Welfare State
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This essay will analyse the idea that we live in a patriarchal welfare state and how patriarchy effects women within it. It will look at past and present social policies effecting women in particularly regarding employment and attempt to analyse why such policies have been pursued and any changes which have been implemented due to feminist pressures.
The introduction of the welfare state as we understand it came about after the Second World War. The Beveridge report of 1942 formed the basis of the welfare state. Beveridge outlined the five giants of evil on our society as; want, squalor, idleness, ignorance and disease and went on to propose a huge reform of the social welfare system to eliminate these issues. The welfare state was to provide social support for those who needed it while maintaining equality in the political and formal juridical rights of all citizens (Pateman (1987)). Feminists argue that many of the policies reflect how patriarchal our society is and highlight the inequalities between men and women which are still prevalent in todays modern welfare system
Policies that were implemented in the reform created many jobs for women allowing them to enter employment. However, from the offset women were regarded as a less valued workforce and were often placed in lower status jobs to allow them to maintain the balance of work and domestic family life. Women were generally part time workers on a low income with less working rights as their male counterparts. This meant that women had to rely on the male as the main “breadwinner.” Despite Beveridges claims that full employment within our society was pivotal to the success of the new welfare model it was clear that the presumed role of a married woman was to be a home maker, staying at home to look after the children and to rely on the male partners wage. In 1947 an economic survey showed that the national labour force was short so in order to make production targets women were drafted back into the workforce. Saying this, employers were still encouraged to provide working conditions which would allow women to continue to fulfil their domestic duties as well as working (Rees (1992)). “Twilight shifts” were provided by the Factories Evening and Employment order in 1950 to help women maintain this balance of home and economic work. (Rees (1992)).
The emphasis on the importance of womens role within the home and family life continually oppressed women and their aspirations . The oppression of women in the home and the unaccounted for unpaid domestic labour done by women was, and still is an issue within our society. Gender equality within the workplace has been an issue at the forefront of public policy since the 1960s and 70s and many legislative amendments have been passed in an attempt to address the inequalities between men and women. Changes and attention has been focussed on certain areas particularly. These are: equal pay, equal access and opportunity for training and promotion, equality in social security matters and provision of maternity rights, benefits and childcare matters (Moore (1993)).
The “traditional” socially constructed ideas of gender roles within families created a divide between the private and the public sphere. Women were confined mainly to the private sphere within the home and as discussed were reliant on the male to be the breadwinner. This meant that women without the support of a male often found themselves in poverty as they could not secure work of sufficient economic worth while maintaining family care. This was due to a lack of childcare provision provided by the state. The Equal Pay Act of 1970 was in theory based on the terms that men and women who do similar work should be paid equal wages and have the same terms of employment (Equal Opportunities Commission website). However, this act in itself was flawed as women who found themselves in poorly paid jobs often did not have a male counterpart to compare her work situation to. The 1975 Sex Discrimination Act which followed prohibited direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of someones sex but also clarified the meaning of equal work as work that was of equal value. Which meant that men and women did not have to be in the exact same work to earn equal wages. (Moore (1993)) Further legislation followed in the late 1970s which created equal rights for women for training, working conditions and promotion along with sick pay and unemployment benefits from statutory social security schemes (Moore (1993)). Under Margaret Thatchers leadership she strived to reduce the economic decline of the country and one of her policies sought to privatise many of the state-owned industries. Through this privatisation policy the manufacturing industry declined and there was a large rise in service sector jobs. This created many employment opportunities for women and also a loss in male jobs. This signified a marked change in the attitudes of society to womens roles within society and the workplace (Jewson 1994). Over the succeeding decades further positive steps have been taken to improved social policy regarding women including increased child benefits and better childcare funding and provisions as well as improved maternity rights (Moore (1993)). However, many feminist