It is disturbing to see that the effects of employers’ responses to the economic crisis are not being distributed equally throughout our population. While there’s a bit of controversy over who has it worse, it’s pretty clear that due to the structure of our economy, some groups are being laid off proportionally more than other groups. For example, African-Americans and Latinos are experiencing a higher percentage of layoffs.
Women working for pay are also experiencing the expression of sexism as they are chosen first for layoffs, and lose their jobs becuase they are pregnant (and “probably won’t want to come back to work”), or because they are working “only” part time (and don’t really “need” the job).
And how are layoffs affecting men and women differently?
Gender and the Perceived Consequences of Layoffs
While a larger proportion of men than women are being laid off, it’s not as though women as a group are doing “better”. (See Melissa McEwan at Shakesville for a good discussion.) Because women work fewer hours, are more likely to have part time jobs without health insurance, and in full-time jobs earn 20% less than men in the same jobs, it’s hard for many working women to support a family. It’s a tough situation for working moms.
What’s more interesting than a comparison of the numbers is a comparison in how we understand the consequences of layoffs for men and women. The consequences of being laid off are different for women and men.
Gendered Definitions for Consequences of Layoffs
It’s claimed that men feel that their masculinity is threatened when they are laid off. Hanna Seligson, author of “Why the Sting of Layoffs Can Be Sharper for Men” in The New York Times, quotes one laid-off man:
“It’s hard not to imagine yourself as the breadwinner,” he said. “A lot of your ego eggs are in the job basket. I can’t shake the psychology that I’m supposed to provide.
There’s a good bit of pain about not being able to fulfill that traditional element of the male gender role.
This gender role pain is compounded for men in two-worker families. Where the man has lost his job and the woman has is now the primary only breadwinner, both of them need to renegotiate their gender roles. These emasculated laid-off dads also need to renegotiate their relationships with stressed out, resentful, inadequately-paid-but-still-employed moms.
For men alone and men with employed female partners, the consequences of layoffs are the same– Layoffs are knocking men and their women partners out of our comfortable (or preferable?) gender roles. See the article in the Boston Globe, “ Balancing Acts” by Maggie Jackson:
For families, layoffs shift responsibilities, roles. Women’s earnings more crucial with men out of work.
For better or worse, as they say, it’s new gender role territory.
Layoffs: Bad for men, but what about for moms ?
But look how the perception of consequences changes, when it comes to layoffs of (formerly) working mothers .
In the conversation about consequences for women who lose their jobs, the gender role issue is quite different. Instead of the pain of getting accustomed to some newfangled gender roles, women who are laid off have the opportunity to return to an old-fashioned, more comfortable, and by inference, better understanding of maternal femininity. For women, the gender role challenge is not the brave new world of egalitarian relationships but rather “get back home where you belong.”
Layoffs, for the (formerly) employed mother, bring some amount of — wait for it — relief . These now-unemployed moms get to stay home!
Please, do hold on to your hats. There’s more.
First, kudos to my colleague TheMamaBee, who brought a great example of sexism in action to our attention. (That’s her logo, of Rosie & baby.)
TheMamaBee deftly questions the subtext of the Associated Press article New job for laid-off moms: stay-at-home motherhood By Jocelyn Noveck. TheMamaBee also noticed that when this original article was syndicated across the US, it acquired new, more descriptive titles, like this one:
“Some mothers find family fringe benefit in layoffs ”
Says TheMamaBee:
I bristle at the implicit message that layoffs are somehow “good for” kids and their mothers. Even the relatively privileged women in the article are nervous about their futures. I suspect that the bulk of parents who are experiencing layoffs do not see extra family time as a “fringe benefit”…”They are worrying about healthcare, education and good housing. And since only a portion of the laid off women will find new jobs, many of them not as good as their previous positions, there are long-run costs that are exponential to the immediate impact.
While TheMamaBee takes the article to task for its focus on a small group of comparatively wealthier women, I think that The MamaBee is being a bit too kind. I see additional evidence of sexism, in the way that the article:
- Presents working moms as disconnected from their kids.
- Never mentions working dads, or laid off dads.
(Dads must have some other kind of connection to their kids, since it’s no problem for a dad to work outside the home.) - Suggests that women who work outside the home are too wrapped up their selfish ‘careers’.
(This is a whole different kind of privilege, because mothers shouldn’t be happy about careers that take them out of the home.) - Suggests that knowing the location of a classroom indicates how well or how poorly a mother is involved in her kids’ lives.
(Is this a valid indicator of the degree to which a mom loves her kids and her kids feel loved? I still can’t make my way around my daughters’ school without asking for directions and there is no question that I love them. And I work (only) part time.)
Most cringe-worthy, perhaps, is the theme in this story and similar others, that these women are getting their comeuppance.
When we think about the consequences of layoffs for mothers who are employed outside the home, we need to remember:
- It is a rare working-outside-the-home mother who is cavalier about her kids’ daily lives and who is uninvolved in their nurturing.
- It is a rare full time mom whose job outside the home is a selfish pursuit.
- It is a rare worker who experiences a layoff as something good.
There aren’t any “fringe benefits” to being laid off.
That’s not to say that you can’t grope around for a few silver linings… like the opportunity to renegotiate more egalitarian and fulfilling gender roles and partnerships, or a short term opportunity to spend more time with your family, or an impetus to retrain and reinvent yourself. But being laid off does not benefit moms who need to and/or choose to work.
Sexist discussions of the consequences of layoffs distort the truth. Layoffs hurt. Everyone.
( 3/30/09 Check out Kim Hayes’ essay on the same article.)