Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:57:29 -0600
Subject:  women's work becomes men's work when it pays


At 9:47 AM 4/10/96, Lisa Rogers wrote:
>BTW, knitting and weaving are often adopted as "manly" pursuits
>whenever they offer higher wages than other things that men are
>doing.  Another example of a mechanism of culture change at work,
>hmmm?

Doug:
Which comes first, the high wage or the male entry?

Lisa:  I think the wage [or other varieties of self-interested
benefits] has to come first, or they won't switch, but it could
surely be more simultaneous and complex than that.  It only has to be
higher than the alternatives available for at least some men in order
for this to begin.

I'm thinking of a specific example I read of in Worldwatch about 2
years ago.  It was an example of "unintended side-effects" from an
economic development program in Guatemala.  The plan was to increase
incomes for villagers by developing trade based on an existing
traditional skill and occupation - weaving.  This was expected to
benefit women because women were the weavers in that culture.  So
they set up a village coop to provide better communication and trade,
for an outlet for the product, and some coop credit for better
equipment, etc.  The whole thing was run by the women, and they all
started making more money.

This was supposed to be a good thing, because women are notoriously
oppressed by men in that society.  Women and children never even get
much better off if a husband makes much more money, because it is
standard practice that he will simply take another wife and have
another batch of kids.  Not legally married, but socially recognized
as nearly outright polygyny.  The only reported social opprobrium is
that polite husbands should not bring both women to the same social
event.  Wives hate this, and they do have jealous fights and such,
but there is nothing they can do, and they generally need any money
which they still get from him.

As the coop succeeded, some men apparently realized that if they
started weaving they would now be able to make more money than by
farming and some other occupations.  Within a year or so they had not
only taken up weaving full time but had also taken over all the coop,
and ran everything.

The whole time, women were never relieved of the full-time cooking
cleaning childcare gardening work, so the amount of time left for
weaving is much less for a woman than it is for a man.  Therefore, a
man makes more money than a woman, which he continues to spend any
way he likes, a lot of which is out with the boys and chasing other
women, rather than supporting his family.

Lisa



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