1. WMST 301
Work and Families

2. Stratification in the Work Force
Some key points in the readings on work:
Gender, in combination with race and class, operate to constrain people’s opportunities in the work force.
Labor continues to be segregated by gender, race, and class.
Paid work is an important institution in people’s lives because it carries power and influences much of our lives including relationships and how we see the world.

3. Occupational segregation leads to inequalities between the sexes and racial/ethnic groups.
Differences in work opportunities mean differences in lifestyles and life choices. The reverse is also true: people’s life situations and their gender, racial, and class status affect their opportunities for work.

4. People’s race, gender, nationality, etc
People’s race, gender, nationality, etc. affect the structural opportunities open to them and their interpretations of these experiences.
Women’s opportunities are constrained because of their gender, but women’s experiences in the labor force vary by ethnicity, race, age, and class.

5. “Maid in LA” reading: Some key points
Domestic workers in the United States are a racialized workforce of Central American women. These women prefer housecleaning jobs to live-out nanny or housecleaning work, and live-out domestic work is preferable to live-in domestic work.

6. Live-in Latina nannies and housecleaners are rarely afforded respect, privacy, or adequate food or pay. This work is often isolating because they are kept away from their families and friends and few employers recognize them as human beings.

7. Live-out nannies and housecleaners are paid more for their services and have more time for family and social life because they are not on call all day the way live-in workers are. These workers often took great pride in their childcare work, but they often criticized their employers for their child-rearing practices.

8. Housecleaners usually work for many employers and are paid much better for their services than are either live-in or live-out household workers. This work provides greater autonomy than the other domestic work these women perform.
Live-in jobs are often the first jobs recent immigrant women obtain.

9. With more time in the United States, they develop skills and awareness that allows them to work as live-out housecleaners, nannies, or housekeepers that allow them to better manage family obligations and marriage.

10. Central-American immigrant women are more likely than other immigrant women to be domestic workers, because they are less likely to have social networks that could help them acquire other forms of support. They do not have the access to services that refugee woman are granted.

11. Americans prefer to hire Central-American women for racial reasons, and Latina women also use racial stereotypes to describe the preferences of their employers.

12. The Institution of the Family: Some Key Points
The institution of the family contributes to gender socialization and is often the site of gender inequality.
Families vary considerably in their make-up (sexuality of the members, number of parents, etc.) and by race/ethnicity and class.
Women and men have different experiences and still have different duties in many families.
Public discourse and the media shape how we understand various aspects of the family.
Families can be a women’s source of strength or resistance, as well as their subordination.

13. Same sex marriage
The mainstream GLBT movement has focused on same-sex marriage rights
Under the current laws, gays and lesbians are denied many opportunities and benefits including access to adopting or having children. Things are changing with each election, with some states legalizing same-sex marriages.
Although much of the mainstream GLBT movement has focused on opening up marriage to gays and lesbians, many in the GLBT movement are skeptical of this direction. In other words, many people now question marriage and ask why a relationship needs to be sanctioned by the government or a religion.

14. Gender, Class and Marriage
Thai (reading 29 in FF ) uses the example of the couple Minh and Thanh to demonstrate how the decisions of Vietnamese women and Vietnamese-American men to engage in transnational marriages are based on a need for respect and global class relations.
The men are unable to marry because they have low class status in the United States, while the women are unable to marry because of their higher class and education level in Vietnam.
These Vietnamese men and women attempt to improve their marriage status through marriage migration.
The women expect that their husbands in the U.S. will have a more egalitarian gender ideology than the men in Vietnam do, while the men expect that the women from Vietnam will respect traditional gender roles.

15. (Dis)ablity and Parenting
How may (dis)ability influence parenting decisions?
In “A World of their Own,” what reactions do you have to Sharon and Candy’s wish for a deaf child?
Would you have wanted them to wish for a child who was not hearing impaired? Try to look at this article from their perspective… it’s an interesting way of looking at things.