Our Economy of Mothers and Others: Women and Economics Revisited

Summary

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I. Introduction. II. The Basic Sketch. A. Access To Economic Security Through Market Work.B. Economy Of Mothers In Comparison To Others.C. Access To Economic Security Through Family Work. III. Access To Economic Security Throught The Government. A. The Linked Fate Of Women And Children. B. Domesticity And Government Redistribution Programs. IV. Designing Policies To Change The Relationship Of Women And Economics. A. Changing The Relationship Between Employers And Employees.Changing Entitlements Within The Famil Changing The Relationship Between The Public And Private Spheres.D. Feminist Jurisprudence and Care Work..Conclusion

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Extract

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Our Economy of Mothers and Others: Women and Economics Revisited

Joan Williams, Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law, Director, Program on Gender, Work & Family. This paper was written for The Journal of Gender, Race & Justice's fifth annual symposium, The Feminization of Poverty (Oct. 23, 2000). Many thanks to Professor Sherry Colb for helpful comments and a close reading, and to the other members of the Symposium, the Rutgers Faculty Speaker Series, the California Western School of Law, and the American University, Washington College of Law Faculty Speaker Series, where this article was presented in draft form. Particular thanks to my colleague Professor Walter Effross for suggesting I use the phrase "mothers and others" as the title of this article.

I. Introduction

A property lawyer coined the term "feminization of poverty" in the late 1970s to highlight the prevalence of women among the poor.1 The feminization of poverty is an important topic in an age when the disparity in incomes is growing in the United States, and welfare is being "reformed"- that is, from the view of many recipients, abolished as an entitlement.2 This take on the feminization of poverty, while important, is limited in a country with a current poverty rate of 11.8%.3 This article will argue that we need to fold the traditional debate on the proportion of women among the poor into a more sweeping analysis of the relationship between women and economics.

In doing this, we should follow the lead of the growing international awareness, which focuses more broadly on women's relationship to economic security.4 Statistics show that women are the poorest of the

world's poor. Women are not only fifty-nine percent of those in poverty and seventy percent of those in extreme poverty,5 but they also "earn less than a tenth of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property."6

If our goal is an analysis of women's economic welfare, what better place to start than with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Women and Economics?7This classic treatment, published in 1898, established the framework we still use today. Gilman's central focus is on women's dependence:

[W]omen, as a class, neither produce nor distribute wealth . . . women, as individuals, labor mainly as house servants, are not paid as such, and would not be satisfied . . . if they were so paid . . . wives are not business partners or co-producers of wealth with their husbands, unless they actually practice the same profession . . . they are not salaried as mothers, and that it would be unspeakably degrading if they were, what remains to those who deny that women are supported by men?8

And, tartly, "the female of the genus homo is supported by the male." He is her food supply.9

Gilman has no doubt that women are supported by men. This support is both an affront to their dignity ("the pitiful dependence of the human female"10) and corrosive of their character ("the sluggish and greedy disposition bred of long ages of dependence"11). Her solution is to restructure the tasks performed by wives along the industrial model. For instance, houses without kitchens will mean that professional chefs will cook the meals. Even childcare will be...

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