The book “Out to Work” is among the various works of literature that have been done to summarize the chronicle of women in America who started working from the colonial era to the current days. Literature on this subject merely existed approximately ten years ago, and most basic facts were difficult to find. A new era of socialist historians and feminists is said to have greatly influenced the outpouring of a lot of writing over the decade. This generation of social historians and feminists attempted to explore the subject of the chronicle of the proletariat in the U.S. on one side and the history of women on another. However, one major limitation associated with the literature written by the generation was the idea that the history of new labor continued to be written based on the assumption that the American working class was made up of only male workers.
The fact that the history of new labor failed to consider work and labor issues as a crucial focus made Alice Kessler-Harris, the author of the book, attempt to explore the subject differently. She wrote the book by drawing most of its insights from previous works, which shed some light on this subject but failed to look at critical issues in the field. Basically, the book focuses on the history of women from a broader perspective that reveals the character of the American women’s movement as it failed to tackle inclusive issues of labor and work. The author’s thesis was to illustrate how the changes in roles of women at work evolved into paid labor which in turn challenged the perception of “woman place” and sexual inequality both in the marketplace and family.
Unlike other previous literature, Alice Kessler-Harris strived to explore the issues brought about by the increasing popularity of working women while also avoiding indulging in the topic of romanticizing the struggles of working women. In her writing, she seems to resist the temptation of developing new myths to replace old myths, particularly the non-original information about the history of working women. A good example of a myth is a conclusion given by the feminists that the pre-industrial time was a simple age of little equality between genders which replaced the longstanding perception that the work of women was underestimated during traditional society as compared to modern society. Alice Kessler-Harris attempted to correct this myth in a chapter by writing about the work of women in America during the colonial era and offered a balanced statement that revealed great flexibility in terms of division of labor during the period and disputes the perception that there existed a lot of inequality between the sexes.
Aside from that, the author seems to be sensitive to cases of discrimination based on class and ethnicity, among other factors happening in America, to be specific. When exploring the main thesis of her writing work, Alice Kessler-Harris asked this question rhetorically, “Could Marx and Engels’ prediction that the entry of women into paid labor would result in the elimination of the ‘remaining remnants of males dominating proletarian homes’ finally be true?” (Kessler-Harris 319). This question was meant to shape the interpretation of the narrative of advancements in women’s work during the history of America. After successfully exploring this topic, the author proceeded to write a chapter about the radical results of progressive change, and she answered the same question via an assertive answer (319).
Alice Kessler-Harris argued that the inconsistency between the economic necessity to hire women as paid workers and the cultural explanation of femaleness in originally domesticated conditions has persisted since the early periods of American Industrialism’s advancement. She further discussed that the hiring of women workers happened as an immediate consequence of the revolution of America because women were actually among the first working class of people in the U.S (Kessler-Harris 22). Before then, women understood that they were important workers, but wage work was not supposed to be important in their lives (22). The American Revolution induced this norm that persisted and continued to deepen over time and is expected to continue to the upcoming two hundred years because of the increasing broadness of the wage labor force. The main strength of the book was the successful unfolding of the process of gradual changes that led to the absorption of women into wage work without the realization of ending male domination.
The book discusses several different historical times that composed the slow unfolding of the process of changes by clearly differentiating them according to chapters. These include; management policy towards female workers, dynamics of occupational gender segregation, militancy and protests by women in the workplace, and the changing gender. Although the book managed to bring out a gradual process of changes in the workplace over the historical periods discussed, the periodization still appeared traditional because the information was more persuasive. Moreover, the book failed to show the specific time in history whereby the women’s relationship to work changed aside from the current days. The book rejected ideas raised by other authors that the 1940s was an important turning point when women in marriages began to work out of their households in significant numbers. It suggested that absorbing women into wage work was a slow process in support of Marx’s prediction made ages ago.
The book’s discussion implies that the author was cautious when discussing the wider effects of her exceptional historical evaluation. She was also very reluctant to generate speculations in sections where evidence was minimal. Additionally, the author avoided speculation of arguments, especially in using exact theoretical words to ensure accessibility of the book to a wider audience rather than only those knowledgeable of Marxist and feminist theory. The impression that most of the book’s discussions are implicit and not elaborated fully presents a setback to the theoretical rationality which supports the book’s main argument. For instance, the book concentrated more on illustrating the structure of inequality of gender in the economy and family as a consequence of the growing demand for women workers in the market. It neglected the alternate side of the question, which required outlining the reasons why the inequality persisted.
The book was interesting because of the phase-to-phase outlining of historical women workers in the U.S to draw insights into how the changes brought about the employment of women as wage-earning workers. The author also avoided generating false ideas in sections whereby evidence was limited, thus increasing the book’s credibility. The book only discussed topics with significant evidence and left hanging questions in between the text to engage the reader to meditate about the issues in question before partially answering the questions in upcoming chapters. In conclusion, the book’s thesis was partially achieved since historical tension between women’s work and home roles throughout the capitalist period of America was discussed, as well as the changes that happened to the roles. Still, there was no clear comparison between the factors that caused gender inequality in the past and the current days. The book’s historical evaluation is very insightful, especially for those authors who might want to consider pursuing the issues in the future.
Work Cited
Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States, 20th Anniversary Edition. Oxford University Press, 2003.