Gender and the Labour Process: A Reassessment

We have come a long way from the position fifteen or so years ago when feminism sought merely to have women recognised in a sociology of work and challenged the sexism manifested in the marginalisation of women in class analysis. An influential paradigm has emerged: that gender is integral to the organisation of work and to social production. This has tended to take the form of a twofold shift in focus. First, it is maintained that gender relations are important in their own right, for women’s (or men’s) place in the labour process is shaped by these relations as such and not simply by their role in the sphere of reproduction. In practice this has usually taken the form of arguing that patriarchy is as integral as class relations to women’s subordinate position. But secondly there has been a shift towards the view that patriarchy is as integral as class to the explanation of capitalist production itself. These two themes, however, are not necessarily coterminous. While patriarchy is usually crucial for an understanding of the position of women and men, it does not necessarily follow that it is crucial to the development of the labour process, either specifically or as a whole.1