The Gendering of Inequalities

This was first published in 2000: This work is founded on the premise that many analyses of economic restructuring and of gender relations fail to recognize two things. First, the situation facing women is different from that of the 1960s when the conceptual apparatuses for analyzing women and work were created. Labour markets are dominated by flexible, non-standard work, precarious contractual relations and income disparities. Therefore, it is difficult to structure political claims or analysis around the notion that there is a single labour market, that the primary problem is discrimination or inappropriate training, and that political strategies should focus on discrimination and non-traditional employment. Rather, new challenges require new solutions. The second point of departure is that is is impossible to understand either contemporary labour markets, or the roots of employment and other public policies without locating them vis a vis patterns of gender inequalities generated by and in these labour markets. The labour force has been feminized to such an extent that new, and often unequal gender relations are crucial to their very functioning.