Five Feminist Myths about Women's Employment

Abstract

Feminist sociology has contributed substantial revisions to theory, especially in the sociology of work and employment. But it is also creating new feminist myths to replace the old patriarchal myths about women's attitudes and behaviour. Five feminist myths about women's employment are discussed whose acceptance as fact is not damaged by being demonstrably untrue. Arguably the most pervasive is the myth of rising female employment. The myth that women's work commitment is the same as that of men is often adduced to resist labour market discrimination. The myth of childcare problems as the main barrier to women's employment is commonplace in advocacy research reports. The myth of poor quality part-time jobs is used to blame employers for the characteristic behaviour of part-time workers, including high labour turnover. The issue of the sex differential in labour turnover and employment stability illustrates clearly how feminist orthodoxy has replaced dispassionate sociological research in certain topics. The concluding section considers the implications of such feminist myths for an academic community that claims to be in the truth business and for theories on the sexual division of labour.

Attitudes Towards Work and Motherhood Held by Working and Non-working Mothers

“…The second group consists of women who prioritise their homemaker role over their occupational role and are mainly represented in lower paid and part-time work roles. Hakim (1995) also suggested that both part-time workers and women who are not in paid employment can be viewed as prioritising the domestic sphere above paid employment.…”

“…The aim of the present study is to compare attitudes towards motherhood and work in mothers who work full-time, part-time and those who do no paid work. Hakim (1991Hakim ( 1995 originally suggested that women might be divided into two groups, which represent personal choices about work and motherhood.…”

Constructing a career: women architects at work

“…Indeed, the 'boundaryless' career (Arthur and Rousseau 1996) emphasises the move away from dependence on an organisational setting for the career. This causes difficulties when applied to professional work which demands a certain level of commitment not required by other occupations with lower level entry qualifications (Hakim, 1995(Hakim, , 1996 and tends to translate into longer working hours (Epstein et a,l 1999). There are few professions in which part-time work or any deviation from the 'traditional' working patterns is commonplace in spite of many commentators suggesting that the flexible patterns of working adopted by women could be advantageous and applicable in a much wider context (Sullivan, 1999;Mallon and Cohen, 2001;Shaw et al, 2000).…”

Choice, diversity and ‘false consciousness’ in women's careers

“…There is an implicit assumption that selfemployment, in the form of sole practitioner, principal in practice or on a labour-only basis, exists primarily as a solution to the problems of juggling family and career (Goffee and Scase 1985;Hakim 1995Hakim , 1996Crompton and Le Feuvre 1996). However, meeting family responsibilities was not the only reason for becoming a sole practitioner as four of the nine sole practitioners were childless and the other two formed their practices after their children were grown up.…”