Class six in Irish political economy for trade unionists and activists

1. Irish Political Economy for
Trade Unionists and
Activists
6. Gender & Austerity

12. 1. Societies are relational.

13. 1. Societies are relational.
2. The endless accumulation of
capital is inherently destructive
in terms of humanity and the
environment.

14. 1. Societies are relational.
2. The endless accumulation of
capital is inherently destructive in
terms of humanity and the
environment.
3. The capitalist mode of production
is a patriarchal mode of
production – ‘economic man’
saturates its conceptual
framework.

15. Rational Economic Man
• An autonomous agent
• able bodied, independent,
rational, heterosexual male
who is able to choose from an
number of options limited only
by certain constraints.
• Weighs cost and benefits to
maximise utility
• Self interested in marketplace;
altruistic at home

21. It’s one thing to say people interact with to each other…

22. Another to say people interact with each other solely through
profit-seeking markets

23. “Capitalism exploits
more work and
production relations
than just labour
relations.”

31. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

32. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social
relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied
widely and that variation has been central to the organization of
gender relations and gender inequality.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

33. Social Reproduction
Renewing life is a form of work, a kind of production, as
fundamental to the perpetuation of society as the production of
things.
Moreover, the social organization of that work, the set of social
relationships through which people act to get it done, has varied
widely and that variation has been central to the organization of
gender relations and gender inequality.
From this point of view, societal reproduction includes not only the
organization of production but the organization of social
reproduction, and the perpetuation of gender as well as class
relations.
Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner, ’ Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical
Perspectives,’ Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 15 (1989): 383

34. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

35. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

36. The term social reproduction encompasses all the means by which society
reproduces its families, citizens and workers.
It includes all the labour that is necessary for a society to reproduce itself: the
biological production of people and workers, and all the social practices that
sustain the population - bearing children, raising children, performing emotional
work, providing clothing and food, and cooking and cleaning.
As a concept social reproduction has been key to feminist social theory, because
it challenges the usual distinctions that are made between productive and
reproductive labour, or between the labour market and the home.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

37. Over the past thirty years, despite their being essential
to human life, neoliberal restructuring across the world
has privatised, eroded and demolished our shared
resources, and ushered in a ‘crisis of social
reproduction.’
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

38. as a result of cuts to benefits and the social wage,
women are also being forced out of the home and into
(predominantly low paid) waged work, as families
increasingly require more income to cover the basic
cost of living.
[In the UK] Proposed benefit reform brutally promises to
`encourage' mothers back to work through compulsory
labour programmes; lone parents will be expected to be
actively seeking work when their children are as young
as five years old.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

39. The combined effects for working women of the
removal of socially provided childcare (which should be
seen as part of the social wage),
the diminishing availability of work that pays an
adequate wage,
and the increase in their responsibilities for unpaid care
work,
tend to push women into informal labour markets,
including sex work, that are unregulated, and in which
workers face high levels of exploitation and, often,
violence.
‘Cuts are a Feminist Issue’, Soundings (Dec 2011)

40. Gender and Caring
Notes on Lynch and Lyons, ‘The Gendered Order of
Caring’ in Ursula Barry (ed) Where Are We Now? New
Feminist Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Ireland
(Dublin: Tasc, 2008)

41. There are deep gender inequalities in the doing of care and love
work that operate to the advantage of men.
It is women’s unwaged labour and related domestic labour that
frees men up to exercise control in the public sphere of politics,
the economy and culture.
… there is a moral imperative on women to do care work that
does not apply equally to men ; a highly gendered moral code
impels women to do the greater part of primary caring, with
most believing they have no choice in the matter.

42. The reason love and care matter is because we are relational
beings, emotional as well as intellectual, social as well as
individual. P.165
Feminist-inspired scholars have drawn attention to the salience
of care and love as public goods, and have identified the
importance of caring as a human capability meeting a basic
human need. (1)
They have also exposed the limitations of conceptualisations of
citizenship devoid of a concept of care, and highlighted the
importance of caring as work, work that needs to be distributed
equally between women and men in particular.
1. Nassbaum, Glover (eds) Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995)

43. The Irish government collects
data on unpaid caring within
households in
1.the Census
2.the Quarterly Household
Survey (QNHS).
Within the Census, care is
defined as being given by ‘persons
aged 15yrs and over who provide
regular unpaid help for a friend or
family member with a long-term
illness, health problem or
disability (including problems due
to age). P.167-8

44. The way care is defined in the Census excludes what
constitutes a major category of care work, that of the ordinary,
everyday care of children (unless the child has a recognised
disability). Data on the care of children is compiled in the
QNHS, however, and is also available through the European
Community Household Panel (ECPH) survey. The focus in all
three is on the hours of work involved in caring so we do not
know the nature and scope of the caring involved. P.168

45. According to the [2006]
Census there are less than
150,000 people, 5 per cent
of the adult population in
unpaid care work (mostly
with adults) of whom 61
per cent are women and 39
per cent are men.
However, when we
measure all types of caring
activity, as has been done
in the European
Community household
Panel (ECPH) we see that
there are 1 million people
who do caring who are not
named in the census.

46. Even though it is no doubt
unintentional, the failure
to collect data on hours
spent on child care work
in the Census, means that
child care, which is the
major form of care work in
Irish society, is no counted
in terms of work hours.
… women are almost five
times as likely to work
long care hours than is the
case for men.
Women spend much more
time at care work than
men, even when they are
employed.