Social Policy: European Perspectives

Caring for our young: child care in Europe and the United States By Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel

In “Caring for our young: child care in Europe and the United States,” Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel compare the child care systems in the U.S. and Europe. Highlighting the insufficiencies of the U.S. system, they discuss the successful systems in France and Denmark and discuss the aspects of those systems that the U.S. could use in order to establish a better U.S. system. This is a necessary action in the U.S. since almost half of American three-year-olds (46%) and 64% of four-year-olds participate in daycare. However, with so many shortcoming found in the system, more than one our of eight three- to four-year-old children with employed mothers are in three or more child care arrangements and almost half participate in two or more. Clawson and Gerstel discuss the French system, called école maternelle, which is a voluntary publicly funded system that is guaranteed to every child between the ages of three and six. The same national system with the same curriculum and good quality is offered to all classes and citizens of France, all with teachers paid good wages by the national ministry. The centers are open from 8:30 t0 4:30 and offer affordable care before and after those times. Bases on a approach of early education, the centers are not considered a place for working parents with no other options. In fact, the system is so popular that almost 100% parents—employed and non-employed—enroll their three-year-olds. The centers, which are completely publicly funded, can be pricey; cost for a child in Paris was $5,500 in 1999. France funds the system by devoting 1% of its GDP on government funded early education care programs. If the U.S. spent that much on its care programs, it would be spending $100 billion a year. Currently, however, the U.S. spends less than $20 billion a year on child care programs. Other European systems, such as that in Denmark, are established on different goals than educational ones. The lead staffs in Denmark are called pedagogues rather than teachers. Though the pedagogues have the same level of education and qualifications and are paid teachers’ wages, they play a different role than the teachers in French centers. They are meant to cultivate children’s playtime and act as mediators. Care in Denmark is offered to children from birth to age three as well as from ages three to six, unlike France who only offers it to the latter age group. Because the system in France is primarily intended to educate children, it is available to all children. In Denmark, however, the system is meant to aid parents and so it is only available to children of working parents. In the U.S., the child care system operates on a mother-substitute model rather than an educational model like in France. In this model, parents choose child care when the mother cannot be there. 98 percent of child care staff are women. According to this model on which the U.S. operates, these women are meant to be substitutes to mothers and therefore have all the natural maternal feelings and capacities that a mother would have. Therefore, staff is not required to have special training and the primary measure for assessing the quality of the centers is the child-staff ratio. This, however, has proven to be a weak measure, for the European systems discusses have much higher larger child-staff ratios, yet have proven to be greater successes than the U.S. one. Furthermore, despite the importance Americans place on mother care, they have extremely weak parental leave policies. FMLA has guaranteed a 12-week job-protected leave to workers of covered employers, but despite its parading as a “gender neutral” piece of legislation, the majority of those taking leaves are women. These women endure a pay wage penalty for interrupting their careers. Sweden and Norway have confronted this problem by introducing a “use it or lose it” policy in which one of the twelve months families are given for paid leave is designated to the father and if he forfeits this month, the family loses it. Clawson and Gerstel, in discussing possible new U.S. systems, conjecture that U.S. policy makers and child care experts would be very much in favor of adapting the French system. American parents, on the other hand, would be more likely to favor the Denmark systems as most American have a strong idea of fostering and maintaining a child’s innocent childhood. Personally, I think the French system seems like the best possible solution. I do not think it would corrupt American children, as education does not need to take away childhood innocence. Rather, I think it would greatly benefit the children particularly those of low-socioeconomic classes. It would not favor any class, nor would it single out the less fortunate. The major obstacle, however, would be funding, which is inextricably connected to the obstacle of public favor.

Work-Family Policies: The United States in International Perspective By Erin L. Kelly

In the chapter “Work-Family Policies: The United States in International Perspective,” Erin Kelly reviews work-family policies and employer-based work-familu policies in the United States. She compares these policies to international ones in order to gain a better understanding of the American system. Kelly asserts that American work-family policies reflect “the liberal welfare state’s reliance on the market and its meager policies for those who do not fare well in the market system.” (118) As compared to other industrialized nations, the U.S. has much less comprehensive public policies and programs for working families. Furthermore, there is greater inequalities of access to such policies and programs in the U.S. than those other countries. Kelly begins by addressing the family leave policies, which is largely limited to the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). This act requires some employers to grants qualified employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for family members or to recover from worker’s own serious illness. However, there are many limitations to this program. To begin with, it neglects a large number of workers, most of whom are from the neediest families. Furthermore, the fact that it is unpaid means that these leaves are not an option for many families. These limitations prove that FMLA caters to middle- and upper-class workers, while remaining useless to lower-income workers. Other than FMLA, employers are required to provide disability insurance for pregrant women, which does allow them paid leaves. However, there are few efforts in the way of paid paternity leave. The family leave policies in Nordic countries, on the other hand, provide generous family leaves for both mothers and fathers, reflecting their “commitment to gender equality and to social citizenship that characterizes these countries.” (104) The policies of most of the Continental European countries provoke economic disincentive to fathers’ use of leave time, which is similar to the underlying economic logic of the U.S.. These countries, however, still provide generous maternity leave during the short-run and gender neutral, low-paid leave for longer periods. Asian countries have recently improved and expanded their family leave policies as part of an attempt to increase female employment and, in some countries, as part of improvements in their sex discrimination laws. Policies in Asia are therefore more generous now than those in the U.S. Next, Kelly addresses publicly supported child care. She says that, “the United States has a piecemeal child-care policy, with different types of government support for families at different income levels.” (105) While the federal government funds child care for low-income families through subsidies, it relies solely on tax breaks to aid the rest of the American families. The government, however, has lost more money through childcare related tac breaks than it has spent on supporting child-care programs. But supporters of the tax breaks insist that they are an unobtrusive way that works with the market for the government to aid families. These people are against child-care subsidies for low-income families as they associate them with ostracized “welfare” programs. Furthermore, the quality of child care varies dramatically from state to state as it is a state-job to regulate child-care services, and regulations. In most European countries, child care is available as a public service for children ages three and up. The government in these countries regulates childcare programs and staff is employed or licensed by the government. Furthermore, many of these countries offer a wide range of selection of child care. After comparing various countries’ policies, Kelly asserts that the U.S. provides much less support for its worker than do other countries. Even when workers to have access to work-family policies, they are hesitant to take advantage of them as they worried about negatively affecting their careers. Furthermore, because the benefits are contingent on employment, they do not provide security for working families. Kelly concludes that any change to work-family policies is unlikey to occur in the near future since the current system is beneficial to some workers, particularly more privileged and thus more powerful citizens. This was an important point that Kelly made as it showed that she is not an idealist. While many of the problems she pointed out are extremely relevant and change is necessary, I do not believe that anything substantial will happen until the policy makers and those who influence the policy makers directly experience negative effects of the current policies.

Creating Gender Egalitarian Societies: An Agenda for Reform By Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers

In this article, Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers attempt to explain the social and economic changes that have fueled the modern problems of work-family conflict, gender inequality, and dangers to children’s health development. In wealthy countries of the world, begin the two authors, employment of women beginning to equal that of men. Accompanying this change is the fact that the majority of children are now growing up in either single-parent families or duel income-earning families. In both cases parents must divide their time between work and caregiving. These authors acknowledge that these changes have afforded many with greater opportunity. However, the changes have also given rise to new problems such as the growing “time-poverty” problem of parents. They have also aggravated gender inequalities and led to many the placement of many children in inconsistent and poor-quality care arrangements. In addressing these changes and problems, the authors focus their analysis and policy recommendations on western, northern, and southern Europe as well as on Canada and the United States. These countries, Gornick and Meyers assert, typify the contradiction between historic gender assumption regarding caregiving and current economic demands and opportunities. Many Americans are view these problems in terms of tradeoffs among interests of women, men, and children that is fundamentally affected by women’s employment decision. The authors, however, maintain that these tradeoffs are not inexorable. Rather they attribute the source of these problems to the contemporary workplace practices and social policies who, in neglecting to respond to the changing social and economic environment, are incompatible with “our shared social interest in raising healthy children while promoting women’s full equality with men.” (114) The solution to these problems, they argue, is to rework our current social arrangements, which are based on “outdated assumptions” that the man will devote all his time to paid employment so that the women can give her time to unpaid care giving in the home. In outlining solutions, Gornick and Meyers propose “a blueprint of institutional reforms that would support gender egalitarian caregiving.” (114) In this blueprint, they assert that we must develop a “duel-earner/duel-cargiving” system on which our society would operate. Under this system, men and women would share employment and caregiving responsibilities. It would respond to the interest of everyone by providing equal employment opportunity for men and women, foster equal contribution from mothers and fathers at home, and ensure consistent high-quality care for children. In analyzing work-family policies, the authors point out that the European policies vary according to country. However, they maintain that there exists consistency across all countries policies of supporting gender equality in the workplace and at home and of making care equally available to all citizens. In applauding European policy efforts, Gornick and Meyers adapt and combine various aspects of policies from certain European countries, such as “paid family leave, regulation of working time, and early childhood education and care.” (324) The authors acknowledge how difficult it would to gain support and funding for any changes. However, they insist that the arguments for government intervention in this dimension of cargiving are very compelling since child rearing is a universal endeavor. Furthermore, though the costs of caring for a child are private, the benefits of a well-raised child are publicly reaped. I agree that the public should theoretical support such government aid. But in reality, it will be difficult to convince the public of the benefits of government intervention and increased funding since the benefits it would produce are for the most part realized in the long run. The fact that the public wouldn’t see all the effects in the immediate would probably lead to doubt.

Developing Earner-Carer Policies in the United States By Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers

In conducting cross-national comparisons of family-work government policies, this reading asserts that government policies that support parents in their earning and caring roles are realistic. Gornick and Meyers put forth that such comparisons also expose the United States as exceptional in cross-national terms. The U.S. stands out socially for such reasons as its diversity of population, its high number of single parents, structure of labor markets, and its decentralization of policy-making authority. Furthermore, the U.S. is politically unique in relation to its European counterparts for its enthusiastic support of private market solutions and its virulent distrust of government—particularly federal government—intervention. These exceptional aspects create obstacles to government-sponsored child care in the United States. Though many European policies are successful, they all involve a lot of government intervention. This, as previously stated, arouses distrust and fear in Americans. Furthermore, its intensely racially and culturally diverse population means that America is a patchwork of differing values. With the staunch desire to retain their own values, parents are hesitant to place their children in care that would encourage opposing values. It is possible then that government instituted child care would be publicly accepted if it offered options that allowed parents to ensure that their values and needs were being met. There is also the fear such policies would lead to an increase in birthrates and a decrease in marriage rates, thus possibly increasing the number of single mothers. However, the authors point out that the contrary has occurred in European countries, which have been experiencing sometimes dangerously low birthrates. A further concern is that instituting these policies would have deleterious effects on employment and would in fact increase unemployment and thus severely harm the economy. However, there is no empirical evidence of this effect. Men and employers are two major groups from whom opposition is expected. It is believed that the former group may resent the changes in gender roles that would result from policy changes. However, many studies have shown that men would like to have more time with their children, but fear the disapproval of their workplace if they were to make such time. It is believed employers would oppose policy changes because out of fear that it would lower the productivity of their company. However, it is believed that easing the family-work conflict would make for happy employees and higher morale in the workplace. I do not think that either side presented in this article are entirely correct; they both seem to clear-cut. Those who oppose increased government intervention seem to have irrational and/or unsupported arguments. But the refutations of those arguments are based on comparison with other countries, which seems sometimes to be comparing apple and oranges. In surveying other countries’ child care systems, we cannot isolate them from the countries’ overall and general goals and values. Many of those systems seem ideal and, in just looking at them alone, seem like perfect solutions to the United State’s flawed system. However, the changes that instituting such system would require would affect the overall system the United States, which would require a reworking of American ideologies.

Social Policy in the United States

Welfare Debate: Who Pays for Procreation? By Dorothy Roberts In “Welfare Debate: Who Pays for Procreation?” Dorothy Roberts discusses the history and problems of the welfare system in America. She begins by discussing the welfare reform of 1996, which occurred under former president Bill Clinton. She says that this reform was the end of the view of welfare as charity and the beginning of the view of it as “means of modifying poor people’s behavior.” (202) She asserts that welfare reform has become the primary means of limiting fertility of Black females. In fighting to save parts of the former welfare system, Roberts tells us that people have ignored the system’s many flaws. She cites historian Linda Gordon who said that it was women reformers who established the foundation of welfare system as well as the debates regarding single motherhood that surround the system still today. However, though it was feminist who designed the system, it still failed as these feminists were conforming to the existing patriarchal family norm that established the adherence to the “family wage.” They therefore fought for a system that would allow the husband to be the breadwinner and the wife to fulfill the unpaid domestic labor at the home and thus prevented female independence. Roberts explains that another problem in the forming of our welfare system was the elitist attitude of the privileged white activists who led the welfare campaigns. They viewed welfare as a means of controlling poor urban immigrants, who activists saw as a threat to social order and the altogether neglected support for Black females. The New Deal thus “solidified welfare’s stratification along racial as well as gender lines.” (205) It wouldn’t be until the civil rights movement that Black women would obtain greater access to welfare benefits. However, Roberts insists that the new federal welfare laws threaten all the changes made during the civil rights movement and mark a turn back to the system created in the New Deal. Once again, the system is becoming a tool of social control, using federal government assistance as a means of forcing mothers to conform to familial ideals. Next, Roberts addresses the policy of “family caps,” which are aimed at limiting Black mothers’ fertility. One such policy limits or denies women further welfare support with any additional child she may have. Whereas legislators in the past made their motivations to limit Black women’s birthrate clear, Roberts explains that today family caps are not based on a view of recipients’ genetic inferiority, but they are are used as means of ridding America of the burden tat the poor impose. Roberts then spends some time debunking the various myths surrounding welfare that have been exploited by enforcing new welfare reforms. The first of these is the myth that welfare induces childbirth. Roberts says that “welfare reform measures are designed to discourage reproduction,”(218) based on the belief that welfare encourages poor women to have more children. However, Roberts asserts that there is no evidence providing a reliable correlation between welfare support and increased birthrate. Furthermore, Roberts tells us that regardless of welfare support, welfare mothers suffer a financial loss with each additional child. Child exclusion laws, therefore, only worsen the poverty for these families. The next myth Roberts refutes is one that says that welfare causes dependency on the system and fuels a cycle of poverty. This myth includes that notion that Americans would not have support poor children if the parents of those children would work. This notion stems from the idea that people rely on welfare because they lack incentive to work. However, Roberts points out that most welfare recipients work while they are on welfare. Finally, Roberts addresses the myth that marriage can end children’s poverty. Roberts maintains that America’s inadequate welfare system is a result of a “racist unwillingness to include Blacks as full citizens.” (243) She asserts that we cannot hope to end poverty by using welfare manipulation reforms. Rather moving closer to poverty’s end would require drastic economic and social changes. I liked how Roberts opened up the problem of welfare and its recipients beyond the programs themselves. It seems that all the discussion and debates surrounding welfare comforts policymakers, as they seem to provide an easy explanation and answer to poverty. But Roberts does a good job showing how this problem is a result of fundamental ideologies structuring the policies of our country and policymakers attempting to fix the problem of poverty are prisoners to such ideologies.

Emotion Work and Sex Work

‘Stepford wives’ and ‘hollow men’?

By Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden

            In “‘Stepford wives’ and ‘hollow men’?” Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden address the different kinds of emotion work men and women do in marital and couple relationships, exploring the question of how this work effects the authenticity of an individual.  The authors begin by quoting Hochschild definition of emotional work as “emotional effort made by individuals—both men and women—to ‘manage’ their feelings to bring them into line with the societal ‘feeling rules’ which prescribe how they ‘ought’ to feel in particular social situations.” (212)  They then address how various sociologists have described the emotion work of each gender. 

It is said that women work to tray to make men open up emotionally and that they are expected to nurture men and take care of their emotional needs.   They do so by perfeoming physical displays of happiness and intimacy such as smiling, laughing, hugging, kissing, and even faking orgasms.  Further, they seem to magnify their husbands importance and minimize their failures in order to build up their husbands image.  They also tend to take complete responsibility for maintaining relations with a wider network of kin and relationships.  Men, on the other hand, seem to direct their emotion work towards coping with the stresses of “being a breadwinner and in order to conform to their own ideology of masculinity. 

Duncombe and Marsden present Hochschild theory regarding the danger of behaving ‘inauthentically’ while doing emotion work.  They term her belief that there results an over-identification with the required role, “‘self-loss’ as a result of ‘deep acting’”(216).   The other result that Hochschild believes can arise is a becoming estranged and cynical, which the authors call “‘self-withdrawal’ and a refusal to do any acting at all”(216).  Next, the authors refer to the psychodynamic theory, which questions the validity of the concept of ‘authenticity’ that implies a certain ‘real’ feelings that arise from a ‘real’ self.  This theory asks whether the ‘self’ that develops from childhood and adolescent experiences is particularly authentic.  However, the authors do not believe that this theory provides a reliable structure of authentic feeling and behavior.  The, therefore, regard it as “elaborate metaphor which usefully stress that gender-stereotyped emotional differences may be ‘deeply rooted’ in childhood and adolescence, so that it is difficult for individuals to recognize consciously what they are doing and to change their behaviour by rational reflection.” (217)

The authors then refer to various attempts sociologists have made to combine the psychodynamic models and “new sociological theories of the cultural and historical variability of gender and personality,” in order to avoid gender stereotyping.  To begin with, there is the idea that the ease with which an individual is able to assume gender ideology depends on “how well it fits to the ‘self’ and ‘identity’ that have developed through the processes of socialization, development and attachment during early childhood and adolescence.” (218)  Next, there is the belief that gender is not static, rather an ongoing development that changes according to how certain actions and rationales conform to particular gender identity.  They call this latter theory “doing gender.”  According to “doing gender,” emotion work involves performing emotional skills and abilities to do emotion work in a way that conforms to the respective gender ideology.  The authors say that feelings of inauthentic behavior may arise from the inability to unite the “feeling rules of the gender ideology” with the “core self” or “core identity

In their own research, Duncombe and Marsden found that when men encountered problems in their marriage, they became aware of the pressures to change their emotional behavior. While many of the men they interviewed found that shallow emotion work helped their relationships with their wives, most of these men few felt inauthentic in doing this work.  Many women the authors interviewed had come to resent “what they had come to perceive as the unfairness and inequality of relationships where they did all the emotion work and seemed to get no direct emotional benefits in return.” (222)  Other women said that they had felt authentic about doing emotion work in the beginning, but more and more felt withdrawn from it.

I found this reading to be an almost philosophical account of the human person.  I found Hochschild’s account of authenticity to be very simplistic and general.  I do not believe that one can define “authenticity” universally.  Rather, I think authenticity is particular to each individual.  For this reason, I appreciated Duncombe and Marsden concluding remarks that in “lacking any independent guide to truly ‘authentic emotional behaviour—we have to accept that some individuals may derive their sense of authenticity from ‘core selves’ and ‘core identities’ which various other commentators might want to criticize as deeply inauthentic.” (225)

Whose Orgasm is this Anyway?

By Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden

In “Whose Orgasm is this Anyway?” Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden. explore how heterosexual couples in long-term relationships deal with the disparity between media heightened sexual expectations and their actual sex lives.  They address the concept of “sex work” in a similar way to how they addressed “emotion work.  They begin by presenting the argument of some feminists that marital sex is a form of aliented work.  While the authors approve of this perspective in so far is it successfully addresses address “the hierarchical and exploitive institutionalisation of the ‘male/female’ relationship,” they criticize it for often ignoring “the relevance of individual subjective experience of sex.”

Before presenting their own empirical findings, Duncombe and Marsden present that of others.  They begin by discussing Rubin’s large US survey and Mansfield and Collard’s study of 60 UK newly-weds, both of whiched found that while people tended to use media ideals as a measure of the state of their relationship and emotions, there is an inconsistency between that ideal and couples’ actual behavior.  Mansfield and Collard found that women in marriage encountered greater difficulty in refusing sex out of fear causing their husbands to feel rejected.  At the same time, husbands were less likely to express the emotional intimacy women required in order to experience fulfilling sex.  It seems that in the long-term, sexual activity tends to decline among married couples. 

Next Duncombe and Marsden use their own research to study the change in longer-term relationships.  According to much of the respondents, it seems that many couples are unable to recapture earlier passion and romance, but they do not know why.  Many women confessed that the had always, at some level, found their sexual relationships unfulfilling.  While in the beginning, many of these women blamed themselves, later in the relationship they often began to identify the problems as the fault of their husbands.  Men, on the other hand, who realized early problems usually blamed them on what they believed to be their wives’ low sex-drive.  The authors partly attribute the decline in sexual activity among married couples to the disruptions of work, childbirth, and family.  

Next, Duncombe and Marsden discuss the use of pornography among long-term couples.  They found that in most cases this use was intiated by men.  Many women accepted it in the early stages of their relationship, but later on many of these women rejected it as they felt a loss of intimacy or they felt less capable of allowing themselves to be sexually aroused.  Other ways couples attempted to improve their sexual activity was through experimentation.  Some men urged their wives to give them oral sex.  Some women flat out refused while others fulfilled their husbands’ request and some women even experienced a sense of power in doing so.  Many of these husbands turned to more frequent masturbation in order to avoid coercing their wives and thus a sense of guilt.  Women also turned to masturbation, but usually preferred to do so alone out of shyness and fear that their husbands would be insulted.  Rather than continuing to practice unfulfilling sex, some couples negotiated arranged period of celibacy, but their was usually resentment that followed this negotiation as it was most often initiated by one person.  However, Duncombe and Marsden point out that “in all these instances where couples had come to some kind of negotiated stand-off arrangements about sex, there was the ever-present danger that the marriage would be destabilized by one partmer becoming involved in a passion that would highlight the inadequacies of the marriage.” (233)

I do not know what to think after reading this.  I don’t know if there is such thing as “authentic” sex.  The optimist in me does believe in a romantic and passionate ideal of spontaneous sex.  But then even if this does exist for how long can it exist with the same partner? Duncombe and Marsden conclude with similar uncertainties; while this makes me value and respect their article more, it also leaves me a bit disappointed. 

Sex Work for the Middle Classes

By Elizabeth Bernstein

In “Sex Work for the Middle Classes,” Elizabeth Bernstein examines the phenomenon of the growing number of middle-class women participating in sex work.  She begins by addressing the economic considerations of such work, which she asserts are still significant today in middle-class sex workers’ erotic and professional decision-making.  This is true because of gendered inequality within the high technology sector, well-paid, part-time work was difficult for many women to find even during the zenith of the internet economy.  The relatively high pay of the sex industry as compared to other service sector jobs was enough to attract some women from middle-class backgrounds.  While this basic economic account is valid, Bernstein says that there are nonmaterial reasons too based on acknowledging the middle class as petit bourgeoisie who “seeks its occupational and personal salvation (and thus its sense of distinction) via an ethic of ‘fun.’”(477) Bernstein, therefore, argues that we cannot only study the middle-class sex workers’ pursuit of an ethic of sexual experimentation and freedom in ideological terms, but we must also study it as a means to obtaining class distinction.

            In her research, Bernstein found that the goal of most middle-class sex workers is eventually obtain professional autonomy.  She found that women working with third-party management tended to remove themselves from situations that promoted a purely instrumentalist relationship to the labor.  The internet, in reconfiguring the structure of sexual commerce, has benefited many middle-class sex workers, assisting them in realizing their goals.  To begin with, the internet has broadened their clientele.  It has also made it ever more possible for women able to combine technical expertise with sex work to operate without third-party assistance.

            Bernstein says that this new paradigm of middle-class sex work that has evolved in this modern, technological age, involves, within the commercial context, a greater amount of emotional and physical labor of what is bought and sold.   Within this context, an important emotional boundary for both the worker and the client is established through successful commercial transactions.  This boundary, however, is one that can be lessened in order to establish the clients’ desired authentic interpersonal connection.  Additionally, it is important to many sex workers that their labor be meaningful to themselves, not just to their clients. 

            I thought it was very interesting how Bernstein discussed the emotions and authenticity of sex work.  I wondered if this is the same sort of passions that arise in other, non-sex related jobs.  Though her article did seem to be very biased towards middle-class sex work.  All the women she interviewed were ones whom were in favor of and having positive experiences with sex work.  I believe that Bernstein successfully painted a economic and professional picture of sex work, which I cannot decide is good or bad.

 Whats Wrong with Prostitution?

By Elizabeth Bernstein

            In “Whats Wrong with Prostitution?” Elizabeth Bernstein attempts to construct an adequate theory of prostitution, which accounts for culture, context, history, race, and class.  She bases her own input on eighteen months of fieldwork and interviews she did among San Francisco Prostitutes.  She reviews recent feminist literature, classifying them into three main categories: (1) radical feminist critique; (2) pro-sex feminist defenses of prostitution; and (3) contextualized feminist approaches to various aspects of the sex-work industry. 

            In the radical feminist critique, prostitution is usually deeply criticized.  This critique says that the sexual objectification of women within this occupation makes it uncomporable with other, traditional wage labor.  Furthermore, women gain now empowerment from sex work.  Rather they become subordinate objects to men, paying for the service, who gain power in such transactions.  However, pro-sex feminist argue that women, in fact, gain power through sex work since it allows them to freely express their sexuality and in doing this work, they deny traditional gender expecations. Contextualized feminist approaches focus on prostitution as a last resort, pursued by women who are left with no other option. 

            Next Bernstein addresses the different classes of women sex workers, which establishes a hierarchical structure in this sphere.  She explains that class, which is determined according to race and appearance, assigns the type of work a sex worker finds, who a sex worker work for, and how much she gets paid.  High-class sex workers are unique in that they get paid more than they would in any other profession they could pursue.  These women generally encounter little legal trouble for work and express greater feelings of security than sex workers of other classes.  The lower the class a sex worker belongs to, the more dangerous becomes her job as the worse the area in which they work become and the lower the pay becomes.  Low-class sex workers are more likely to be as young as teenagers. 

            Bernstein spends sometime focusing on COYOTE, which stands for Call Off Your Tired Ethics.  Founded in San Francisco, COYOTE is a national prostitutes’ rights organization which works towards legitimizing the profession of sex work.  The group consists does not claim to represent streetwalkers and in fact disregard it as appropriate.  The group is more made up of college graduates or highly educated women who willfully chose this occupation and lifestyle.  Those involved in the group deny the term “prostitution,” replacing it with “sex work,” as they maintain that the former term carries negative connotations, with which they are trying to do away 

 

 

 

 

Paid Carework

The “Nanny” Question in Feminism By Joan Tronto

In “The ‘Nanny’ Question in Feminism,” author Joan Tronto addresses the morality and practices of upper-class and upper middle-class men and women who are raising children in two-career households. These households are unique among dual-income households because both professionals in the household have professional jobs in which time demands are excessive and unpredictable. Tronto explains that the two-career households, and others similarly situated, are more likely to use a paid full-time domestic caretaker who either lives in the household or does not. Tronto asserts that these particular families, though of narrow demographic focus, are important for two reasons. Firstly, they are the first families to benefit from the end of the gender-caste barriers. Secondly, their standards for intensive mothering reflect a broader ideology. Tronto discusses the moral uniqueness that exists among the use of domestic servants. The relationship within the household is much more intimate than that in other markets and so hired workers in the household take on a quasi-family member role in which they are involved in all the details of the lives of the families they serve. Tronto begins by giving the workers’ perspective. She cites Hondagneu-Sotelo who reported that job offers of $150 per week for a live-in worker are not unusual in Los Angeles. She estimates that live-in domestic workers earn less than minimum wage and work an average of sixty-four hours each week. Live-out nannies she surveyed averaged $5.90 an hour for approximately forty to forty-five hours each week. Tronto quotes Diemut Bubeck who wrote that "the exploitative mechanism, is the social institution of the sexual division of labor which constructs women as carers and thus systematically 'extracts surplus labor' in the form of unpaid care from them (to hearken back to Marx's definition of exploitation)" (1995, 181). This is especially true for domestic workers. It is hard for these workers to fight back since there work creates a bond between them and their charges. Tronto says this can have several effects on the children. It is possible that they could come to regard all people, regardless of their connection to them, as a means to an end, rather than ends in themselves. Furthermore, because race and ethnicity usually distinguish the employers and the workers, children cared for by domestic servants are being more completely absorbed in a racist culture. But parents, according to Tronto give man justifications for using domestic servants. The well-off women who hire domestic servants believe that they are acting in the best interests of their children. For the upper middle-class, "good mothering" is inevitably tied to children's success in the context of a highly competitive capitalist environment. Tronto ends with advocating for actions to be taken in order to improve working conditions of these workers. According to her, this includes enforcing labor laws that already exist as well as including laws for minimum wages and social security benefits. I think this was a very informative and detailed essay. I don’t like how Tronto seems to demonize the use of domestic workers altogether. However, I completely agree with her that laws need to be more closely observed for the protection of these workers as well as new laws created. Otherwise, I do not agree with Tronto that the children taken care of by domestic workers are more immersed in a racist culture. Rather, I believe being raised by a domestic worker of a different ethnicity or race can positively introduce the child to another race. However, this does have to do with the child and with the way in which the child’s parents treat the worker.

The Place of Caregiving Work in Contemporary Societies By Deanne Bonnar

In “The Place of Caregiving Work in Contemporary Societies,” author Deanne Bonnar discusses the problem of caregiving being pushed to the margins of importance. She says that this has occurred out of the development of the industrialization and wage economy, which values work according to the production and servicing of goods. She also attributes this problem to the early stages of feminist theory, which held that activity in the domestic sphere is less important than activity in the public arena. Bonnar explains that reproduction and care of people has been traditionally female activity in most societies. As such, for the most part, particularly in Eurocentric cultures, care for people has been looked upon as love, duty, or biological destiny and rarely as work. Women, therefore, have rarely been entitled to direct access of economic resources. Socialists and feminists are the only two groups that have addressed this issue up until recently. However, both groups have ignored or devalue the work done in the domestic sphere. According to Bonnar’s account of early feminist theory, it was believed housework would be collectivized or purchased on the market and it would eventually disappear. In reality, it has not disappeared, but rather women are now burdened with dual workloads. This has caused feminists to turn their attentions to household work. This means looking at housework in a new light. Bonnar discusses the problem that homemaking has been narrowly described for its physical roles. “Thus, one sees “cook” listed repeatedly in studies,” says Bonnar, “but rarely “judge,” “negotiator,” “family historian,” “accountant,” “philosopher,” lobbyist,” “lawyer,” “spiritual guide,” “policewoman,” “healer,” or even “counselor.” While housework refers to the care of goods, caregiving for humans is a much more arduous and intellectually consuming job. The market has had a hard time reproducing care of people, because this care is not equivalent to production of goods. Bonnar says that understanding the amount of thought that is involved in parenting and other caregiving activities important for four reasons. Firstly, the familiarity of these activities gives us the illusion that we understand them, though in reality we rarely have a conceptual intelligibility. Secondly, this lack of clarity leads people to assume that the market can easily reproduce these tasks, which would easily end the inequalities existing between men and women. Thirdly, because of the responsibility involved in caregiving, women have limited career choices. Finally, ignoring the requirements of caregiving has allowed it to be labeled simply as “housework.” It is thus not deemed as important enough to be accommodated for with the market and corporate policy development has focused attention only on paid employment and not personal caregiving. Bonnar outlines possible steps that can be taken to overcome this problem. she begins by discussing the modification of the time dilemma. A “system of guaranteed parental leave,” maintains Bonnar, “that permits extended care after birth and occasional leave for childhood emergencies. ” (Bonnar 1990). She also advocates the expansion of flextime arrangements, pointing to Sweden and Israel who have proposed shortening workdays. Next Bonnar discusses the modification of the wage variable. She argues that we need a model that starts with a flat rate and adds increments according to intensity of care, amount of time required for care, the number of people being cared for, and whether or not the caregiver is the household’s only earner. Some feminist have objected to waging caregivers, arguing that it would reinforce women’s traditional roles and intensify isolation that women experience in partaking in domestic sphere. However, Bonnar asserts that could actually increase women’s “mobility, their identifications as a class of workers, their interest in unionization, and their political position.” (Bonnar 8). “The waging of caring work is not ‘buying love,’” Bonnar says, “but buying the circumstances of life that make love possible.”

Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence By Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

In the two chapters from Doméstica that we read, author Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo addresses the domestic work in the United States ad the immigrant population that does this work. She attributes the growth of domestic work, which she limits to nanny and housekeeper work, to the increased employment of women in the U.S. With the negative feelings many middle-class Americans hold for day-care centers, they prefer to have private caregivers in the home. The use of private caregivers gives parents a feeling of control and flexibility. Furthermore, they may believe that their children receive more attention this way. With such phenomena, many immigrants, particularly Latinos, have immigrated to the United States in order to find paid domestic work. The domestic work that Hondagneu-Sotelo discusses is work that is seen as women’s work, which would be done out of biological instinct and love. This belief justifies for many the low pay these domestic workers receive. Furthermore, domestic work carries a stigma of low-status, which further justifies low wages. Whereas in the past Black women had done this work, today it is largely completed by foreign-born Latinas. The legal status of many of these women leads to their increased exploitation, since they are at the whims of their employers. Their legal status also seems to validate their “social, economic, an political subordination” (18). Hondagneu-Sotelo addressed three types of domestic paid care work. The first is live-in nanny positions. This type of work seems to lead to the greatest feelings alienation and exploitation on the part of the workers. It prevents them from forming their own families and confines them almost entirely to their work. The second type of domestic work discussed in this reading is the live-out nanny. These workers tend to make more money on average per hour than do live-in nannies. In fact, they have reported a better situation overall and expressed greater satisfaction than the latter workers. The last type of domestic workers that Hondagneu-Sotelo explores is the housecleaner. These workers, Hondagneu-Sotelo asserts, make the most money out of the three types of domestic workers. They tend to report the greatest satisfaction among these domestic workers. Parts of this is do to the fact that they have the most freedom and are generally not confined to one employer. This was a very important reading. Hondagneu-Sotelo addressed a group of people that goes ignored by most of the public. In America we are all about bettering the workplace for Americans and ending inequalities between genders, but we ignore this vast group of marginalized immigrants. Most of America were immigrants at one point, immigrants are Americans and so to ignore the plight of the most recent immigrants is to ignore the foundation of America.

Extended Kin Ties

Using Kin for Child Care: Embedment in the Socioeconomic Networks of Extended Families

By Lynet Uttal

This article examines the differences among the childcare employed by Mexican American, African Americans, and whites.  It focuses heavily on each racial group’s uses and views of childcare by relatives.  The author begins by discussing the declining use of relative childcare by employed mothers.  This type of childcare has declined by about fifty percent since 1958.  On the other side, use of daycare homes and childcare centers as a means of childcare for young children has more than tripled.  Still, the author explains that relative childcare is more widely employed among minority families than it is among White families. 

            There are many explanations for these differences, but Uttal discusses the three major ones: (1) the cultural explanation, (2) the structural explanation, and (3) integrative explanation.  The second explanation, which says that the type of childcare used is decided for economic reasons, criticizes the first one, arguing that it fails to recognize that cultural practices may be responses to structural conditions rather than differences in cultural values.  The last of the three explanations is a combination of the former two.  It criticizes both explanations for being overly simplistic, arguing that the differences arise from an intersection of both cultural and structural situations.