Glenn Response

In her essay "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Evelyn Nakano Glenn explores the "social reproduction" (1) of labor.  She also attempts to dispel the notion that race and gender can be understood as separate categories.  In particular, she criticizes many Marxist feminists who view women as one unified group of oppressed people, a group that shares common experiences and ideals.   Glenn's claim makes sense, although one could easily take this point further and argue that class, nationality, and all other categories into which we place people are interrelated, and that societal relationships cannot be understood only in the context of two categories, either--but this would broaden the discussion far beyond the scope of one essay, or indeed of an entire life's work.

For the most part, Glenn argues her point convincingly by tying statistics and anecdotes into an analysis of the historical development of the labor force.  She seems to marry many of the ideas in Kessler-Harris' analysis with those in Ehrenreich's article, in that she focuses on the historical motivations for various trends in the labor force, while also concentrating specifically on domestic service and the racial divisions therein.  One thing in particular struck me: like Ehrenreich, Glenn seems to laud the institutionalization of domestic-like services (i.e., cleaning, preparing food, childcare, etc.).  Both Ehrenreich and Glenn seem to approve of the new bureaucratic structures' impersonal nature, since this gives low-paid employees greater flexibility and benefits in their jobs.  Their assessment stands in direct contrast to many writers--typically white males--who bitterly bemoaned the depersonalization of industrialization, complaining that the essential human element of labor had been replaced by a cold, cruel "machine."  In my opinion, these opposing viewpoints further highlight the different interests of different gender and racial groups.  On the one hand, those who lamented industrialization--white males--lamented the loss of the positive social interactions that had enriched their jobs and status.  On the other hand, for those whose jobs involved demeaning social interactions and few benefits--female minorities--this depersonalization may be viewed in a positive light.  It would have been interesting for either Ehrenreich or Glenn to point out this contrast explicitly.

Finally, Glenn's article raises a few questions about some of its gaps.  For instance, Glenn focuses almost exclusively on the northeastern, southern, and western parts of the United States.  While this is understandable, since most of the type of labor Glenn discusses took place in urban centers and on plantations, one wonders what was happening in the rest of the country.  Other questions arise when one considers that Blacks, Hispanics, and Japanese minorities dominate the analysis of different racial groups.  What was the role of smaller minorities?  Did they confront even more obstacles?  Where did they fit into the social and economic hierarchy?  It would have been interesting to see what Glenn makes of these issues.

Glenn Summary and Response

Evelyn Nakano Glenn proposes an intriguing theory in her essay “From Servitude to Service Work” that gender and race superimpose upon one another. In other words, the sexual and racial hierarchies should not be considered as separate, unique entities, but as a combination of the two. In order to illustrate her theory, Glenn examines the regional and historical basis behind “reproductive labor” in America by focusing on domestic service of Blacks in the South, Mexicans in the Southwest, Asians in the West and Hawaii, and finally the transition from domestic service to institutionalized service using the nursing labor force as a case study (3).

I have to admit that I’m glad I read the Ehrenreich and Kessler-Harris essays before reading this one; otherwise I would have been totally lost and bored to death. I believe that Glenn’s essay does the best job of the three in unifying the themes of race, class, and gender because she follows up each of her ideas concerning these themes with concrete evidence. One of Glenn’s concluding remarks caught my attention: “forging a political agenda that addresses the universal needs of women is highly problematic not just because women’s priorities differ but because gains for some groups may require a corresponding loss of advantage and privilege for others” (37). Today, there is still a disparity between the number of women and men in high paying, prestigious jobs in the workforce. I would like to see some recent research on these statistics. I suspect that the gap between men and women’s positions is narrowing. I would like to hear from Glenn on her perception of women in the competitive labor market today in America.

"From Servitude to Service Work" Response

I found it very interesting that the Glenn essay seemed to compensate for all the criticisms we had of the Kessler-Harris essay in class the other day. Not only does it fill in the rest of the history of women in labor from the Great Depression onwards, but it also addresses the other geographical regions of the United States besides the Northeast. It was especially interesting to read about Glenn's take on the racial division of reproductive labor in Northern California, since that's where I'm from. Although she says that the vast majority of service workers in Northern California are Japanese, in my personal experience, I have found that it's actually Mexicans that are the most common. Perhaps Japanese women in reproductive labor were much more common in previous decades, as this piece was written almost 20 years ago, but it would be interesting to hear Glenn's take on what caused this "racial shift" in the division of labor. Today, as far as reproductive labor goes, it seems that Asian women are relegated to childcare and housekeeping jobs for wealthier Asian families and that Caucasian families almost prefer Mexican service workers to those of any other ethnicity (something that Glenn emphasize was definitely not the case before). In Northern California, Asians have figuratively "moved up" Glenn's racial ladder and Mexican immigrants have been eager to take their spot. Today, it is not uncommon for Japanese families to employ Mexican cleaning ladies, gardeners, and nannies. If Glenn is the author that we'll get to talk to in class, I would be very interested to hear what she has to say about this recent development.

Response to Eveyln Nakano Glenn's essay

In her essay, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Evelyn Nakano Glenn presents a much more complex analysis of the nature of the relationship between a white woman and her employed domestic worker as compared to the analysis introduced by Barbara Ehrenreich in her essay, "Maid To Order." Ehrenreich briefly mentions the "peculiar intimacy of the employer-employee relationship," attributing the peculiarity to the various "idiosyncrasies of the employers" (64). According to Ehrenreich, some employers seek friendship, even "therapy," while others "demand deference bordering on servility" (64). Whether a relationship of companionship and amity or servitude and subjugation, the nature and eccentricities of the employer determine the nature of the relationship. However, Glenn proposes a different, somewhat more complex interpretation of the employer-employee relationship. According to Glenn, the relationship universally consists of the employer denying the womanhood of the domestic worker. By ignoring the domestic worker's familial ties and general responsibilities as a mother, the employer eliminates any sense of commonality potentially created by their shared gender in a male-dominated society. In doing so, the employer justifies her actions of passing on her burdens to the domestic worker rather than confronting the underlying problem of gender inequality herself, head-on. However, in her essay, "Maid To Order," Ehrenreich only gestures towards this racial component of domestic service, which perhaps explains her different interpretation of the employer-employee relationship as compared to the one proposed by Glenn. 

Response to "Stratifying by Sex"

In her essay "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women," Alice Kessler-Harris discusses the history of women in the labor market and how society's perception of working women has changed over the last few centuries. While I think Kessler-Harris does an excellent job summarizing each "stage" of history, I believe that she does not give enough attention to the transitions between these stages. For example, the first labor structure she describes is that of Puritan America: both men and women were responsible for the family business as well as the moral education of the children. This, in turn, eventually gave way to a society in which "ladies" stayed at home and took care of the children while poorer women who needed the money toiled away in factories. However, although Kessler-Harris believes that these two stages are dramatically different, I don't think that's the case. In colonial times, the richest women (what ever little bit of American aristocracy there was back then) still didn't work and took care of the children at home while assisted by many slaves. The woman who worked alongside her husband (I believe the example in the essay is a tavern-keeper's wife) did so only out of economic necessity. If she didn't help out, the tavern would go out of business. In the late 19th century, it was the exact same thing, except that instead of working in the family business, women worked in factories. This change, however, was not due to some American moral or ideological revelation, but rather could be credited to the Industrial Revolution. The exact same thing was going on as before, except women were just working in a different place now. Industry in general had just shifted from small, independently-owned businesses to large, corporate-owned factories. In fact, oftentimes, spouses still worked at the same factory, albeit at different jobs. Thus, I think Kessler-Harris might extrapolate a little too far in places like that, and that she might be overlooking much "easier" explanations for the phenomenons she describes.

Thoughts

Stratifying by Sex is a commentary on both the historical and the present day position of women in society. She comments on how there has been a socio-economic trend, which has, with some exceptions such as post WWII, which she cites, that has brought women into the workplace in increasing numbers. Despite such ideas of progress, Kessler-Harris believes that women have not transcended their traditional role as homemakers, and that this difference in a sort of Aristotelian teleological excellence has resulted in the stratification of society along sex lines. Toward the end of the essay, however, she admits that this reality might be changing, but instead postulates that times are changing somewhat, and that this will result in a move to stratification along race and class lines. Although she clearly presents a full set of statistics to prove her point, I believe that her underlying assumption – that a woman’s role in the family is a bad thing – to be false. Additionally, I don’t see the differences in what is considered accomplishment for men and women as being as a result of the role society has imposed on women, but instead as at least in part a product of their different nature. But perhaps I am a product of a patriarchal society, and this is why I say this.

Kessler-Harris Response

Overall, I found essayist Kessler-Harris’ work “Stratifying by Sex” to be very historically informative, but not incredibly intriguing otherwise. I expected Kessler-Harris to draw a more provocative and bolder conclusion from the large amount of historical data that she gave, yet her concluding argument -- that changing family dynamics have left room for women’s role in the workplace to drastically change -- fell short of impressing me as a reader. I believe the tension between women in the workplace and women in the household has been very thoroughly addressed recently, and, unless the essayist that has chosen to write about this subject has something new and thought-provoking to suggest, their essay becomes a very repetitive and mundane. I also believe that, in addressing ‘working women’, Kessler- Harris centralized too much in white working women instead of looking at working women overall. The majority of post-Civil War black women, for example, were expected to work just as much as their husbands due to the need to bring in as much money as possible; an expectation that did not exist for many of their white counterparts. While she does make a brief mention of African American women in housework, I found her essay to focus too much on affluent white women – which does not initially present a problem until she titles her work “Understanding the History of Working Women”, which implies all working women. Thus, I found “Stratifying by Sex” to be very well researched, yet underdeveloped in its arguments.