The Division Of Labor: Gender, Race And Class

Today’s labor market is not so different from that described in Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s extended essay Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor. Glenn’s thesis states that race and gender are interlocking concepts that define the American labor force, which could not be truer, but class is an essential factor that she only touched briefly. To date, we experience remnants of the characteristics of the capitalist industrial system that she so extensively describes. For example, black men, on average, are paid a lower salary even though they hold the same position as a white male counterpart. In addition, it is statistically proven that hiring officers are less likely to offer a position to a married woman because, although over 100 years have passed since the synthesis of the capitalist industrial system, the system still emphasizes the woman’s place is in the home and not the workforce. Both race and gender differences led to the labor market Glenn describes and the one we participate in currently.

Glenn argues race and gender should have been irrelevant in the labor market, but through her further investigations while writing the book, she claims that “a central feature of the U.S. economy has been its reliance on racialized and gendered system of control.” (Glenn, p. 5) In order to evaluate the magnitude of her argument, a working definition for race and gender is necessary. She states that both are social concepts, where race refers to physical attributes that supposedly imply underlying variances, and gender, which is not black-and-white, but instead is a spectrum of identity. Race became increasingly difficult to categorize as “mixed” ancestry became more common, thus the “one-drop rule” was adopted, which stated “that a child’s status followed that of the mother.” (Glenn, p. 10) The acceptance of this rule was suggestive of the slaveowners’ push to keep more people tied up in the slavery system, since many “mixed” children had slave mothers. The system did not allow for those of “mixed” descent to create their own identity; instead the categories were white Americans, which would also come to include Europeans, and black Americans, thereby encompassing everyone not in the previous grouping. A definition for gender was more equivalent to the definition held for sex today. A man’s job was to provide for his family to the best of his ability, whereas a woman’s job was to be a homemaker and support the man by any means necessary. By grouping people as such, state and federal policies were able to effectively outline political and social rights accordingly, which consequently affected the development of the capitalist industrial system and the influence of race and gender rhetoric on the labor market.

The capitalist industrial system, as described by Glenn, was “characterized by cyclical crises, new class formations, and heightened conflicts between capital and labor.” (Glenn, p. 57) The cyclical crises came in the form of economic depressions, the worst one hitting in 1893. During these times, the definition of an who an American citizen is was broadened causing the downward push on wages caused an integration of colored people and women, previously thought of as “unskilled” workers, into the main labor force. Employers were confident they could pay less wages by “hiring cheaper and more docile workers—those with less political leverage,” since labor policies were geared towards protecting the white man. (Glenn, p. 57) Race played a primary role because those workers with less political rights were all races other than white Americans, which included previously excluded groups like the Irish, Jews, and Italians to ensure the white man remained a majority in the labor market. Those laborers with a higher price tag used competitive tactics, such as lobbying for restrictive legislation, to exclude those unskilled workers from certain industries, like banking for example. They claimed it was their right as a white workingman to be employed in the highest-paying and therefore most dignified jobs. This notion of “free labor” was accepted as an undeniable right awarded to the white man, whereas unfree labor was associated with nonwhite workers. Thus, the white man’s standard of living was significantly higher than that of colored peoples and, for the most part, did not require another household income. In effect, this encouraged good workers, since only good work could provide a good income. This was a method whereby wages for colored folk could be lowered as the status quo assumed they could and would survive on less.

In addition, the capitalist industrial system “reorganized production and reproduction, removing much production from the home and drawing men into the labor force to work for wages and leaving reproduction to be carried out as unpaid work by women at the house-hold level.” (Glenn, p. 57) This led to the devaluing of work performed by women and their exclusion from labor protections, thereby disadvantaging women in the workforce. Women earned lower wages and were employed irregularly simply because they were seen as unskilled and their income was established as supplementary to the breadwinner’s, therefore barring them from gaining economic independence, and furthermore, American citizenship. They mostly were called upon when a male worker shortage arose in the market during times of war or economic booms, but once the shortage was no more, they were asked to return to their rightful place in the household.

Thus, the concepts of the “man’s wage” and “women’s wage” were recognized. Glenn describes a “man’s wage” as honorable and “sufficient to support a worker and his family at a decent standard (a so-called American standard of living),” but it was not the same for colored men. (Glenn p. 82) It was expected that women of color would also be employed, so a black man’s income was not enough to support a family without supplementary funds. In contrast, “a ‘woman’s wage’ was calculated even by reformers at a very low level and was a mark of dishonor.” (Glenn p. 82) However, poor minority women were forced to work, fearing punishment, due to vagrancy laws adopted from the European market, since the privileges awarded to white women were not available to them. These laws were just another tactic employed by powerful labor groups to gain control. A black woman staying at home, taking care of her children and household was deemed lazy rather than culturing the future generation of American laborers like white women in the same position. The system “needed women’s labor in the home to maintain male workers, stabilize the workforce, and care for the next generation of workers,” but excluded women of minority groups. (Glenn, p. 74) By supporting their husbands, women were fulfilling their God-given duty and progressing the American economy.

The labor market following the Reconstruction period experienced significant changes in terms of who participated in it, in regard to both race and gender. In theory, the system should have disregarded the race or gender of laborers in order to maximize efficiency and therefore profits, since employees should be considered interchangeable as long as they share the ability to complete the job. However, as Glenn argues, the “capitalist labor market that emerged was fundamentally organized by race and gender,” linking her discussion of citizenship to labor; an American citizen was one who worked. (Glenn, pg. 72) The system not only crafted categories for race and gender, but it also reinforced previous ones, furthering racial and gender inequality. For example, white landowners used debt peonage as a means of forced labor for subordinate groups, so they could regulate non-white labor. Coercion was a defining feature of racial and gender relations in the labor market. Those individuals coercing and controlling others were granted the power to do so by labor policy, ultimately allowing their rhetoric to dominate the workplace. The American labor force has not seen as significant of a shift since the introduction of the capitalist industrial system, and still grasps to its root descriptors: race and gender.