Comparing the UK, US, Germany and Japan, this book draws on innovative concepts of varieties of gender regime as well as varieties of capitalism. The volume re-thinks the processes of de-gendering and re-gendering of working practices in the context of both de-regulation and re-regulation of employment.

We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations a focus on austerity and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on financial crisis and democratic regulation of finance are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

"Gendering the Knowledge Economy" demonstrates the ways in which gender transforms the understanding of the knowledge-based economy, addressing the nature of knowledge and what constitutes the newness of current employment forms. It rethinks the processes of both de-gendering and re-gendering of working practices in the context of both the deregulation and re-regulation of employment. A comparative analysis of the US, UK, Germany and Japan underpins the rethinking of the varieties of capitalism and the comparative analysis of gender relations.

Sylvia Walby provides an overview of recent theoretical debates -- Marxism, radical and liberal feminism, post--structuralism and dual systems theory. She shows how each can be applied to a range of substantive topics from paid work, housework and the state, to culture, sexuality and violence, relying on the most up--to--date empirical findings. Arguing that patriarchy has been vigorously adaptable to the changes in womena s position, and that some of womena s hard--won social gains have been transformed into new traps, Walby proposes a combination of class analysis with radical feminist theory to explain gender relations in terms of both patriarchal and capitalist structure.

The concept of 'patriarchy' is one which signals a sharp divide between traditions of feminist thought. Sylvia Walby attempts to conceptualize 'patriarchy' in a way that takes account not only of the complexity of relationships of gender, but also of the subtleties of the interconnections of patriarchy and capitalism. She rejects those accounts which treat patriarchy as a unified set of relations, or which confine the site of patriarchy to any one privileged sphere such as the family. Instead, she elaborates a novel view of patriarchy as a set of 'relatively autonomous relations', the connections between which are spelled out through a variety of detailed case studies. In contrast to many other views of 'capitalist patriarchy', Sylvia Walby characterizes the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy as a relationship, not of harmony and mutual accommodation, but of tension and conflict. This thesis is substantiated through a comparative historical analysis of three contrasting areas of employment: cotton textiles, engineering and clerical work. These analyses show the shortcomings of much conventional literature in sociology, history and economics on women's employment, which pays insufficient attention to the independence of patriarchal relations. The book draws upon sociological, historical, economic and geographic materials to argue for an understanding of gender relations in terms of the specific tensions and compromises between patriarchal and capitalist relations. Exploring the impact of the state on patterns of employment and unemployment completes a book rich in theoretical and empirical analysis. Patriarchy at Work will be recognized as a major contribution to feminist thought and the social sciences.