What is Work? Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family and Business from the Early Modern Era to the Present
Abstract
Every society throughout history has defined what counts as work and what doesn�t. And more often than not, those lines of demarcation are inextricable from considerations of gender. What Is Work? offers a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding labor within the highly gendered realm of household economies. Drawing from scholarship on gender history, economic sociology, family history, civil law, and feminist economics, these essays explore the changing and often contested boundaries between what was and is considered work in different Euro-American contexts over several centuries, with an eye to the ambiguities and biases that have shaped mainstream conceptions of work across all social sectors. © 2018 Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, Manuela Martini. All Rights reserved.
... Challenging these assumptions, feminists have long argued for the valorization of reproductive labour within capitalist economies in the same manner as productive work (Larguía and Dumoulin, 1976;Pateman, 1988;Picchio, 1992). Many women around the world have launched campaigns emphasizing the need to recognize the value of these activities, not only in terms of their social value but in terms of the economic contribution that they bring to society (Sarti et al, 2018). This has led, for instance, to the International Wages for Housework Campaign. ...
... 68 Specific legislation regulating the sector was adopted in the same period. The first law on domestic labour (still in force today) dates back to 1958, 69 followed by access to health insurance in 1971, the right to collective bargaining in 1969 70 and the first collective agreement in 1974 (Sarti, 2010;Busi, 2020). Since then, domestic workers have been granted basic labour rights and protections by law, including working and rest times, paid holidays, wages and a 13th-month payment, dismissal regulation, severance pay and matrimonial leave, among other things. ...
... By implication, they have highlighted and denounced the exploitation of this form of labour within patriarchal and capitalist societies. Tasks performed by women inside their households have been emphasized as constituting 'work', deserving the same recognition as any other form of work (Sarti et al, 2018). Whether or not they explicitly acknowledge the origin of their arguments in feminist critiques, activists for domestic workers' rights also often clearly affirm the value of unpaid forms of reproductive labour, thereby challenging the general lack of social value assigned to tasks connected to caregiving and housekeeping, while simultaneously demanding improvements in their salaries, labour protections and contract rights (Dalla Costa and James, 1975;Federici, 1975;Delphy, 1984;Pateman, 1988;Picchio, 1992). ...
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https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/global-domestic-workers
Drawing from the EU-funded DomEQUAL research project across 9 countries in Europe, South America and Asia, this comparative study explores the conditions of domestic workers around the world and the campaigns they are conducting to improve their labour rights.
The book showcases how domestic workers’ movements put ‘intersectionality in action’ in representing the interest of various marginalized social groups from migrants and low-income groups to racialized and rural girls and women.
Casting light on issues such as subjectification, and collective organizing on the part of a category of workers conventionally regarded as unorganizable, this ambitious volume will be invaluable for scholars, policy makers and activists alike.
... A investigação mais recente sublinha como, no mundo do trabalho, muitos contextos promovem a imagem favorável ao gênero, mas na realidade não apoiam as mulheres na maternidade, colocando-as em condições de enorme dificuldade no equilíbrio entre vida profissional e pessoal(Bianchi, Fabbri, Romano, 2018).Em muitos países ocidentais, os objetivos de aumento do emprego feminino foram prosseguidos num período de redução da protecção do emprego e do bem-estar público, em nome de políticas neoliberais que favoreceram a difusão da desregulamentação dos contratos de trabalho em nome da flexibilidade, acompanhada por o fraco investimento dos gastos sociais em medidas de apoio à maternidade(Campanella, Monticelli, Quattrocchi, 2018). Os resultados destas políticas são a presença numerosa de mulheres jovens em funções contratuais temporárias, descontínuas ou mal protegidas; o aumento da idade das mães primíparas, provocado pelo contínuo adiamento da maternidade para evitar a expulsão do mercado de trabalho; a redução do número de filhos por casal, ligada aos problemas de conciliação do tempo de trabalho e de cuidados(Sarti, Bellavitis, 2018). Estes fenômenos mostram como as jovens têm tido que lidar com as elevadas expectativas do mundo produtivo, face à falta ou extrema escassez de medidas de apoio à maternidade. ...
O artigo apresenta uma leitura pedagógica dos modelos de gênero veiculados, com particular atenção à representação da maternidade, uma questão necessária e urgente para poder estimular meninos e meninas a construção de um olhar crítico, assim como para o acesso à informação. Propõe uma análise da representação da maternidade presente nas aventuras das super-heroínas dos quadrinhos e do cinema nos últimos dez anos, partindo do pressuposto de que essas personagens, graças ao seu sucesso internacional imediato, entraram no imaginário coletivo, transmitindo imagens muito difundidas sobre os papéis de gênero. Em particular, as super-heroínas, além de transmitirem um conjunto de modelos de gênero complexos, a ligados aos estereótipos tradicionais ou não tradicionais, estão a transmitir ao público em geral algumas mensagens latentes e menos visíveis, mas muito incisivas, sobre a maternidade, este último constitui um elemento crucial na construção da identidade de género, nos seus aspectos simbólicos, culturais e sociais.
... Este artículo se enmarca en los estudios sobre el trabajo y las migraciones, los estudios feministas y con perspectiva de género. En ese sentido, nos apoyamos en investigaciones que, desde los años setenta, han cuestionado las nociones restrictivas de trabajo, que lo acotan al trabajo para el mercado, para incluir en esa categoría las tareas no remuneradas que realizan mayoritariamente las mujeres en los hogares (Barrère-Maurisson, 1999;Borderías y Carrasco, 1994;Sarti, Bellavitis y Martini, 2018). Las investigaciones con perspectiva de género también han logrado tensionar lo que es posible de comprender como "trabajo" dentro de los estudios migratorios. ...
A partir de un abordaje cualitativo, en este artículo problematizamos las desigualdades que se generan en los grupos domésticos que trabajan en la horticultura luego de la migración desde Bolivia hacia Argentina, basadas en las nuevas exigencias del mercado laboral en el que se insertan. Mostramos cómo la migración impacta en los roles y jerarquías dentro del núcleo familiar, tanto en el trabajo doméstico como en el trabajo para el mercado. Nos detenemos en los cambios y continuidades en las distintas labores para observar el lugar que toman los varones, las mujeres, los y las jóvenes y adultos/as en el proceso de trabajo. Como analizaremos, las representaciones de los varones como trabajadores hortícolas a tiempo completo y de las mujeres entrando y saliendo de la quinta para cuidar a sus hijos tienen diversos efectos, especialmente en el acceso al dinero que se gana en el trabajo familiar y en el estatus que posee cada miembro del grupo doméstico en el trabajo.
... Work is a polysemic term describing a particular social organization where someone performs tasks, acts, or actions. It is associated with exhaustion (e.g., labor primarily means "toil"), and the performed task generally involves retributions (Sarti et al., 2018). Therefore, because people are assigned to perform tasks in a stricter and more normative context, they are generally less outgoing and demonstrative than in other situations. ...
Background
According to the Big Five theory, personality can be classified into five traits (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness), and past research showed that situations impact personality. In the present study, (1) we measured which of these five personality traits changed according to different situations and (2) tested whether the across-situation variability (ASV; i.e., a continuous variable showing how much people change their personality traits according to situations) was significantly connected with specific personality domains, revealing a potential marker of personality disturbance.
Participants and procedure
We recruited 80 participants (40 women) to complete the five situation-version (family, work, friends, romantic partner, and hobbies/leisure) of the Big Five Inventory to measure whether personality traits significantly changed across these situations. In addition, we ran a network analysis to reveal how the ASV is related to personality traits.
Results
The findings showed that all traits significantly changed across the situations, except openness, which remained stable. The network analysis revealed that the ASV variable was especially connected with conscientiousness (in romantic partner and family situations).
Conclusions
Most personality traits were flexible, showing how important it is to consider the role of situations in the study of personality. Openness appeared to be particularly stable and understanding its nature represents a challenge for future studies. Finally, the network analysis demonstrated that the ASV shows specific connections with conscientiousness and might be a potential psychopathology marker.
... Appare così più chiaro anche il funzionamento di un sistema di welfare familistico come il nostro, che inevitabilmente riproduce le asimmetrie di genere storicamente sedimentate. A partire dal secondo dopoguerra, però, si è assistito a una crescente partecipazione femminile al mondo del lavoro, definita come femminilizzazione non solo quantitativa, ma anche qualitativa del lavoro (sebbene occorra tenere presente che le donne, specialmente quelle dei ceti più poveri, hanno sempre lavorato, pur venendo classificate anche a livello statistico come casalinghe (Sarti, Bellavitis, Martini, 2018). ...
The volume collects contributions from colleagues, friends, and companions who wished to honour the memory of Riccardo Del Punta, continuing the dialogue with his academic thought. The writings address many of the numerous themes Del Punta engaged with – both specific labour law issues and broader reflections on the discipline itself – demonstrating the capacity of his ideas to open new research paths and to inspire reflection and new studies. The collection is enriched with affectionate memories, underscoring the lasting impact Del Punta left not only on the scholarly community but also on the personal lives of his colleagues in labour law.
In 2015, the Annales journal, traditionally open to interdisciplinary approaches in history, referred to 'the current historiographical moment [as] call [ing] for an experimentation of approaches'. 1 Although this observation did not exclusively refer to the new possibilities offered by the technological advancements of the time -particularly in the field of artificial intelligence 2 -it was nonetheless motivated by these rapid and numerous changes, which also affect the historiographical landscape. A year earlier, St\'ephane Lamass\'e and Philippe Rygiel spoke of the 'new frontiers of the historian', frontiers opened a few years earlier by the realisation of the unprecedented impact of new technologies on historical practices, leading to a 'mutation des conditions de production et de diffusion des connaissances historiques, voire de la nature de celles-ci' ('transformation of the conditions of production and dissemination of historical knowledge, and even the nature of this knowledge'). 3 It was in this fertile ground, conducive to the cross-fertilisation of approaches, that the TIME-US project was born in 2016. TIME-US is directly the result of this awareness and reflects the transformations induced by major technological advancements, disrupting not only our daily practices but also our historical practices. 1 Annales 2015, 216. 2 For example, convolutional neural networks, which have revolutionised the field of artificial intelligence, began to gain popularity just before the 2010s. 3 Translated by the author. Lamass\'e and Rygiel 2014. To quantify women's work in the past, labour historians cannot rely on the classic sources of their discipline, which allow to produce large statistical data series, systematically treatable in the form of databases. What to do when such data are not available? Should the task simply be abandoned? As Maria {\AA}gren points out, the invisibility of women's participation in the labour market does not mean non-existence 8 ; there must therefore be traces of it. To quantify women's economic activity, Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, for example, turned to household budgets from 59 different sources (from Parliamentary Papers to autobiographical texts), which had never before been systematically used to identify women's work patterns and their contribution to family income. 9 In her study A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany published in 2003, Sheilagh Ogilvie used information contained in court records to identify activities carried out by women and the time spent on these activities. Court records were not intended to record such information; yet, in their testimonies, witnesses often described in detail the activities they were engaged in while a crime was unfolding before their eyes. Sheilagh Ogilvie thus identified nearly 3000 such observations. 10 These works have opened two main avenues for the TIME-US project. First, making already digitised sources accessible in homogeneous corpora. 11 Following the example of previous research, TIME-US mobilised varied sources containing traces of professional activities carried out by women in France during the period studied: these include both printed (posters and petitions, working-class newspapers, and contemporary surveys on workers) and handwritten sources (labour court decisions, police reports, company archives, personal archives, surveys, petitions). 12 One of the project's objectives was to gather and 8 {\AA}gren 2018a, 144. 9 Horrell and Humphries 1995.
In this chapter, we aim to address a major gap in the economic history of interwar Italy, by discussing the evolution of women’s incomes and employment during this crucial period of Italian and European history. After examining the available statistical evidence, we build on recently reconstructed dynamic social tables for Italy, from 1900 to 1950, to chart trends in both gender wage gap and female labour force participation, disaggregated by major sectors. Our methodology greatly contributes to the understanding of history of women’s work for pay, placing it within the broader dynamics of income inequality. This approach also allows us to shed light on the growing gap between Fascist claims and the reality of women’s work: despite discriminatory laws, throughout these decades women increased their presence and visibility in all sectors, with the only exception of agriculture. Conversely, the March on Rome marked the beginning of a strong reversal in terms of gender wage gaps. We are thus able to confirm the important role played by female work in the Fascist accumulation model, characterized by wage squeezes and reduced private consumption.
Women have long been at the edge of economic history. According to Humphries (1991) and Sharpe (1995), shifting them from there “to the heart” goes into stages. The first stage involves recognising the extent to which the role of women has been neglected. The second stage aims to integrate women into the mainstream of economic history, with potentially revolutionary results. As stated in the first chapter of the present book, the methodological challenge lies in proving that it is possible to uncover the economic culture not only in women’s writings, as many did not leave behind written records, but also in their actions.
Studies on manufacturing in the Early Modern Age have often been restricted to using guild and institutional sources to rebuild social and economic dynamics. However, more recently, thanks to the focus of micro-historical studies, the use of disparate sources (notarial, charitable, censorial, etc.) has shed new light on the role played by individuals in the development and decadence of the manufactures of the ancien régime. The present essay intends to fit into this context, helping to bring to light the complex and multiform universe of economic and social relations present in the organization of labour in the ancien régime. To do this, a specific case-study is presented: the evolution of silk weaving in Piedmont during the ancien régime. After the well-known success of the organzino, there were in fact numerous attempts by Piedmont to gain a place in the international fabric trade. The essay questions the initiatives that were put in place to achieve success in silk weaving, the socio-economic elements that were part of this context, the resistances that emerged in the course of time, and the relation between the actors. Through unpublished sources it was possible to highlight how it is necessary to bring into dialogue the voices of all the parties involved to get a realistic idea of the organization of labour from a historical perspective. This enabled a re-evaluation of the scope of government initiatives in the founding of royal manufactories, the guild dynamics that tended to provide sufficient work for all artisans, and the fundamental role played by the interests of individuals, be it earnings, social recognition, work, survival.
Nella prima parte dell'articolo l'autrice mostra alcune ambiguità relative alle trasformazioni storiche delle relazioni tra valore, lavoro, genere e domesticità a partire da alcuni volumi recenti e senza pretesa di esaustività a fronte della vasta letteratura esistente. Nella seconda parte dell'articolo, l'autrice riflette sulle principali trasformazioni che hanno riguardato gli studi di storia del lavoro domestico retribuito e di storia del lavoro. In conclusione, si sofferma sul recente intreccio tra questi due filoni e suggerisce alcune direzioni per future prospettive di ricerca.
The ongoing process of care marketisation is also impacting the Italian familistic welfare state, as evidenced by the increasing presence of private employment agencies in home-based care. This process is having different consequences, from workers’ segmentation to the multiplication of employment and working conditions. Time is essential in care work, and private agencies are provoking a real conceptual shift towards the idea of time as a subjective dimension of the employment relationship. When dealing with time regulation, the emphasis on autonomy and self-organisation faces the concrete limits established by a highly time-consuming activity like care work.
In this comprehensive volume, Italian and international scholars contribute to nearly 200 chapters, delving into the evolution of concepts surrounding work and leisure in Western culture from Homer to the present day. With six chronological sections spanning an unprecedented thematic and disciplinary range over the longue durée, this book significantly advances the understanding of work and leisure, and serves as an invaluable reference tool to the ongoing debate on the transformations of these crucial facets of contemporary societies.
This introduction to the special issue ‘Gender and Work in Twentieth-Century Italy’ draws on key strands of historical scholarship on gender and work, including women workers’ experiences, labour market discrimination, domestic work, the impact of gender norms, and ideas of masculinity and femininity on work identities. It traces the development of feminist influence within this scholarship, from making women workers’ experiences visible to challenging essentialist notions of gender identities. Drawing on post-structuralist and intersectional perspectives, particularly influenced by Joan Wallach Scott and Judith Butler, the scholarship on which this special issue is based understands gender as a system of power signified through language and social constructions, and builds on the critique of the dichotomies and essentialisations of traditional labour history, proposing a systemic and structural approach to understanding gendered experiences of work. By exploring the intersections of gender, work and power, this collection offers insights into wider European developments and challenges established historical concepts and narratives. It highlights the importance of understanding gender dynamics in shaping labour relations and social structures, ultimately contributing to a more nuanced understanding of labour and power dynamics in twentieth-century Italy and beyond.
El artículo analiza las mujeres del exilio republicano español de 1939 a Francia, a través de un estudio de caso, en que se estudian las migraciones y exilios desde una perspectiva de género. Los movimientos migratorios y de refugiados representan desafíos contemporáneos que requieren ser pensados históricamente, observamos que la inserción laboral en las sociedades de acogida es uno de sus puntos más críticos, la cual tiene también una propia dimensión de género. Por ello, veremos cómo los estudios migratorios, desde la historia han estudiado la relación entre género y trabajo, siendo de gran utilidad para revelar la agencia de las mujeres migrantes. Finalmente, revisaremos críticamente la historiografía sobre las mujeres exilio republicano de 1939 y las lagunas que persisten sobre la dimensión laboral de sus experiencias, arrojando algunas interpretaciones y sugiriendo futuras líneas de investigación.
This paper examines the Reforms of the Viceroy de La Palata focuses in the colonial mita inspired on contributions from Andean historiography and the renewal of labour history. I argue that his project sought to uniformize labour situations and its remunerations because he was convinced that the difference between the colonial mita and other forms of labour led to a great mobility from some regions to others and the decline of mitayo workers. The first part examines the Daily Wage Rates (Arancel de Jornales) which demon strates the wide extension of the mita in several activities and wide regions of the Viceroyalty of Peru and the need to put an end to the heterogeneity of workers and its remunerations. The second part analyses the "chain of coercion" of the orders for the new mita, but also the strategies and opposition deployed by the indigenous population against La Palata's measures. Finally, I underline the limitations of the Spanish authorities in controlling the indigenous population.
À la fin des années 1940, les photo-filmeurs se multiplient dans les rues des villes, photographiant les passants pour leur vendre leurs portraits. Or cet essor est combattu tant par les syndicats de photographes établis, qui considèrent ces nouveaux venus comme des concurrents déloyaux, que par les pouvoirs publics qui font surveiller leurs activités par la police. À partir d’une étude de cas, cet article analyse les enjeux du conflit et brosse le portrait des acteurs incriminés. En articulant différentes échelles d’analyse, de la trajectoire individuelle à la stratégie collective, des mesures locales aux débats nationaux, il montre que cette querelle est au cœur d’une redéfinition du groupe des photographes : elle est un marqueur de la mutation de leur fonction sociale, économique et symbolique. Enfin, la démarche, croisant histoire sociale et sociologie du travail, met en évidence la dynamique de professionnalisation instiguée par les syndicats, en même temps que son échec. Malgré ces tentatives, les délimitations du groupe des photographes professionnels restent poreuses en France, et ce jusqu’à aujourd’hui.
A che punto sono i Gender Studies in Italia? Quali cambiamenti sono avvenuti, e quali invece mancano ancora nelle nostre accademie e nella società in generale? Quali sono le resistenze in atto? E quali le direzioni future per i Gender Studies?
Per rispondere a queste domande, abbiamo invitato quattro accademicə provenienti da diverse discipline: Barbara Poggio, Raffaella Sarti, Giuseppe Burgio e Thomas Casadei. Partendo da un excursus tematico e sul posizionamento/riconoscimento degli studi di genere in ambito sociologico, storico, pedagogico e giuridico, la Tavola Rotonda si sviluppa evidenziando, da un lato, le relazioni con i movimenti femministi e, dall'altro, le potenzialità e le insidie del processo di istituzionalizzazione degli studi di genere in accademia, per poi terminare con un confronto sui futuri scenari di sviluppo dei Gender Studies.
L'autrice cerca di affrontare la questione del declino degli studi in materia di storia del lavoro a partire dagli anni settanta, fornendo una panoramica di alcuni passaggi fondamentali interni al dibattito intellettuale e adottando una prospettiva teorizzante. Emerge nel testo il carattere nodale del rapporto tra condizioni materiali e culturali, tra modo di praticare, pensare e parlare di lavoro. Per quanto riguarda l'evoluzione del dibattito contemporaneo è volutamente sottolineato il contributo fornito dall'area di interessi che definisce la global labour history che, attraverso un significativo ampliamento geografico, tematico e temporale dell'analisi, pone interessanti stimoli per allargare i parametri della ricerca senza assumere categorie analitiche tradizionali in chiave aprioristica. In questo senso è rilevata la nuova attenzione rivolta alla precarietà come oggetto-simbolo di una storiografia emancipata dalla centralità del lavoro salariato. Viene altresì sottolineata la centralità del binomio controllo/autonomia come chiave di lettura delle dinamiche di coercizione che attraversano molteplici relazioni lavoro libero e non libero.
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Despite the proliferation of diverse historical research on commercial sex in recent years and the recognition of the continued political salience of the topic, prostitution has remained on the margins of the historiography of Europe. This special issue seeks to shift prostitution into the very centre of European history. With its wide geographical focus from Italy to the USSR via Sweden, Germany, occupied Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as the international stage of the United Nations, this issue encourages comparative perspectives, which have the potential to question, deconstruct and re-adjust distinctions between western, eastern, northern and southern European historical experiences. Historiography on prostitution in Europe has predominantly focused on state-regulated prostitution,which was the dominant approach to managing commercial sex in Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. State regulation combined police surveillance, the registration of women selling sex (or suspected of doing so), and compulsory medical examinations for registered women, as well as various restrictions on personal movement and freedom. The articles in this issue shift focus onto the decades after the abolition of state-regulated prostitution to examine the ruptures and continuities in state, administrative and policing practices following the end of widespread legal toleration. The varied chronology extends the parameters of existing historiography and explores how states grappled to understand, or impose control over, the commercial sex industry following the far-reaching social, economic and political upheaval of the Second World War. In this introduction, the editors sketch out key trends in state approaches to commercial sex in twentieth century Europe, focusing specifically on the law, policing practices and the gendered politics of labour.
La introducción al dossier aborda algunos problemas académico-políticos clásicos dentro del campo interdisciplinario que estudia los mundos del trabajo y las relaciones de género. En el primer apartado, reconstruimos brevemente cómo se gestó este campo de estudios. En el segundo, identificamos tres nudos problemáticos de la agenda feminista: las discusiones en torno a la organización social del trabajo, dentro de la cual tiene un papel protagónico el trabajo doméstico y de cuidados; los procesos de generización y jerarquización de las profesiones; y los distintos modos en los que el Estado ha intervenido en torno a cuestiones relativas a trabajo y género. Por último, referimos a los “vacíos” que, entendemos, aún existen en este campo de estudios.
Taking off from the ILO's initiative on carework, this article reconsiders the Marxist dichotomy between productive and reproductive labor and asks what work has care performed within global capitalism? As a theoretical intervention, it aligns itself with those who see reproduction as productive, making people and subsequently the labor power necessary for other forms of production to occur. As a historical intervention, it rethinks literature on reproductive labors along four dimensions: first, pregnancy and birth as a form of work in itself; second, the quotidian activities of daily life performed for oneself and household members, including cooking, maintenance around the domicile, caring, and nurturing, as also work; third, paid household and carework, such as home health aides and domestic cleaners, as commodified reproductive labor in intimate settings; and fourth, public reproduction through social services and infrastructure, such as clinics, schools, and water systems. To illustrate the variety of ways that reproduction is production over time and space, I will draw on a capricious body of scholarship, as well as my own empirical research on wageless and low‐waged household labors, their relationship to exchange and use value, and their circulation within relations of power between nations as well as gender and class.
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