Stratification by Sex

In reading Alices , Stratification by Sex, it was imediatley prominant that the same "proper roles" that Alice discusses directly relates with Barbara's essay, Maid to Order introduction in which she discusses "gender roles". With females working in the home and males working outside of it. As Alice discusses the proper roles becoming evident is with the increase urbanization and with an increasing number of males leaveing the direct area of the household to provide for the family, which lead to a need for the female to stay at home and tend the family and look after demestic issues. While reading it seamed when that many forces going for women was actually hurting the womans overall cause, for instance women began to leave the household when the male failed to provide enough for the family, but in reaction to an increase in women in the workforce men blamed low wages on women because employers used them as strike breakers and were willing to accept minimal pay and worse working conditions. It seemed this struggle would be hard to overcome with out the help of future legislation. While reading Alice fequently refers to in her satistics , women in non agricultural labor force, or ocasionaly with agricultural labor force. This was not explained and I was confused on what it actually ment and how it effected the data.