gender: work

Even the most cursory discussion of the history of women’s paid employment in the U.S. will include the importance of World War II, when the scarcity of men meant many jobs became available to women for the first time.

The U.S. wasn’t the only place this happened, of course. In the face of a massive attack by the Nazis, the Soviet Union allowed women to occupy combat positions, including setting up three regiments to fly night bombing raids (according to Wikipedia, it was the first nation to allow women to do so). The regiments became known as the Night Witches:

“We slept in anything we could find—holes in the ground, tents, caves—but the Germans had to have their barracks, you know. They are very precise. So their barracks were built, all in a neat row, and we would come at night, after they were asleep, and bomb them. Of course, they would have to run out into the night in their underwear, and they were probably saying,—Oh, those night witches!’ Or maybe they called us something worse. We, of course, would have preferred to have been called ‘night beauties,’ but, whichever, we did our job.”

Members of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment:

Lilya Litvyak:

In this video, Lidiya Gudovantseva recalls working as a sniper, including the first time she had to kill a German soldier and later being injured herself:

When the war ended, many women in the U.S. were pressured to leave their jobs; similarly, female Soviet soldiers found that opportunities for promotion dried up during peace time. They were apparently even barred from military colleges, closing off many positions to them altogether, though the military’s draft policies stipulated that women should be called up next time there was a war. Women served as a reserve labor force for the military, to be called up when needed (and praised on Soviet propaganda posters) but pushed out of the ranks to provide room for men the rest of the time.

Caroline P. sent in this stunning example of gendered socialization, gendered job segregation, and the social construction of skill.  Notice that the two photos below show an “electronic medical set” for a doctor and a nurse, with a photo of a boy and a girl, respectively.

Okay, so the jobs are gendered.  But more than that, notice that the sets contain essentially the same toys: a stethescope, pill bottle, syringe, thermometer, mirror, hot water bottle, clipboard, blood pressure thingy, and whatever that is in the bottom right corner.

So it’s more than just gendered jobs, it’s an acknowledgement that when boys and girls do the same job, it gets called something different and, more, better compensated when men do it.  We see this with other, real jobs that get split into gendered categories like janitor/maid.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

James H. (of Town Creek Poetry) sent in this vintage Avis ad:

So the company marketed its cars to implicitly heterosexual male customers with the possibility of flirting, and even sexual access, to its attractive female employees (that is, “girls”). I have no idea if female employees were expected to actually wink at people.

Also see our post on Singapore Girls.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Over Thanksgiving we posted a Bed, Bath, and Beyond ad that illustrated the fact that women, overwhelmingly, take responsibility for the work involved with holidays.  Victoria S. sent us a U.K. website illustrating the same idea.  The website, for a shopping center, is using the slogan, the 12 Mums of Christmas.

Victoria writes:

…it assumes that the mum of the family does EVERYTHING for the family/friends.  It also forgets about people who therefore don’t have children, or people who are on their own, or those that don’t have a mum-type figure in their lives etc…

The site even nicely describes the various tasks that “mums” are responsible for.

The shopper:

The planner:

The wrapper:

The party girl:

Mums!  Do all the work!  Look great!  And have a good time, too!  Or else you fail as a mother.  Just sayin’.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In a twist on the men are people and women are women theme, Catherine L. sent in this screen shot of a Business Week article about women hedge fund managers.  Notice that it’s placed in the “working parents” section of the website, even though the article does not say a single thing about kids or, even, work/life balance.

Also, women produce double the returns!?  Double!?  Damn!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Rachel U. sent us a 1968 American Airlines ad (larger available at Modern Mechanix):

The text:

She only wants what’s best for you.
A cool drink. A good dinner. A soft pillow and a warm blanket.
This is not just maternal instinct. It’s the result of the longest
Stewardess training in the industry.
Training in service, not just a beauty course.
Service, after all, is what makes professional travellers prefer American.
And makes new travellers want to keep on flying with us.
So we see that every passenger gets the same professional treatment.
That’s the American Way.

Rachel says,

Before I read the headline of the ad, my brain registered the woman as a typical “sexy stewardess” image that seems to be standard industry fare when air travel started booming:  knees bent up toward the face, one hand touching her face…extremely focused gaze that seems a bit “come hither.”

Of course, that’s what the pose is. It’s just that being sexually attractive doesn’t mean women weren’t also supposed to also take on a caretaking role. It’s one way we’ve constructed femininity over the years: women were supposed to be nurturing and supportive in a “maternal” way, while also sexually alluring enough to keep their men from wandering (because if he wandered, it was definitely their fault for not keeping him happy at home).

Notice also the implicit denigration of stewardesses in general: at American Airlines they get real training, “not just a beauty course.” At first reading that could seem as though they were saying they emphasize skill, not physical attractiveness, but the image makes it clear you can look forward to getting both.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Farrah F. sent us a link to an article on the website for Forward, a newspaper aimed at the American Jewish community. The article looks at the gender gap in pay at Jewish community organizations. According to the article,

…a Forward survey of 75 major American Jewish communal organizations found that fewer than one in six are run by women, and those women are paid 61 cents to every dollar earned by male leaders.

Incomes of leaders of the organizations they surveyed (data is from 2008 unless otherwise specified, and women are highlighted in blue):

The Forward’s survey was drawn from the most recent public records or, if that information wasn’t available, from the organization itself. The median salary for men was $287,702, while the median for women was $175,211, amounting to a ratio of 61 cents to one dollar.

More from the article:

Women comprise about 75% of those employed by federations, advocacy and social service organizations, and religious and educational institutions, but occupy only 14.3% of the top positions. Of the 11 female leaders identified in this survey, three are in interim roles.

In another article, Forward discusses family leave policies at Jewish organizations, finding that relatively few offer paid leave:

UPDATE: A few people have asked why I chose to post about these particular organizations. The short answer is: because that’s what I had. My interest here wasn’t in the religious aspect, but in the gender disparities in volunteer/community organizations; I suspect these same trends occur in a lot of similar organizations, not just Jewish ones. I wish I had info on a more general set, but I so far haven’t been able to find a study like this one, but for a wider array of organizations. If anyone knows of one, I’d love to post it.

Yvonne Liu, at the Applied Research Center, told us about their report, Race and Recession, which includes a lot of useful information about the disparate effects of the economic crisis for different groups of Americans.

While an overall unemployment rate of just under 10% is bad regardless, that statistics hides the fact that Latinos and African Americans are experiencing even higher levels (note: the government agencies that the information comes from didn’t provide breakdowns for Asians or Native Americans, so the report was unable to show comparisons for those groups):

In a comment, thoughtcounts Z points out,

My immediate reaction…: the worst points (highest unemployment) on the “White” curve are generally around or below the best points (lowest unemployment) on the “Black” curve.

Unemployment rates for those aged 20-24:

This figure indicates what % of each racial group falls into each occupational category (the median indicates that half fall above and half fall below that level):

Median earnings for each occupational category (again, the figures represent the % of each race that have jobs in that category):

So as we see, Whites are disproportionately employed in management and professional occupations, while relatively few are employed in the service industry, whereas both African Americans and Latinos are significantly more likely to be employed in services.  And while there’s a big gap between the % of Whites and Blacks in management/professional occupations, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn’t larger than it is.

Earnings broken down by both race and gender:

Assets by race:

See also: images of the downturn, job loss by region, unemployment by education level, another map of job loss by region, the dilemma of the duplex, not everyone knows there’s a recession, Detroit’s decline, job losses, gender and recession, and tips to the rich on how to be discreet during a recession.