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Gender and Economic Activity PRINCETON UNIVERSITY SOCIOLOGY 540: GENDER AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY Spring 2010 Wednesdays 11 AM-2PM Wallace Hall 190 Professor Viviana Zelizer Telephone: 8-4557 [email protected] =================================================================== This course provides an introduction to a gendered analysis of economic processes and institutions. It investigates when, why, and in what ways gender shapes production, consumption, distribution, and transfer of assets. In six sessions, the course highlights selected questions about gender as an organizing principle in economic life while also exploring multiple definitions and explanations of what constitutes economic activity. After a general discussion of gender theories, it surveys how gender works in a variety of settings and activities, such as labor markets, intimate economies, and caring labor. We end with an overview of strategies aimed at reducing gendered economic inequalities. Overall, the course attempts to strengthen intellectual bridges between economic sociology and gender scholarship. REQUIREMENTS: 1. Readings: (a) Required readings: All students must read in preparation for class discussion and reports, (b) Recommended readings identify valuable paths to and from the week's topic. Readings will be available in the course’s Blackboard site or in the Sociology Department mailroom. For the latter, you should return the materials immediately after reading or photocopying. 2. Reports: Over the course of the six weeks each student prepares a total of three written reports. The first two reports consist of short critical essays concerning three or four of the current week’s readings, of no more than 1,000 words; we will work out student responsibilities for sessions and particular readings in class. These reports serve as a basis for class presentation and discussion; students should circulate their reports electronically to the class by no later than 5 PM the Monday preceding the class session. Depending on class size, we may organize formal responses to these statements by other class members. The reports should focus on the following issues; a. what question is addressed by the author(s)? b. what is the significance of that question for key issues in the field? c. what are competing answers to that question? d. how well does the author address that question, in terms of logic and methodology? e. what would be a different, valid way of addressing the same question, preferably one you regard as superior? The third report, also of no more than 1,000 words, is due on Friday, May 7. It will take up one of the following three options: 1. A brief research proposal based on one of the seminar's subjects or another topic to be chosen in consultation with instructor. 2. Analysis and critique of a major issue in the field of gender and economic sociology. 3. Intellectual biography of one of the course’s authors. 1 READINGS WEEK 1 (March 24) WHEN, WHY, AND HOW DOES GENDER MATTER FOR ECONOMIC ACTIVITY? Required: Paula England and Nancy Folbre. “Gender and Economic Sociology.” Pp. 627-49 in Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology, second edition. New York: Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Julie Nelson. “Feminism and Economics.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (1995): 131-148. Charles Tilly. Durable Inequality, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, chapter 1, “Of essences and bonds,” pp. 1-40. Cynthia Epstein. “Great Divides: The Cultural, Cognitive, and Social Bases of the Global Subordination of Women. 2006 ASA Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review 72 (2007): 1-22. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman. The Politics of Gender After Socialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, chapter 3, “Dilemmas of Public and Private,” pp. 37-62. Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, “Critical Thinking about Inequality: An Emerging Lens.” Pp. 1-21 in Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, eds. Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy, and Practice. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Recommended Barbara Reskin. “Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality: 2002 ASA Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review 68 (2003): 1-21 Paula England. “Separative and Soluble Selves: Dichotomous Thinking in Economics.” Pp. 33- 59 in Julie Nelson and Marianne Ferber, Feminist Economics Today. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Myra Marx Ferree. “Beyond Separate Spheres: Feminism and Family Research.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 52 (1990): 866-884. Joan Acker. “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations.” Gender & Society 4 (1990): 139-158. Candace West and Don Zimmerman. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1 (1987): 125-151. Joan Scott “Gender: A Useful Category for Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053-1075. R. W. Connell. Gender & Power. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. 2 WEEK 2 (March 31) LABOR MARKETS Guest discussant: Bonnie Thornton Dill, Stanley Kelley, Jr. Visiting Professor of Distinguished Teaching. Required: Claudia Goldin. “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family.” American Economic Review 96 (2006): 1-21. Mary Blair-Loy. “Cultural Constructions of Family Schemas: The Case of Women Finance Executives.” Gender & Society 15 (2001): 687-709. Shelley Correll, J. Stephen Benard, and In Paik. “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” American Journal of Sociology 112 (2007): 1297-1338. Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books, 1997, Introduction, pp. 3-11, and chapter 8, “Numbers: Minorities and Majorities,” pp. 164-242. Christine L. Williams. “The Glass Escalator: Hidden Advantages for Men in the ‘Female’ Professions.” Social Problems 39 (1992): 253-267. Ching Kwan Lee “Engendering the Worlds of Labor: Women Workers, Labor Markets, and Production Politics in the South China Economic Miracle.” American Sociological Review 60 (1995): 378-397. Recommended Michael B. Katz, Mark J. Stern, and Jamie J. Fader. “Women and the Paradox of Economic Inequality in the Twentieth-Century.” Journal of Social History 39 (2005): 65-88. Irene Browne and Joya Misra. “The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market.” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 487-513. Michelle J. Budig.” Male Advantage and the Gender Composition of Jobs: Who Rides the Glass Escalator?” Social Problems 49 (2002): 258-277. Alice Kessler-Harris. A Woman's Wage. Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 1990. Louise Roth. Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, chapter 2, “Pay for Performance,” pp. 36-57. Emilio Castilla. “Gender, Race, and Meritocracy in Organizational Careers.” American Journal of Sociology 113 (2008): 1479-1526. Ron S. Burt, “The Gender of Social Capital.” Rationality and Society 10 (1998): 5-46. Leslie Salzinger. 2003. Genders in Production. Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories. Berkeley: University of California Press. 3 WEEK 3 (April 7) INTIMATE ECONOMIES Required: Viviana Zelizer. The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, prologue, chapters 1, 3, 5 (pp. 1-46; 94-157; 209-286). Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas. Promises I Can Keep. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, chapters 4 and 5. Catherine T. Kenney. “Father Doesn’t Know Best? Parents’ Control of Money and Children’s Food Insecurity.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 70 (2008): 654-669. Megan Comfort. Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, chapters 3 and 4, pp. 65-125. Gloria González-López. Erotic Journeys. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, chapter 7, “Sexual Bargains: Work, Money, and Power,” pp. 187-226. Recommended: Arlie R. Hochschild. "The Economy of Gratitude." Pp. 95-111 in Thomas Hood, ed., The Sociology of Emotions: Original Essays and Research Papers. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1989. Supriya Singh. ”Toward a sociology of money and family in the Indian Diaspora.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 40 (2006): 375-398. Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein. Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997, Introduction and chapter 6, "Survival Strategies." Éva Fodor. “A Different Type of Gender Gap: How Women and Men Experience Poverty.” East European Politics & Societies 2006 20: 14-39 Maureen Sullivan. The Family of Woman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, chapter 4, “Undoing the Gender Division of Labor,” pp. 93-123. Katherine Newman. Falling From Grace. New York: Vintage, 1989, chapter 4, “The Downwardly Mobile Family,” pp. 95-142. Reva Siegel, "Valuing Housework: Nineteenth-Century Anxieties about the Commodification of Household Labor." American Behavioral Scientist 41(August,1998):1437-1451. Sheba Mariam George, When Women Come First. Gender and Class in Transnational Migration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, introduction, pp. 1-18, and chapter 3, “Home: Redoing Gender in Immigrant Households.” WEEK 4 (April 14) THE CASE OF CAREWORK 4 Required: Paula England. “Concepts of Care.” Annual Review of Sociology 31 (2005): 381-99. Viviana Zelizer. The Purchase of Intimacy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, chapters 4, “Caring Relations,” pp. 158-208. Arlie Hochschild. “The Nanny Chain.” The American Prospect (2000)11: 32-36. Rhacel Salazar
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