Sociology of Gender and Sexuality (331-0-20)
Topic
Work and Occupations: Gender
Instructors
Ann Shola Orloff
847/491-3719
1808 Chicago Ave. Rm. 201
Meeting Info
555 Clark B03: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Topic: Work & Occupations: Focus on Gender.
The gender division of labor is a key organizing principle in all known societies, but it takes a fascinating array of forms. In industrialized and post-industrial societies, women have increasingly taken up paid employment and moved into formerly-masculine fields, driven by demand for women workers as the economy shifts toward the service sector, and more recently by feminist movements. Yet women are still doing the majority of caring and household labor, while men's take-up of traditionally feminine caring labor has been far more limited. Moreover, the sex segregation of occupations and substantial gendered earnings gaps remain. Meanwhile, much of the work formerly done by housewives has been "outsourced" to paid service workers, many of whom migrate from global South to global North to take up this work. Scholars debate about whether and how these arrangements will change, and whether they may be influenced by political initiatives, either top-down (e.g., affirmative action to recruit women to STEM fields) or bottom-up (e.g., cultural and media campaigns to validate new norms). In this course, we will investigate the ways in which work - paid and unpaid, in families and in places of employment - is organized by gender and other forms of power, difference and inequality, such as race, class and migration/citizenship status. We will examine family divisions of labor across diverse households: how do men and women divide domestic work and care for children or others needing care? Where does non-familial provision come into play? What are the consequences for outcomes in paid employment and in terms of the distribution of time, respect, and power? We will learn about the development of the modern economy and occupational sex segregation, as well as how different kinds of men, women and others are treated at work. Finally, we will consider the role of government policy in sustaining or changing these arrangements.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the course, students should understand how gender influences the kinds of work we do and how it is rewarded, how gender interacts with other forms of difference and inequality such as race, class and sexuality, how the economy is organized along gendered lines, and how public policies and political processes shape the gendered world of work.
Teaching Method
Lecture and class discussion
Evaluation Method
Take-home exams, one lead blog and weekly blog entries, class participation
Class Materials (Required)
All books are available online from NU libraries, but if you wish, you may purchase hard copies of the following:
*Caitlyn Collins, Making Motherhood Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019) ISBN-13: 978-0691202402 OR
*Dawn Dow, Mothering While Black (University of California Press, 2019) ISBN-13: 978-0520300323 OR
*Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Schaefer, Living on $2.00 a Day (Mariner Books, 2016) ISBN-13: 978-0544811959
*Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1993, second edition) ISBN-13: 978-0465044542.
In addition, students read a wide range of articles, essays and book excerpts, all of which will be available online.
Class Attributes
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area