Introduction
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes flex time and a baby carriage.” Said by a supervisor at Novartis who refused to hire women (Carter 2010)
Traditionally, the work done by women is often assumed to be less important than the work performed by their male counterparts. This statement continue to plague women in all societies today, as theorist like Murdock believe, given the biological differences between men and women a sexual division of labour is the most efficient way of organising society (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008). This is one way in which the mainstream theorist sought to justify the invisibility of women and assigned roles based on the sex of the individuals. Women has always been viewed or defined by the role she is assigned by society, for which I consider to be socially constructed.
However, the role women played in the home is domesticated in the role of homemaker and caregiver, thus, when we examine women’s work, we primarily think of the work that women do at home, their unpaid domestic labour. The old adage ‘women’s work is never done’ speaks to the various household tasks for which women are assumed to take overall responsibility. Many theorist used the biological theory as to heighten why women is best suited for some jobs rather than others. In reality we know that not all women are capable of assuming the role of the caring, nurturing and domesticated type, just as not all male are able to display a rough, tough and superior exterior. According Stoller, it was stated that it does not necessarily follow that being a woman means being ‘feminine’, nor that being a man means behaving in a ‘masculine’ way, girls are not necessarily caring and compassionate boys do not have to be aggressive and competitive (Haralambos & Holborn, 2008).
However there is also another class of work which society tends to classify as