist organization of society. Critiques beginning in the 1970s, unveil important limitations of the movement in addressing the devaluation of the division of housework. These critiques include the lack of an anti-racist lens to understand social reproduction, locally, nationally and globally. Further, these critiques also attributed WfH campaign’s “failure” to gain traction and make substantial societal, political, economic and legal change due to its inability to appeal to men (Hartman 1981). Additionally, the WfH movement was also accused of being anti-feminist by ignoring issues women face currently in the workforce, especially in the care work sector (Rousseau 2015). Finally, this research also concludes that despite the limited academic literature that directly engages with the International WfH campaign, what should be noted is the appearance of the campaign in many academic theorizations of social reproduction. 

Ana Beatriz Koury Stratton, USP University of São Paulo

Laws and Public Policies on Domestic Work in Brazil over the Last Decade: Progress and Setbacks

Brazil has consistently ranked at the top of the list of countries with the highest number of domestic workers globally, estimated to be around 6 million today. Despite the significant number of people, the Brazilian legal system has historically marginalized domestic workers, predominantly Black women, within the legal protective framework. This is not surprising in a country with a legacy of over four hundred years of slavery, during which slaves were legally viewed as property. The lengthy coexistence with the slave system prevented the Abolition, passed on 1888, from representing a complete break from this model, which continues to influence Brazilian society to this day. The initial legal regulations concerning domestic employment, dating back to the second half of the 19th century, primarily aimed at sanitary and police control of these workers to protect employers from alleged dangers and contagions. The 1988 Federal Constitution did not extend social rights to domestic workers and the Constitutional Amendment 72, of 2013, allegedly intended to equalize the constitutional rights of domestic workers with those of other employees, has yet to fully correct this historical injustice. This paper aims to analyze legal and jurisprudential changes over the past decade since the approval of the Constitutional Amendment 72, considering a period significantly impacted by four years of a far-right government and a global pandemic. It is noteworthy that the first COVID-19 related death in Brazil was that of a domestic worker infected by her employer, who had just returned from a vacation in Europe and did not release the worker during the recommended quarantine. The economic and gender disparity in care work is also evident within the family sphere. The so-called care economy encompasses unpaid activities related to food preparation, household cleaning, and the care of children and the elderly. Furthermore, this paper seeks to examine the work of the interministerial committee formed by the current federal government to contemplate a public policy for women engaged in caregiving work within their own homes, without access to the job market and retirement benefits. Due to the prevailing patriarchal and sexist culture in the country, these tasks are predominantly undertaken by women, who often sacrifice their education and careers to assume household care responsibilities.According to a 2022 survey by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), among these caregivers, a majority are Black women – two out of every three individuals not engaged in paid work due to caregiving responsibilities or household duties. These women express a desire to enter the job market but do not actively seek employment because of domestic chores or caregiving responsibilities. IBGE data indicates that, if these caregiving activities were remunerated, the care economy would account for 11% of the national GDP. Their access to retirement is also hampered, given the 2019 Pension Reform requiring individuals to retire based on both a minimum age and a mandatory minimum contribution period. In conclusion, in Brazil, concerning both paid and unpaid domestic work, the intersectionality of gender and race reflects a precariousness in legal protection and public policies for these workers. Despite changes in the last decade, significant progress is still required to ensure dignified living and working conditions for these women.

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Non-presenting author: Katbe Waquim Bezerra, USP University of São Paulo

Danielle Thompson, University of Waterloo

Once an 'Ideal Worker', Always an 'Ideal Worker': The Impervious Status of Police Who Become Fathers

The culture of hegemonic masculinity that characterizes policing organizations has long disadvantaged women - especially mothers - due to their inability to satisfy the characteristics of the “ideal worker” – one who is ostensibly male and has a limited role in parental responsibilities (Acker, 1990; Agocs et al., 2015; Langan et al., 2017; Langan et al., 2019; Sanders et al., 2022). A robust literature has chronicled the ways in which women police who are mothers, that is “police mothers” (Agocs et al., 2015), are seen as being unfit for police work (Marsh, 2019; Yu and Rauhaus, 2019) and ill-suited for promotional opportunities (Silvestri, 2018), as they navigate the male-centric workplace and carry the bulk of domestic labour and childcare responsibilities at home. Although the experiences of police mothers have been well-documented, there is a paucity of research on the experiences of police who are fathers even though general studies of police men have captured their experiences. Research highlights a shift in the cultural ideologies of what it means to be a father (e.g., Duxbury, Bardoel, and Halinski, 2020) in that there has been a movement away from the traditional conceptualization of fathers as ‘breadwinners’ first and foremost, towards an image of the “involved father” who is more nurturing and present in the lives of his children (Humberd et al., 2015). Research that has examined the implications of being an involved father reveal how this can create challenges in the workplace - especially for fathers who take parental leave. They can face stigma for violating gender norms (Pettigrew and Duncan 2020), and for being viewed as less committed to their jobs (Andrés Fernández-Cornejo et al., 2019). Within the context of police organizations, the question arises as to whether, how, and to what extent police men who become fathers (“police fathers”) will be seen as (un)fit for police work. We wondered: (1) What has been the nature of police men’s experiences as fathers in various police services? (2) Whether, how, and to what extent do police fathers ‘fit’ with the notion of the “ideal worker?” (3) How have organizations, supervisors, and colleagues responded in the workplace to them as fathers? (4) And how do the experiences of police fathers compare to the research findings on the experiences of police mothers with respect to ‘fit’ with the construct of the “ideal worker?” To address these research questions, between July and September of 2020 we conducted 18 Zoom interviews with police fathers about their experiences within Canadian police organizations. Our approach to data collection and analysis was informed by Charmaz’s (2014) constructivist grounded theory which allowed us to seek thick descriptions and detailed narratives of participants’ experiences. Our organization of the findings from the interviews was shaped, in part, by a chronological framework that emerged in the second author’s previous research on the experiences of police mothers (see Langan et al., 2017). Based on the police fathers data, we adapted this framework to organize our findings in terms of fathers’ experiences at work before the baby was born (“anticipating and announcing fatherhood at work”) and then after the baby was born (“managing fatherhood and work”). Our analysis of the findings reveals that policing organizations, for the most part, responded positively when fathers announced fatherhood, took parental leave, and returned from parental leave. When they become fathers, police men are able to still be seen as ‘fitting with’ the concept of the ideal worker - being a father does not preclude them from that ideal. This is in contrast to the experience of police mothers who face serious barriers in the workplace that render them unfit and at odds with the concept of the “ideal worker.” We argue that the flexible and negotiable nature of being a father – due to what we found to be their relatively limited role in childcare responsibilities and domestic work - allows police fathers to fulfill cultural and organizational expectations of prioritizing work over family. Additionally, we argue that the differing experiences of fathers and mothers in the workplace reflect the pervasive hegemonic masculinity within police organizations that exalts fatherhood as a ‘badge of honour,’ but discriminates against women when they become mothers.

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Non-presenting author: Debra Langan, Wilfrid Laurier University