This article looks at the income-related experiences of women workers in Bangladesh in the export garment industry, the first modern industry in the country to employ large numbers of women. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 34 female sewing machine operators at five factories. Despite the traditionally low economic autonomy of Bangladeshi women, the women's ability to control their income was varied, and in fact, a substantial number of the women workers exercised full control over their wages. Socioeconomic background (...) affected women's income control by shaping both the symbolic meaning of women's income and the ability of male kin to fulfill their traditional obligations to women. With the exception of some young unmarried workers, women's employment in the garment industry had not posed a significant challenge to patriarchal family relations. (shrink)

Alternative food networks are exemplified by organic, fair trade and local foods, and promote forms of food provisioning that are ‘corrective’ to conventional agriculture and food systems. Despite enthusiasm for AFNs, scholars have increasingly interrogated whether inequalities are perpetuated by AFNs. Reproduction of gender inequality in AFNs, particularly at the level of consumption, has often been left empirically unexamined, however. This is problematic given that women continue to be predominantly responsible for food provisioning in the US, and that this responsibility (...) can lead to negative physical, psychological and social outcomes. Using quantitative methods and data from the 2012 Ohio Survey of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Issues, this paper examines the extent to which gender inequality in the division of labor is reproduced in AFNs by focusing on the potential persistence of gender inequality in food provisioning among AFN participants. Findings suggest that among AFN participants, particularly those utilizing local food systems, women, compared to men, remain predominantly responsible for food provisioning, spend more time in food provisioning, and engage in more food provisioning from scratch. This research confirms that food provisioning remains a gendered act amongst AFN participants, calling attention to the persistence of gender inequality in AFNs. The paper concludes by suggesting that AFNs are positioned as a place to create change, albeit small scale, in the gendered division of household labor in the US, and provides some practical suggestions for how this might occur. (shrink)

This article examines how gender shapes the migration and settlement experiences of Mexican immigrant women and men. The article compares the experiences of families in which the husbands departed prior to 1965 to those in which the husbands departed after 1965 and argues that the lengthy spousal separations altered patterns of patriarchal authority and the traditional gendered household division of labor. This induced a trend toward more egalitarian conjugal relations upon settlement in the United States. Examining the changing contexts of (...) migration illuminates the fluid character of patriarchy's control in Mexican immigrant families. (shrink)

Women’s and men’s predominant social practices in managing employment and unpaid work are influenced by both family policies and society’s predominant cultural family models. Comparative approaches integrating macro-level and micro-level variables are increasingly used to study gendered dynamics in intimate relationships. Yet similar comparative approaches to the study of money management in intimate relationships are lacking. Using data from 34 countries surveyed in International Social Survey Programme 2012 data, I explore how variation in institutional and cultural factors concerning gender expectations (...) shapes money management decisions in intimate relationships. The results highlight the importance of contextual gender-egalitarian beliefs and institutional practices to the likelihood of using joint and individualized systems of money management over the traditional system. While macro-level gender ideology was associated with both joint and individualized system, the institutional practices were found to have a stronger relationship with couples’ individualized money management. (shrink)

Regression analysis using coded ethnographic data from a sample of 93 nonindustrial societies showed that patterns of child rearing and property control are significantly associated with outward displays of men's dominance. In societies in which women exercise significant control over property and men have close relationships with children, men infrequently affirm their manliness through boastful demonstrations of strength, aggressiveness, and sexual potency. Under these conditions, women show less deference to men, and husbands are less likely to dominate wives. Displays of (...) manliness are also prevalent in less complex societies with frequent warfare. An ideology of women's inferiority was found to be most common in complex societies with distant father-child relationships. Illustrative cases are presented, and theoretical explanations for observed correlations are discussed. (shrink)

This paper suggests that Lenski's classification of agrarian societies into simple versus advanced, based on the use of iron in the latter, obscures important variations in the gender division of labor and the level of gender stratification. In particular, his categories lump the gender egalitarian irrigated rice societies of Southeast Asia with the great majority of agrarian societies, which are strongly patriarchal. Based on my general theory of gender stratification and experience coding and analyzing gender stratification in the ethnographic databases (...) and fieldwork in 39 countries worldwide, I propose a three-category alternative. First, agrarian societies are divided according to the technological criterion of irrigation into dry (rain-fed) and wet (irrigated rice) categories. This distinguishes two gender divisions of labor: a male farming system in dry agrarian and an "everybody works" system in labor-intensive rice cultivation, in which women are important in production. Second, irrigated rice societies are divided into patri-oriented-male advantage and those neutral to positive for women, based on the nature of the kinship system. This distinguishes the gender egalitarian Southeast Asian wet rice societies from the highly gender stratified majority of irrigated rice societies. Furthermore, these distinctions in gender equality are predicted by my gender stratification theory. (shrink)

This article develops an approach to cross-national research on the status of women that merges theoretical and methodological concerns. The approach consists of understanding the concept status of women within three dimensions—political, economic, and cultural. The article differentiates between a public and a private domain within each dimension. To understand and compare the status of women in different countries, it is argued that it is imperative to study the interrelationships among the dimensions and domains of status of women. Contrasting the (...) approach taken here with that of extant research on gender inequality and with efforts to locate a universal measure of women's status provides an illustration of the complexity involved in analyzing the status of women, the meaninglessness of talking globally about a single measure of status of women, and the necessity to go beyond male-centered measures of status to capture more fully women's status and experiences. (shrink)

This study presents a sociological profile of Peruvian female industrialists and some narratives of their struggle for personal independence and entrepreneurial success within the context of global restructuring and local deindustrialization. The study adopts the classical definition of woman's economic independence as a result of women's participation in the world of paid labor.

This article focuses on the changing roles of the women farmers of Thieudeme, Senegal. Sociological concepts and methods are combined with women's perceptions to more fully understand the nature of role change from part-time subsistence farming of hardy staples to full-time farming and marketing of vegetables among three generations of women and to compare women's perceptions of change factors with those identified through research and policy analysis. The authors also consider the associations among women's traditional arenas of decision making, increased (...) responsibilities for household maintenance, improved status in the community, and organizing and demands for greater autonomy. Women are more likely to emphasize stress from work burdens and conflicts than to conclude that change has brought them any benefits. (shrink)

Because the Israeli kibbutz is innovative in collective ownership, production, consumption, and child care, and in part also because it is erroneously assumed to have once had a gender-egalitarian ideology and structure, it is taken to be a valid test case for many theories explaining or justifying gender inequality or gender equality. This article argues that the kibbutz cannot serve as a test case for theories that blame inequality on the family as such, on the exclusivity of infant rearing by (...) women, on the precultural differences between the sexes, or on compulsory heterosexuality for women. Kibbutz experience refutes theories that blame the inferior social status of women on material inequality, on private ownership of the means of production, or on the inferior ritual evaluation of women's activities. Kibbutz experience is indeed a unique test case for, but also a refutation of, theories that base gender equality on maximal participation of women in work in the public sphere or on the maximal socialization of housework and child care. Finally, kibbutz experience corroborates the theory that gender equality depends on equal control over surplus resources and, conspicuously so, the theory that in modern society, gender equality depends on the full abolition of the gender segregation of all social roles, especially work roles, whether performed in the private sphere or in the public sphere, whether paid for or unpaid. (shrink)