Post #34

Joan Williams book, “Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It,” has many of the same arguments of English’s book, “Gender on Trial.”

Williams talks about market work and family work. “Market work” is any work performed for payment, or any paid work outside the home. “Family work” includes childcare, housework, eldercare and other forms of caring work. These terms are also discussed at length in English’s book. Williams says that in our society, women continue to perform a disproportionately higher amount of family work than men. Even though gender roles in the United States have been changing, they haven’t been changed as much as they could have.

Williams argues that Mothers who stay at home often feel they are taken less seriously by other adults. This relates somewhat to what some of the women in English’s study said about their lives. One woman in English’s study said that she felt like she had to hide that she had a full time job as a lawyer because other adults would come to certain conclusions about what type of mother she was.

Williams says that mothers who work full time often find themselves on the "mommy track," which means depressed pay rates, fewer benefits, and blocked advancement. This is absolutely exhibited in English’s book. The one woman who sat in on employment interviews said that women were not hired because they could potentially get married and have children and become less productive. She remarked that her colleagues said “she’s just getting married, how long before she has kids? When she comes back she won’t be a productive.” She commented that there “was respect for intelligence and work product for all, but there was a strong bias that when things got stressful, when life situations changed, the women won’t handle it as well as a man—that a woman would turn away from her work.” Like Williams said, employers refuse to take women seriously because of the assumption that they will eventually become mothers and “drop out.”

Williams said “Good jobs typically assume an ideal worker who is willing and able to work for 40 years straight, taking no time off for childbearing or childrearing. This ideal is framed around men's bodies-for they need no time off for childbirth- and men's life patterns-for American women still do 80% of the childcare. Not surprisingly, many mothers find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet a standard designed around men's bodies, and around the assumption that workers are supported by a flow of childcare and other family work from their spouses that many men enjoy, but most women do not.” This absolutely agrees with women in English’s study who had children. This is the whole embodiment of trying to balance work and home lives.

Willams say that women can work part-time or reduced hours in a very punitive atmosphere, something that relates very closely to what English says about female lawyers who try to work flexible schedules or part time. Not only do they risk not getting time consuming assignments, they are almost written off as not good, productive workers, punished by their co-workers as not being dedicated to work like they should be. Williams argues that If they had a choice to cut back their hours or reduce them without marginalization, women might do so more; Many mothers who are committed to being ideal workers might cut back if they had the option to do so.