| This thesis develops an alternative theoretical model capable of identifying the causal mechanisms which determine women's work and wages in the U.S. labor market. The model developed herein extends the framework advanced by the socialist feminist corpus of thought--a framework based on the premise that women's subordinate status derives from both patriarchal and capitalist social relations.It is argued that women's position in the labor market results from the interaction or "external dialect" between patriarchal and capitalist social relations, a dialectic which revolves around the struggle over women's labor. In advancing this argument, a dual systems approach is taken, whereby patriarchal and capitalist social relations are analyzed as autonomous sets of power relations, each of which evolve from their own "internal dialectic." Together, they constitute co-determining motors of historical change.In order to test the model's ability to explain the process by which women's work and wages are determined, the model is applied to concrete historical data. The model's ability to explain such labor market phenomena as occupational segregation and relative wage differentials promises to expand our knowledge of labor market operations.The implications of this analysis for public policy suggest a movement away from policies based on the principle of "equality of opportunity" and toward those reflecting the goal of "equality of results."... |
