AP/SOSC 3130 6.00

Women And Work: Production And Reproduction

This course investigates the formation of the gender division of labour at work in the home and in the paid workplace. Women’s entry into the paid labour force as low-wage, flexible workers in manufacturing and service occupations, their role in the caring professions, and their changing status and participation in household work, is examined in historical perspective in the first term. The second term expands upon some of the theoretical insights from the history of women’s work illustrating continuities with the past in relation to the contemporary position of women in the global economy. Topics include: the role of women in global manufacture (garment, electronics), the migration of women reproductive workers worldwide (domestics, sex workers), and the implications of sex discrimination in restructured industries and labour markets. The course ends with a discussion concerning how to promote gender equality at work through formal regulation and the global women’s movement response in organized resistance to female inequality.