Gendered exclusion: Domesticity and dependence in Bengal
S Sen - International Review of Social History, 1997 - cambridge.org
International Review of Social History, 1997•cambridge.org
In Western Europe, industrialization brought far-reaching changes in the family-household
system by separating the household from the workplace. Factories, especially, took work
away from home and eroded the integrity of the household. The spatial separation between
the household and the workplace became the foundation for a conceptual separation
between the community and the market. Families were separated from trades, consumption
from production, women's activities from men's. These separations, often expressed in the …
system by separating the household from the workplace. Factories, especially, took work
away from home and eroded the integrity of the household. The spatial separation between
the household and the workplace became the foundation for a conceptual separation
between the community and the market. Families were separated from trades, consumption
from production, women's activities from men's. These separations, often expressed in the …
In Western Europe, industrialization brought far-reaching changes in the family-household system by separating the household from the workplace. Factories, especially, took work away from home and eroded the integrity of the household. The spatial separation between the household and the workplace became the foundation for a conceptual separation between the community and the market. Families were separated from trades, consumption from production, women's activities from men's. These separations, often expressed in the generalized formula of a “private-public” divide, have underscored a thoroughgoing gender division of labour far beyond the original divisions supposed to be rooted in biological reproduction. In industrialized Europe, the working-class household's needs could not be met from the combined economic activities of its members: men, women and children. Rather, the daily bread was to be “won” by individual wage earners and clearly the breadwinners were to be men. In contrast, the home became the site of women's reproductive activities devoid of assignable exchange value. Wives' and daughters' unpaid work was increasingly underwritten by family ideology and was eventually to be covered by the “family wage” paid to husbands and fathers.