Defined in domesticity

Abstract

When men represent women as a problem in the workplace, whether as their employees, as professional colleagues or co-labourers, they invoke several criteria. We have seen that women’s imputed temperament is sometimes hauled into question, particularly with regard to their handling of authority roles. We will see in a later chapter that women’s sexuality is always significant for men. Over and again, however, what is problematised is women’s relation to the domestic sphere. The way women do or do not fit into the schema of paid employment and organizational life is seen primarily as a correlate of their marital status and, more important still, whether they do or do not have children. This is what women are to most men (and to most women): people who have domestic ties. Even if the woman in question is celibate or childless she is seen and represented as one of the maternal sex. Much of the argument surrounding equal opportunities at work circles about the question: can women ever be equal, given their different relation to reproduction?