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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.
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.
"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.
This text addresses the dilemmas in the new policy agendas for
women and government. Gender relations are being transformed and a
new gender settlement is being created. The challenge to ensure the
social inclusion of women within this new settlement is complicated
by the diversity in women's lives, in particular between those who
are qualified and able to engage in employment and those who are
not. This wide-ranging book is written by academics who have
advised key members of the Labour Party.
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.
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