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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: women's work
Message-ID: <758@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 21:03:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.758
Posted: Fri Jul  5 21:03:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 05:28:57 EDT
References: <587@mtung.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 23
Summary: 

In article <587@mtung.UUCP> jdh@mtung.UUCP (Julia Harper) writes:
>It's worse than simply that women are encouraged to perform 
>"women's work":   When women start dominating a job, what has
>happened over and over in the past is that it then BECOMES
>"women's work", and employers start paying less for the 
>job. [...].  As women start to swamp a particular market, these
>jobs are devalued.  What typically happens is
>	1) the scope of the job is narrowed ....in order to justify it when
>	2) the job is paid less.

It could be, though, that the scope of the job is narrowed in response
to the greater supply of workers which allows for further division of
labor.  Similarly, wages may go down due to increased supply of workers
in the field.  (Discrimination probably applies to both, as well,
admittedly, but it's hard to say how much.)

Anyway, my view is that the best way to attack discrimination is to
crush it between the rock of market realities (undervaluing women is a
mistake that will cost profits when others don't make the same mistake)
and the hard place of increased social consciousness (recognizing one's
prejudices so as to avoid such mistakes).

--Paul V Torek, Iconbuster-in-chief