ustxtxb_obs_1977_10_07_50_00019-00000_000.pdf

count consciousness or intent in excluding women from male-dominated management ranks, viewing the exclusion as a natural outcome of a powerful system of sexual stereotyping. Know thy enemy and adopt his ways, Hennig and Jardim reason. Women are traveling into a foreign country, they say, and to survive, they must learn to speak the new language. Women must accept that they have to prove themselves by being better and working harder than men. Typically for such conservative thinkers, Hennig and Jardim do not challenge the legitimacy of the structures they have set out to describe. Howe, Kanter and Wertheimer take a somewhat more revolutionary approach to analyzing occupational segregation. Howe rejects the assumptions that inequities in employment are carried inside the individual woman, and to correct them, women must change individually. Improving oneself within the system merely maintains the systema system that dehumanizes men as well as women. Kanter wants to break up the “pinkcollar ghettos” through wholesale societal changes: a full employment program, more unionization, flexible working hours, affirmative-action programs, equal educational opportunities \(particumaternity leaves, and good child care. She also argues for a fresh investigation of the means through which women still engaged in traditional work, within and outside the home, can be awarded the recognition and economic protection they need without reliance on stereotyped roles. Increased unionization and political participation are essential for changing the status of women workers, according to Wertheimer. Efforts to organize millions of women workers and increase their participation in unions at every level must be renewed. Wertheimer encourages women to run for office and work for legislation important to the cause of open employment. All the authors agree that progress toward equality in the work place will be difficult and slow to achieve. The premature optimism of the 1960s is being replaced by a call for a broad new commitment to a long and painstaking struggle. Women fall into the trap of economic dependence at birth. Youngsters are taught to identify the female primarily by her reproductive capacity and nurturing role. Response by females to such teaching encourages management to rationalize the limitations on women’s opportunities in the job market by undervaluing their labor, restricting their advancement and paying them lower salaries than malesall of which keeps women from achieving economic independence. The most feasible escape route from economic insecurity is through a male, but those who take this most common way out trade financial security for other services such as reproductive labor, domestic service and sexual gratification. Escape from this trap is hazardous. Acceptance of the way things are and a willingness to compete for a token position are two ways out, but the prices paid can be high, both socially and psycholog ically. The alternative course of action, working to make the system more humane and flexible, means politics. Effective politics takes a great deal of time and energy, and a capacity to deal with conflict. Any challenge to the status quo results in “backlash”: the mobilization of defensive measures by those who live off the system. There is no easy alternative for women. Those seeking change and greater opportunities will make the most of tokenism and political action at various times. Change will come, but the corner women thought they would soon be turning ten years ago is beginning to look much further off. Dr. Nikki R. Van Hightower is administrator of women’s affairs in the Houston mayor’s office. “Pink-collar workers”: unorganized, underpaid, undervalued women. Ave Bonar THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19