For an Ethics of Equity: Working Women in the Present between Guilt and Freedom

Abstract

This article deals with the importance of reflecting on the experience of working women based on an analysis of the gender social order. It identifies the effects of simultaneously assuming domestic and work roles to make visible the emotional implications that affect women’s health and way of life. Although it could be said that the female population has achieved significant conquests regarding their collective rights, in everyday life, the old and the new order coexist in relation to society’s expectations of them. The work is the result of qualitative research applied to the University of Cuenca teachers, where the gender gaps in the academic career are identified, as well as the limitations for personal and professional development throughout their academic experience. This reality is reproduced in all work environments, negatively affecting the construction of women’s autonomy as social subjects, and arises from the double working day that the female population assumes, which in turn benefits the current neoliberal economic model.

1. Introduction

The transformations of all kinds that humanity is facing at an accelerated pace demand a revision of the models of femininity and masculinity in our culture. The participation and recognition of women in society have undergone an important evolution in recent years. Women have reached great goals and achieved great things that have implied personal perseverance considering the adverse conditions under which society functions. Although women have been massively incorporated into the labour market, in most cases, they continue to be responsible for tasks in the private sphere. This is due to the prevalence of a social order that reproduces the way in which society and its institutions are organised.

There are two pillars that sustain gender gaps: structures and culture. These elements respond to the historically established social order whose system of practises (habitus) institutes relations of inequality and subordination that function under the concentrating mechanisms of power and control. Society reproduces culture as a function of the social order, reinforces the roles assigned to men and women, reproduces power structures, and normalises situations of discrimination, devaluation, disqualification, or even violence.

Since the 1950s, women have been massively integrated into the labour market, a major advance in their rights. However, this integration has been accompanied by negative conditions such as lower salaries for the same work, fewer opportunities for promotion and recognition, and glass ceilings that hinder professional careers. There have also been experiences of hostile, discriminatory, and sometimes even aggressive environments on the grounds of gender. What is not of particular interest in this analysis, however, is the difficulty of reconciling caring and working roles.

According to our social canons, it is women who should stay at home to ensure that things run smoothly and that the needs of all members of the household are met. How often do we hear that those who prioritise work are bad wives or mothers? Faced with this, women often feel guilty about having to sacrifice their presence at important moments in the lives of their families and homes. Some even decide to give up work to take care of the home, children, the sick or elderly relatives, i.e. women often sacrifice their economic needs or their professional aspirations to meet the needs of their loved ones.

For Bourdieu [1], the social order functions as a symbolic machine that tends to ratify domination, the sexual division of labour, and the strict distribution of activities assigned to each of the two sexes. For this reason, the health of working women is currently being seriously affected both physically and emotionally due to the accumulation of tensions that daily life generates, causing an ambivalent pressure marked by the disjunctions that women must face when assuming this double responsibility, especially when they do not have the support of other family members or institutional policies that seek to improve this reality.

2. Development

2.1 Necessary reflections

The family is a reproductive agent of the social order, where models of femininity and masculinity are learned from cultural prototypes, justifying their existence for reasons of custom, tradition, or culture (Salazar) [2]. Under this social order, the work assigned to each gender is organised. The metaphor of the “sticky floor” is used to refer to the difficulties women have in detaching themselves from household chores that demand daily dedication, limiting job opportunities, and inducing women to stay at home as their natural space.

The family, the media, and religion, among other factors, reinforce in a naturalised way different behavioural models for men and women. Working life is very competitive, with long working hours and schedules that are incompatible with domestic responsibilities. In a society that demands that women do not neglect their domestic role, many institutions prefer not to employ women because of maternity or marital status, while men are encouraged to work outside the home.

Legal reforms, advances in gender equality, and affirmative action are not enough to change the conditions of structural inequality. The reconciliation of family and work is an issue that, contrary to its importance, does not translate into sufficient institutional policies to balance these two roles. When the levels and expectations of women’s responsibilities are not met, frustration arises with multiple effects on their health and well-being and on the quality of their interpersonal relationships.

Currently, sexist expressions are more elusive and difficult to recognise behind the kind behaviour with which women are treated. This is known as benevolent sexism, which idealises women as self-sacrificing mothers, wives, and romantic objects, highlighting the role of women as a complement to men (Garaigordobil) [3]. With an affectionate tone, women are relegated to certain socially approved roles, reinforcing cultural stereotypes typical of the current social order. Taking care of the home and the family is an act of love, and under this justification, women are induced to stay at home as the main person responsible for care tasks. From an early age, women are educated in a sacrificial logic that considers as merit the obliging, obedient, and submissive attitude of women, who must be willing to sacrifice their rest and personal fulfilment to attend to the well-being of their partners, sons, daughters, or parents, which is considered a demonstration of affection. Prioritising the needs of the family is seen as an attribute of women, that is learned naturally in the home and in society.

Sacrificial logic romanticises work overload. In order to fulfil all the household chores, women get up earlier and go to bed at the end of the day. This is the only way to meet the expectations placed on them. Foucault [1] speaks of biopolitics as the process of permanently producing certain ways of life based on mechanisms that creep into the most intimate part of our subjectivity, operating on our bodies thoughts, behaviours, and affections. Although no one forces them to assume all the tasks, if they do not, the work accumulates. Under these conditions, self-blame is frequent and is aggravated when others accuse them of prioritising their work.

Women feel guilty or are singled out as such when bread and milk are not bought when food is missing, when the child is not taken to the doctor, and when the children have learning difficulties at school. Research shows that women with jobs and small children have physical and emotional conditions that result in constant stress, muscle aches, gastrointestinal and cardiac discomfort, lack of sleep, and permanent fatigue. Symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, and hypersensitivity are common, producing wear and tear with negative effects on their quality of life. A mother cannot neglect the care of her children, their schoolwork, food preparation, the children’s doctor and dentist, clothes, and house cleaning, and in many cases, she is a teacher, nurse, or psychologist.

Women are always thinking about every single thing that remains to be done. When tasks are not accomplished, frustration surfaces with multiple effects on interpersonal relationships. This accumulation of stress and fatigue generates the so-called Burnout syndrome or burned-out woman as a result of progressive exhaustion. Work and social pressures, caregiving tasks, and the effort to break glass ceilings at work end up affecting women’s emotional health and well-being.

If women are taught to be sensitive, maternal, nurturing, caring, dutiful, and helpful, men are taught to be competitive, courageous, conquering, providing, and dominant. These teachings define the behaviours and the ways of being, feeling, and relating to others. Undoubtedly, men are privileged both in the public sphere and at home. At home, they have the attention of their wives, clean clothes, and food served to them. In many cases, adults reinforce this model of masculinity where men exercise strength, control, and power, and women attend to, arrange for, and serve others. It is difficult for young men and women to discard socially legitimised models. They naturalise them without asking any questions.

Despite theoretical and normative advances in terms of equity, the pillars of the patriarchal structure and the macho culture survive. Domestic work as a team is not always fulfilled. Men help with some things, but they do not feel responsible for domestic chores. According to the National Council for Gender Equality [4], men spend approximately 13.9% of their time on unpaid work and 86.1% on paid work, while women spend 40.4% on unpaid work and 59.6% on paid work. It is clear that there is a great inequality in family care work and that women devote much more time to it than men. It is true that men are increasingly joining in the tasks of childcare and housework, but they do so from a subsidiary position, not one of co-responsibility. For example, there are things they almost never do, such as cleaning toilets, folding clothes, glueing buttons, and washing windows, among others. Their perception of work in the home is understood as a collaboration and not a priority activity in the life of the home, and it is even seen as heroic for a father to stay home to take care of his baby, when this simply means that he is taking responsibility for his role and exercising paternity. The lack of shared responsibility in a couple’s life is often a source of conflict, since it is difficult to find emotional satisfaction in an unequal relationship.

In adult life, hegemonic masculinity and femininity are reaffirmed through behaviours that must be proven; for example, it is considered that men are the main providers of the family, which leads many to dedicate themselves only to work, neglecting other dimensions of life such as fatherhood. On occasion, women are prevented from looking for work because that is what they are there for. Although being a provider is complex in realities such as ours, with high unemployment rates and an economic crisis, thus, men may feel like failures if they cannot find a job.

Another behaviour typical of traditional masculinity is that men should not show fear; they should be brave and protective, a behaviour that usually translates into an attitude of control over women inside and outside the home, for which boys are encouraged to be dominant and girls to accept domination. Men are mandated to be brave and prove their manhood through fighting, distorting the sense of honour with the use of violence. Similarly, self-reliance is another common demand that causes men not to seek help in the face of problems, so they tend to be more prone to the use of drugs and alcohol.

Men are expected to be cold, brave, and aggressive and not to express feelings such as fear, shame, indignation, frustration, sadness, anguish, pain, insecurity, or tenderness. They are required to hide their feelings. So anger, rage, and frustration are usually expressed through violence. Women, on the other hand, can show their feelings, cry, openly express their fears, and show themselves to be weak and in need of protection.

Frequently, men’s violence against women is justified when they break socially approved norms such as not fulfilling their domestic responsibilities, taking care of the house and children, having sexual relations, even if they do not want to, etc. Segato [5] affirms that men will always have difficulty joining the proposal of equity because they feel that they would be betraying their loyalty to the mandate of traditional masculinity; therefore, they need to constantly demonstrate their capacity for power and dominance.

The gender order is thus a hegemonic form of thought that reproduces social roles, presenting them as natural and repressing or punishing those who do not comply with them. In this context, it is imperative to review the ways in which we educate for a new ethic, an ethic of equity based on new referents of masculinity and femininity. These and other hegemonic behaviours affect men and women, hence the importance of overcoming heteronormative education. We are obliged to think of new ways of being in the world.

This article seeks to contribute to this line by analysing the factors that hinder the process of building female autonomy in relation to the expectations that society imposes on them as mothers, wives, daughters, and workers. The research is descriptive and explanatory in that it allows for analysing, relating, and interpreting the variables related to the reconciliation of domestic and work roles of women, in this case, working women. These variables are contrasted with the main reference theories, mainly from gender studies. Semi-structured interviews and discussion groups were conducted to deepen the analysis of the collective meanings of gender constructions for women.

2.2 Between guilt and freedom

The Spanish psychologist Violeta Alcocer claims that three out of four women bear an invisible mental burden, and when they discover it, they realise that on them falls not only most of the tasks but also the responsibility of coordinating that everything goes well for the tranquillity of the family. The mental burden is behind many fights, marital crises, and even breakups since it generates tension and feelings of anxiety. It is common that these disputes are covered by hiring someone to clean the house, but when there are children or sick relatives, it is more difficult to delegate this task. Alcocer argues that phrases such as “Leave it like this, I’ll do it”, “I’m going, but I left the food ready” and “Anything, call me”, are common among women, which prevents other people from taking responsibility [6]. There are times in people’s lives when the mental burden is more evident. After childbirth, or when parents get older and need more care or when they move back home, women have been shown to use more antidepressants and anxiolytics than men,” says Alcocer. In addition, 58% of women who become mothers decide to give up or reduce their working hours, compared to 6.2% of men who become fathers [7].

The issue analysed is a crucial aspect that affects work and family roles in the context of a society organised around production and work as an element of human fulfilment, so that the balance between these two roles becomes an institutional policy issue that requires concrete efforts in order to overcome inequalities. According to Ana Buquet, the integration of women in the world of work is marked by structural and cultural elements that perpetuate inequalities by subordinating women as a group to men, constructing arbitrary differences that lead to the performance of differentiated and hierarchical social roles that are reproduced in all areas of human being and activity. This differentiation is both a product and a producer of gender differences [8]. For example, there are feminised occupations such as nursery school teaching and working in daycare centres, which are an extension of the caring role that women perform at home. Women tend to postpone higher education, especially when they have young children.

Working mothers tend to postpone their studies or motherhood so as not to interrupt their studies, as it is more difficult for them to separate their professional and private lives, and they are often forced to choose one or the other, whereas for men, the family is generally not a restrictive element in their careers. Workplaces also reproduce the social order, reinforcing the roles of men and women, reproducing hierarchies, normalising situations of discrimination, and even encouraging harassment and violence against women.

In general, women face various obstacles in their working lives and various difficulties in climbing the institutional structure. These obstacles are known as glass ceilings, which refers to the cases where women, despite their background, training, or experience, create vertical segregation due to the prevalence of a patriarchal culture that values men more for managerial positions; statistics always show that there are more male managers, chiefs, deans, rectors, directors, deputies, ministers, and presidents. The glass ceiling is not a legal barrier but prejudice that prevents women, despite their training and experience, from being entrusted with positions of responsibility or a similar category for the same functions as men.

The lack of institutional politics displaces women’s career aspirations. Although there is an open discourse towards equality, the concept of what it means to be a woman and a man is permeated by social learning and is translated into the performativity of traditionally masculine workspaces. When women enter these spaces, it is perceived as a kind of transgression, the effect of which is a differential treatment that provokes greater scrutiny of the possibility of error. Women are required to prove that they can do the same jobs as men with equal capacity and ability. In addition, the long working hours required for managerial positions are an obstacle that, in many cases, forces them to give up these positions due to the high family and personal costs that this level of work responsibility entails.

Evidence shows that working women experience high levels of stress and anxiety, increasing the level of pressure in the face of work obligations, which is where the effects on their health and well-being appear. Work responsibilities, administrative and management tasks, high-performance standards, performance appraisals, work reports, deadlines, work meetings, etc. do not exempt them from their responsibilities at home. These common and real situations are an obstacle to the construction of women’s autonomy at work, and in the face of them, unfortunately, institutions have not implemented sufficient policies such as flexible working hours, safe and nearby daycare centres, breaks, and facilities for breastfeeding at work, among others.

However, from what has been analysed, it is more difficult for women to argue for the importance and legitimacy of their work; there seems to be a sort of colonised unconscious that materialises in the institutional structure. The struggle for women’s rights has made working environments uncomfortable; even women themselves avoid conflict by taking on tasks such as note-taking, organising logistical details, assuming low-profile positions, and other multiple activities that men do not want to do. Paradoxically, the general view, including among women, is that there is no need for compensatory measures such as affirmative action and that women do not need to be given points for free. This ignores the historical discrimination that has existed and the lack of opportunities for women in relation to men. On the contrary, affirmative action is a way of mitigating the consequences of discrimination and inequality in the social order and seeks to reward those who have been affected by these circumstances throughout their lives.

It is not uncommon for almost unconscious acts of symbolic violence to occur in work meetings when women are interrupted or are not listened to with the same attention as their colleagues because the voice or opinion of men is considered more important, making it seem that what women do or say is less relevant. Faced with this, women often develop mechanisms to reduce the frustration caused by low recognition and are often forced to tolerate discrimination in order to avoid conflict, as it is common to observe how they are accused of being problematic or exaggerated, although research has documented several cases of women writers or scientists whose unpublished ideas have been used by their peers. In short, there are countless situations or naturalised behaviours of control and dominance that exist with or without awareness.

On the other hand, as we have already pointed out, this situation strengthens the neoliberal model. Gender studies have shown the contribution of women to the economies of countries through the care economy, which refers to all the activities and actions that are developed to ensure the health and safety of people and the planet, including the care of vulnerable people such as children, the elderly, the sick, food preparation, cleaning, caring for nature, animals, and so on. Most women carry out these activities unpaid, with low salaries, and without social benefits.

The time and labour required for these tasks contribute significantly to the family and national economies and are fundamental to the functioning of the economy as a whole. Caring tasks are often associated with additional emotional, physical, social, and financial burdens. Globally, between 57% and 81% of caregivers or caretakers for the elderly are women: wives, daughters, and granddaughters.

Women’s domestic work saves the state enormous amounts of money in the implementation of infrastructure and services that guarantee the attention, safety, and care of dependent persons. Many of these tasks have been taken over by the provision of private services that not everyone can afford: daycare centres, nursing homes, godparenthoods, and other places that provide care on a paid basis. Similarly, maids or service agencies take over food preparation and cleaning tasks that not everyone can afford.

Today, the economic situation forces both men and women to work outside the home. Most households cannot afford the cost of these private services, so women are forced to contribute to the household economy to pay for food, medicine, education, housing, and transport while still fulfilling their domestic roles. This is known as the care economy.

3. Conclusions

The social stereotypes assigned according to the sexual division of labour continue to reinforce feminine and masculine roles. In the collective unconscious, a series of models of masculinity and femininity persist and condition the way of seeing and living the world, beliefs that do not admit the possibility of debate. Androcentric and patriarchal prototypes have prevailed over the characteristics of each sex and what each of them should do. As long as women were in the shadows, outside the history written by men, no one doubted that these models were social constructions with a certain intentionality: to maintain control. Therein lies the importance of questioning these models in need to overcome the ties that keep thousands of women from reproducing submissive roles that prevent their full realisation and self-determination.

It is important to emphasise that not all men are responsible or agree with what is happening. According to Herrera Gómez [9], this reality is the result of a struggle waged by the most violent men against peaceful men, women, children, and natural resources. The way in which men and women are conceived in terms of thought, culture, politics, and their relationships lead to the perception of women and men as beings with different natures. For women, when it comes to thinking, especially criticism, women are silent, obedient, and dependent on men, while men are mostly active and autonomous in thinking. Women’s and men’s identities are constructed under the influence of traditional stereotypes, such as hegemonic masculinity and subordinate femininity, contained in the social and cultural gender order.

Feminist theory, based on the analysis of data and concrete realities, confirms that there are innumerable circumstances that have created deep gaps between the opportunities available to men and those available to women. Despite this, far from the fantasy that women have already achieved equality, there are a number of indicators that show that gender equality is a pending issue, the consequences of which affect women’s health and well-being. Discrimination is the antithesis of merit; where there is discrimination, there is no meritocracy, and in hegemonic environments, women’s efforts are not valued. In this context, glass ceilings are a cultural and structural problem that will not disappear unless concrete policies are implemented to eliminate the mechanisms that allow them to function.

Although micromachism may seem inconsequential or banal, and although many people may think that a discriminatory situation is “no big deal”, its naturalisation creates an unfavourable climate for women, which threatens their personal and professional fulfilment and therefore goes against their psychological integrity, limiting the construction of their autonomy. It is a situation that can be prolonged because of its invisibility, since it does not involve obvious abuses.

To achieve equal opportunities and contribute to the construction of a culture based on an ethic of equity that allows women to improve the quality of their lives, their health and their well-being, much more than good intentions are required. It requires political will to transform structures, regulations, practices, conditions and habits. In other words, everything that is hidden in everyday dynamics and expressed naturally in their structures and organisational culture; that is, the existence of a habitus expressed in the ways of relating and interacting, such as the existence of multiple forms of segregation, the normalisation of sexist language, the tone of voice, sexist mockery, the declassification of the discourse of equality, the occasions in which women self-marginalise and lower their profile, the times when professionals hide their femininity to obtain respect and attention, the exclusion from decision-making spaces, the multiple additional tasks that women assume without recognition, the under-recognition of their contributions, among other factors.

Current working conditions affect women’s physical and mental health, stop their full development, and limit their potential contribution to society. Work pressure, instability, fear of reprisals, and stress affect women’s well-being, and maintaining these conditions prevents them from raising their professional standards. It is important to redefine historical constructs in order to dismantle the categories of patriarchal culture.

The concern for women’s health care is an issue of growing interest due to the lack of institutional policies and strategies to help reconcile domestic work with work, which forces women to seek support from third parties, which conditions their working careers, especially when they have dependents. The democratisation of domestic and care work in households will only be possible through shared responsibility, which implies that men and women, as well as families, the state, and the market, share responsibility for the care and, consequently, act in a coordinated manner to distribute the time and effort required in an equitable manner. Finding the right balance between work and family responsibilities is an important challenge in forming a new social ethic.

We need to unlearn the roles acquired throughout life and perpetuated over centuries. The culture and the hegemonic mentality attempt to prevent the construction of quality relationships between men and women. One of the most widespread mental blocks is the belief that feminism is a position against men. There are still millions of reasons to keep talking about gender. There are still millions of thoughts to liberate, millions of ideas to overcome, and millions of lives to defend from normalised violence.