Abstract
This chapter aims to shed new light on the ambivalent relationship between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the main feminist organizations at the time when the guidelines were being drawn up for the protective policy promoted by the ILO between 1919 and 1934.1 The purpose of the ILO, institutionally attached to the League of Nations (LON) since its creation in 1919, was to work for global post-war reconstruction on the basis of the principle of universal peace, through the harmonization of working conditions and the introduction of regulations on uniform working conditions in the member countries. In this chapter we will be looking at the problems surrounding the introduction of specific legislation governing women’s employment. The ILO, as an institution, is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, it is where Conventions and Recommendations on conditions of employment for men and women are negotiated, which set standards designed to act as universal references. Secondly, because of its tripartite operation, it reflects the relationship between the main protagonists shaping the history of labour: states, employers’ associations and workers’ organizations. The Convention banning night work for women, adopted in 1919 and revised in 1934, and the creation of the Correspondence Committee on Women’s Work at the ILO in 1932 will allow us to illustrate how interests converged and diverged between the social groups represented in the ILO bodies, and will also highlight the entryist strategies pursued and the efforts made to keep women as a social group out.
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Notes
See also the article in French: N. Natchkova and C. Schoeni, ‘L’Organisation internationale du travail, les féministes et les réseaux d’expertes. Les enjeux d’une politique protectrice (1919–1934)’, in I. Lespinet-Moret and V. Viet (eds), L’organisation internationale du travail. Origine — Développement — Avenir (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011), pp. 39–51.
N. Natchkova, Travail, luttes et inégalité: les femmes au coeur des négociations de l’Organisation internationale du travail et de l’horlogerie suisse (1912–1931) (University of Fribourg, unpublished PhD, 2011);
C. Lubin and A. Winslow, Social Justice for Women: The International Labor Organization and Women (London: Duke University Press, 1990), pp. 9–53;
J.-M. Delaunay and Y. Denéchère (eds), Femmes et relations internationales au XXe siècle (Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2006).
L. Rupp, Worlds of Women. The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997);
K. Offen, European Feminism (1700–1950). A Political History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).
E. Gubin and L. van Molle (eds), Des femmes qui changent le monde. Histoire du Conseil international des femmes (Liège: Racine, 2005).
C. Miller, ‘Geneva — a Key to Equality: Inter-war Feminism and the League of the Nations’, Women’s History Review (vol. 3, no. 2, 1994), pp. 219–245.
J. T. Shotwell, ‘Document 34. Minutes of the Meetings of the Commission on International Labor Legislation, February 1 to March 24, 1919’, in The Origins of the International Labour Organization (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), Vol. 2, p. 319.
There were 23 women listed among the delegates and advisers to the first International Labour Conference in Washington in 1919, but these were all, without exception, technical advisers, which meant that they were not entitled to vote. See League of Nations, International Labour Conference. First Annual Meeting October 29–November, 29 1919 (Washington, 1920), pp. 5–10.
E. Gubin, ‘Pour le droit au travail: entre protection et égalité’, in E. Gubin et al. (eds), Le siècle des féminismes (Paris: éditions de l’Atelier/éditions Ouvrières, 2004), pp. 161–178.
C. Schoeni, Travail féminin: retour à l’ordre! (Lausanne: Antipodes, 2012).
M. Gaudier: La question des femmes à l’OIT et son évolution (1919–1994) (Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, 1996);
C. Paoli-Pelvey, ‘Normes de l’Organisation internationale du Travail relatives au travail des femmes: évolution et perspectives’, in B. Despland (ed.), Femmes et Travail (Lausanne: Réalités sociales, 1991), pp. 73–87.
U. Wikander, A. Kessler-Harris and J. Lewis (eds), Protecting Women: Labor Legislation in Europe, the United States, and Australia, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995);
L. Auslander and M. Zancarini-Fournel (eds), Différence des sexes et protection sociale (Saint-Denis: Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 1995).
S. Christe et al., Au foyer de l’inégalité. La division sexuelle du travail en Suisse pendant la crise des années 30 et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale (Lausanne: Antipodes, 2005), pp. 296–300;
A. Myrdal and V. Klein, Women’s Two Roles (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), pp. 42–77.
E. Gubin, ‘Pour le droit au travail: entre protection et égalité’, in Gubin et al. (eds), Le siècle des féminismes, op. cit., pp. 161–178; A. Devos, ‘Défendre le travail féminin. Le groupement belge de la Porte ouverte 1930–1940’, Sextant (no. 5, 1996), pp. 91–116; W. Thönnessen, The Emancipation of Women. The Rise and Decline of the Women’s Movement in German Social Democracy 1893–1933 (London: Pluto Press, 1973), pp. 148–152.
C. Bard: Les filles de Marianne. Histoire des féminismes 1914–1940 (Paris: Fayard, 1995);
J. Chabot: Les débuts du syndicalisme féminin chrétien en France (1899–1944) (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2003).
ILO, Le Statut légal des travailleuses (Geneva: Studies and Documents collection, Series I, No. 4, 1938).
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Natchkova, N., Schoeni, C. (2013). The ILO, Feminists and Expert Networks: The Challenges of a Protective Policy (1919–1934). In: Kott, S., Droux, J. (eds) Globalizing Social Rights. International Labour Organization (ILO) Century Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291967_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291967_4
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