Blog #34

Joan Williams addressed many of the issues discussed in English’s book “Gender on Trial” in her question and answer of her book. The goal of her book was to “unbend gender” which she describes as referring to two different trends. The first trend is that in this country there has been unbending and unyielding; there had been “a lot less changed than we had hoped for 20 or 30 years ago. The sendond she describes as the extent of the things that have changed, “changed have been achieved not by moving toward androgyny, but by widening out the range of socially acceptable masculinities and femininities-preserving ‘la difference’ between men and women”.
She clearly separates “market work” and “family work”. She defines “market work” the work that is done for pay and “family work” which includes childcare, housework, eldercare and other forms of caring work. English defines this “family work” as care giving in general.
Williams discusses some of the emotional challenges faces by women who are stay-at-home moms, women you re-enter the work force after having children immediately and women who attempt to accomplish both. She states that even the mothers who stay at home often feel they are taken less seriously by other adults and feel they are viewed at “just a housewife”. She talks about how mothers who work full time often find themselves on the “mommy track” which mean depressed pay rates, fewer benefits, and blocked advancement. So the mothers, whether employed or not, suffer as a result of the current system. She points out that this even affects non-mother because many employers refuse to take them seriously because of the assumption that they too will eventually become mothers and “drop out”.
According to Williams, most people, when assessing their choices, choose the choices they have, not what they should have. This in effect causes them to become involved in a “false choice”. If they had a choice to cut back their hours or reduce them without marginalization, they might, but many women who are at home might add paid work to their lives, if they had a real choice to do so.
The “ideal worker” has been defined as a person who does a good job, that typically are willing and able to work full time for 40 years straight, taking no time off for childbearing or childrearing. This is a very biased view because it is “framed around men’s bodies”. Men are unaffected by the standards and women desperately are. If women and men were supposed to be considered “ideal workers” than they typically child would be raised without their parents “from 8am to 6, 7, or 8pm. This would then effect whether or not the children of a family would be raised correctly to societies standards.
If women attempt to work part time while raising a family, this disadvantages them greatly as talked about in English’s book. Here there are many testimonials about how other workers feel they are unfairly treated compared to the part-time workers or feel that these workers are not working as hard as they are within their designated time periods.