Paradigm and Political Discourse: Labour and Social Policy in the USA and France before 1914

Transcription

1 Paradgm and Poltcal Dscourse: Labour and Socal Polcy n the USA and France before 1914 by Jane Jenson Poltcal Scence Carlton Unversty Ottawa Workng Paper Seres #16 n ths paper Jane Jenson develops a new approach to explanng comparatve socal polcy emphaszng the way n whch collectve denttes become embedded n socetal paradgms that then structure the development of polcy n partcular felds. She explores the processes of poltcal conflct that lead up to the constructon of a socetal paradgm by comparng the development of famly polcy n France and Amerca n the late 19th and early 20th centures. The courts labor unons and professonal groups all playa role n the creaton of dstnctve lnes of polcy that turn around the noton of workng mothers n France and housewves n the Unted States. Orgnally presented to the "Semnar on the State and Captalsm snce 1800" ths revsed verson s a pathbreakng pece of poltcal analyss and socal hstory. The author wshes to thank Greg Albo Lnda Gordon Peter Hall Ranne Mahon Sonya Mchel Mark Neufeld and Sandra Whtworth as well as all the partcpants n the Semnar. Support for the research came from SSHRCC grant # J

2 11 y a des mllons d'annees que les fleurs fabrquent des epnes. 11 y a des mllons d'annees que les moutons mangent quand meme les fleurs... Et ce n'est pas mportant la guerre des moutons et des fleurs? Ce n'est. pas plus sereux et plus mportant que les addtons d'un gros Monseur rouge? (Le Pett Prnce) As dd the Lttle Prnce femnsts too nsst that makng sense of relatons between women and men s crucal to any understandng of socal relatons. They nsst because they 'know' t through ther lves or va smple observaton of the world. Yet ths shared knowledge whch has been at the heart of the femnst movement for two decades has not always produced agreement about how to account for the experence and observatons. Competng theoretcal perspectves explan the exstence of unequally structured gender relatons n vastly dfferent ways. Ths paper makes one cut nto the controversy by proposng a way to conceptualse poltcs' contrbuton to systems of on-gong gender relatons n captalst socetes. l The proposed method s applcable to analyses of other socal relatons and nsttutons although ths paper lmts tself to examnng dfferences n two knds of state polces regulatng women's behavour n pre-1914 France and the Unted States those 'protectng' the condtons under whch women partcpated n certan occupatons and those provdng maternal and nfant protecton. Central to the method s the noton that meanng systems around whch actors consttute collectve denttes are a crucal analytc focus. For ths reaso~ the paper explores the ways n whch partcular gender denttes were embedded n the socetal paradgms constructed by

3 f j processes Of n the French and Amercan regmes of accumulaton at the end of the 19th century. Ths process of stablsaton brought new roles for the state n both countres as welfare programmes began to take shape. The specfc detals of such programmes depended n part upon the partcular understandngs of gender relatons carred by the major actors whose poltcs nsde and outsde the state had fashoned the programmes. Femnsts were actve n both French and Amercan poltcs n these years ~nd wth ther struggles to re-shape women's stuaton they contrbuted to the meanng systems and polcy outcomes. However the contrbuton whch they made depended upon the characterstcs of the socetal paradgm wthn whch they struggled. Not everythng was possble. The Socetal Paradgm and Regulaton n thnkng about stablty and change n socal relatons t s essental to begn wth analytc sceptcsm about systemc reproducton. We must ask how socal relatons take on stablsed' forms - that s how regulaton occurs - even though these relatons are contradctory.2 The noton that socal relatons balance between stablty and change emphasses the fraglty of socetal reproducton. Yet longsh perods of economc and socal stablty do exst n whch socal relatons are reproduced n accordance wth a set of nsttutonal forrns procedures and habts. As such they consttute n the eyes of the observer socal structures. Yet socal relatons are not experenced as strhctures by the actors so we mght ask how t happens that structures of socal relatons contnue across tme.: 2

4 One way to thnk about ths mystery s to assert that what appears to the observer as a stucture of socal relatons s not only that but also a terran n whch actors constantly act under constrant to be sure to make ther own hstory. From ths perspectve we can post that actors are smultaneously subjects of socal structures whch exst regardless of subjectve understandng of or support for them and actng subjects carryng n ther ch9ces the possbltes of socal change and transformaton. Ths noton of the smultanety of subjectvty mples that actors are constantly both reproducng and alterng structures. Moreover there are no prvleged postons nor prvleged moments. Ths sad then t s necessary to turn to hstorcal analyss to understand the crcumstances under whch socetal stablty or socetal transformaton occurs. n analysng ths smultanety of subjectvty the world of experence becomes as 'real' as the world of the structures. 6 Our task s to comprehend the lnk between the two realtes. A frst step to dong ths s to recognse and therefore pay attenton to the 'realty' of the realm of acton and meanng. The persstence (or even exstence) of a socal relaton depends on both the practces and the meanngs whch consttute t. 6 Therefore ths paper wll argue that socal relatons can sometmes be stablsed - e be n regulaton - despte the contradctons whch reman at ther heart because of the partcular characterstcs of the set of practces and ther meanngs carred by actors n that tme and place. Understandng socal relatons n ths way we see that hstory s open-ended because t s the result of poltcs. Poltcal struggle consttutes the materal of socal relatons n or n crss and t s then n the realm 3

5 of poltcs where we mght begn the search for understandng the form of socal relatons. The poltcs of captalst democracy nvolves a process of representaton but we need to explore what s beng 'represented'. n brefest form representaton mples n part the socal constructon of collectve denttes. Out of ths process comes the moblsaton of 'nterests' whch are also from ths perspectve socal constructons. Therefore the poltcs of representaton necessarly :entals conflct because t nvolves dsputes over whch collectve denttes wll acheve representon. Resoluton of basc questons about who the man. protagonsts are to be n turn places broad lmts on the ssues that wll consttute the stuff of poltcs. Wthn that process actors bearng collectve denttes come nto beng and attempt to carve out a consttuency for themselves. n ths way we can thnk of poltcs as a process nvolvng the formaton of collectve denttes as much as t entals conflct among groups and organsatons over dsputed clams about who gets what when and how. The terran on whch actors wth dfferent collectve denttes struggle for representaton may be termed the unverse of poltcal dscourse whch s the space n whch socally-constructed denttes frst emerge n dscursve struggle. f actors wth a varety of collectve denttes exst wthn the unverse of poltcal dscourse the meanngs they gve to ther practces jostle each other for socal... attenton and legtmacy. At ssue are conflcts over the representlon and reproducton of power relatons based on dfference. l ' n any socal formaton a multtude of relatonshps of dfference exst. Age gender 4

6 race workplace actvtes and language are but a few of the possble dfferences whch mght take on socal meanng. n most cases the recognton of dfference s accompaned by an nequalty of power. For example the recognton of chldhood s usually accompaned by the subordnaton of chldren to adults. The recognton of racal dfference has n the past led' to all the famlar evls of racsm. Nevertheless t s also obvous that the mere exstence - or even the recognton - of dfference does not lead to congealment of a system of unequal power. Such a system s socally constructed. Thus progressve socal forces have struggled aganst th dvsve effects of racsm and sexsm n the name of equalty postng a [unversalty of human dgnty aganst the nequtes of power structured' around some of these types of dfference. n ths way sexual dfference may be permtted to cross all other relatonshps such that thngs 'female' are subordnated to thngs 'male' or such a process of dfferentaton may be effaced through the poltcal actons of resstance n the name of equalty n dfference. Therefore we must always ask whch specfc dfferences are poltcsed and how. n dscoverng the answer to that queston we must also recognse that not all collectve denttes can gan attenton and expand at every tme because not all actors are equally powerful n ther own socal contexts. ndeed actors frequently depend for ther nfluence on ther ablty to contrbutj to the nsttutonalsaton of meanng systems through a socetal paradgm. 7 A socetal paradgm s best defned as a shared set of nterconnected premses whch make sense of or gve meanng to many socal relatons. Every paradgm contans a vew of human nature a defnton of 5

7 basc and proper forms of socal relatons among equals and among those 10 relatonshps of herarchy a specfcaton of the relatons among socal nsttutons as well as a stpulaton of the role of such nsttutons. Thus a socetal paradgm constructed out of poltcal conflct s a meanng system makng sense of all socal relatons as well as a set of \ practces. f a paradgm's set of nterconnected prenses comes to be wdely shared as the result of a socal compromse1 as such a paradgm can be termed 'hegemonc' n Gramsc's sense and one Of ts characterstcs s that t consttutes a knd of explanaton of the world at the level of common sense as well as n formal theory. Socetal paradgms are not always hegemonc. ndeed whether there s an hegemonc paradgm or not s one of the characterstcs whch ordans.1 whether socal relatons are n regulaton or 10 cnsls. f an hegemonc \ socetal paradgm exsts competng collectve denttes wll make lttle headway. As contradctons ntensfy however the prevously hegemonc socetal paradgm wll no longer provde an account of the emergng condtons; people wll take up competng collectve denttes because they seem to make sense of the new stuaton better than the prevously paradgmatc ones. Perods of crss - that s momehts not n regulaton - are lkely to be moments of efflorescence n the.unverse of poltcal dscourse when competng actors bearng a varety of collectve denttes may successfully struggle to extend the reach of ther representatonal systems. The collectve denttes of any new actors whch appear wll depend n part although never ejclusvely on the contradctons whch gave rse to the crss. f the crss evolves nto a set of socal relatons n regulaton an hegemonc socetal paradgm s 6

8 lkely to accompany t and t wll lkely contan some contrbuton from new actors whch 'frst appeared n the unverse of poltcal dscourse durng the crss.s Snce an hegemonc socetal paradgm ncorporates contenders for deologcal and poltcal nfluence n any socal formaton va a process of ncluson and excluson only some denttes can be consttuted (have a space) wthn any socetal paradgm. Yet competng meanngs for the same power relaton may ~ontnue to exst n the unverse of poltcal dscourse carred on the practces of actors excluded from the socetal compromse and whose nfluence s margna1. 9 Ths margnalty exsts because once const~uted the effect of the paradgm s as f a shadow were cast back nto the unverse of poltcal dscourse leavng n darkness and nvsblty any denttes whch are not ncluded wthn ts terms and blurrng nto nvsblty the power relatons whose meanngs can not be sezed. Those contenders for poltcal and deologcal nfluence whch are ncluded n the paradgm acqure the possblty of recognsng themselves (because they have an dentty) and most mportantly of beng recognsed by (made vsble to) others. The consttuton of an hegemonc socetal paradgm wthn whch only some collectve denttes are represented s the product of poltcs n ts broadest sense. Ths means that any number of nsttutons - rangng from poltcal partes trade unons and other socal movements to the varous apparatuses of the state churches and scentfc establshments - may be dentfed as the multple stes of ts consttuton. The mplcaton of ths varety s that as the paradgm enters nto crss ts poltcal expresson wll dffer across socal formatons and a 7 1 ll

9 varety of new such representatons of themselves whch form socal relatons and as part of that actvty shape state polces. The weght of dscusson n ths secton has been on the world of lved relatons of subjectvtes whch are experenced n representatons both to oneself and to others. The emphass was chosen to stress the mportance of ths knd of subjectvty not to deny the real mportance of on-gong structures whch provde the 1 constrants wthn whch hstory must be made. These too are part of the story and ths essay should be read more as one of retreval than as complete n tself. Nevertheless t should be clear too that followng through on ths argument means that by defnton ths analyss can not accomodate the proposton that denttes are mposed by socal structures whether they are labelled captalsm patrarchy or the famly. Representatons of Gender; Workplace and nfant Protecton At the end of the 19th century both France and the USA underwent a fundamental restructurng of economc relatons. France was fnally ndustralzng at the same tme as the long depresson of The USA was begnnng to overtake Brtan as the ndustral model for the world and concentraton of captal was reshapng socal condtons. Both countres experenced as a result a moment of profound uncertanty about socal and poltcal relatons. Much competton and jostlng over representaton charactersed the unverses of poltcal dscourse n the two countres because an hegemonc socetal paradgm makng sense of new condtons and orderng the relatonshps of socal 8 1 actors. ; dd not exst

10 but was as we can. see wth the beneft of hndsght under constructon. n both countres reformers campagned to have the state regulate the effects of urbansatqn mmgrant labour forces declnng brth rates restructurng ndustry and economc uncertanty. French and Amercan poltcans and socal actvsts spoke n apocalyptc terms of socal nstabltes. The consequence of ths ferment was that the unverse of poltcal dscourse n both countres was rch n competng representatons of gender and class denttes and debates over the proper roles for women and workers (as well as mmgrants races etc) were heated. By the frst years of the 20th century socal relatons had become more stablsed and gender and class denttes were combned nto paradgmatc defntons whch held well nto the twenteth century. Out of these two qute smlar stuatons of economc restructurng came state polces whch contaned qute dssmlar representatons of socal relatons. n partcular along wth more famlar dfferences n characterstcs of class denttes there were varatons n the genderng effects of the two hegemonc paradgms whch eventually took form. n France gender denttes ncluded the possblty - at tmes the assumpton - and ndeed of the valdty and mportance of women's work both for sngle and marred women. The French state created polces whch reflected ths assumpton and whch facltated women's performance of the dual roles of worker and mother. Legslaton protectng both workng women and nfants developed wthn the labour code reflectng a certan socetal agreement that f women workers were not exactly the same as men women were nonetheless workers. n the USA by contrast polces dd not -- reflect the same assumpton about the possblty of combnng two roles 9

11 and 'two-channel' addressed men as workers and women exclusvely as mothers. 10 The rest of ths paper explcates the grounds for ths dfference va an examnaton of the hstory of workplace and nfant protecton n the two countres and by " locatng the ntatves n the general process of formaton of hegemonc socetal paradgms at a moment of economc restructur~g. n both France and the Unted States nfant mortalty and publc health were major socal problems connected not only to labour force needs and natonal honour but to fears about socal nstablty bore generally. By the late 19th century French demographers announced that the rate of populaton growth was droppng dramatcally. Concerned groups of all sorts consdered depopulaton a threat to the naton partculafly n the event of another war wth Germany. The Amercan brth rate l11so declned throughout the 19th century so that by the 1890s only France's was lower [Gordon 1976: 48]. By 1900 most European countres had enacted legslaton to prohbt women from workng n ndustry for lmted perods before and/or after gvng brth. France was an excepton to ths nternatoml trend untl 1913 legslaton provded a potental prenatal and a compulsory postnatal leave for women workng n 'all ndustral and commercal establshments.' Most mportantly a daly allowance to compensate for lost wages was made avalable for eght weeks before and after chldbrth to '~ll women of " French natonalty who habtually work for wages outsde the home whether. f h. as a worker an employee or a domestc' 1 t elf persona means were lmted. ll Dspute over ths allowance held up the legslafon untl 1913 but t was fnally passed after a debate whch stressed the needs of the 10

12 state. Untl 1945 pa d maternty leaves represented the prmary state effort to decrease nfant mortalty rates and mprove the health of newborns. n France the explanaton preferred by demographers and other socal polcy experts for ~fant mortalty was too hasty return to work of new mothers because of. ther poverty not maternal occupaton per se. By the 1890s demographers' had found that 45% of nfant deaths n the frst year of lfe occurred wthn the frst month and they concluded that leaves of four to eght weeks would substantally alter mortalty rates. Observng women's contnued work durng the last part of ther pregnances (thus provokng premature brths underweght newborns dffcult delveres maternal weakness letc.) and ther nsstence on returnng to work mmedately after delvery (thus leavng ther newborns to be fed bottled mlk to be cared for by others less careful than the natural mother and rskng postpartum complcatons whch threatened the health and long-term fertlty of the mother) agtaton for varous forms of leaves took place between 1886 and 1913 when compulsory pad leaves were fnally wrtten nto labour legslaton. The emphass on leaves clearly reflected a wdely-shared assumpton that women's partcpaton n the pad labour force even after marrage and durng chldbearng years was wdespread nevtable and even desrable. Yet somethng had to be done so that women could combne both ther productve and reproductve actvtes. Representatves of captal and both revolutonary and reformst workers' organsatons moblsed alongsde natonalsts socal Catholcs and femnsts to demand wth dfferent ratonales a state polcy.12 Although state ntatve reled on the development of a programme of 11

13 maternty leaves France dd have other organsatons and programmes devoted to nfant health. Here too multple efforts. were made to reconcle work and chldbearng. For example chartable organsatons sought out needy workng and unemployed women and provded them wth payments n exchange for a commtment not to send ther babes away for wet-nursng and to breastfeed [Blake 1977: 33-34; hebaud 1982: 87].13 There were well-baby clncs assocatons to make pay~ents to mothers who nursed for an extended perod and voluntary assocatons whch establshed mlk statons. 14 Nursng statons creches n factores and state-provded chldcare n the schools from the age of three also reflected these concerns. 16 Moreover as the concludng report of the frst nternatonal Congress of Gouttes de Lat n Pars n 1905 clearly ndcated these reformers understood that the ablty to nurse was class- related. Poor women n the pad labour force were n greatest need of pure mlk for ther babes [Blake 1977: 21].16 The queston of nfant health also concerned the reformers who advocated regulaton of the hours of women's work. n 1'892 ffty years after enactment of the Factory Acts n Brtan the frst laws lmtng the hours of women's work fnally passed the French legslature. 17 n essence the laws permtted women to work eleven hours~ of rest and prohbted nght work (between 9 p.m. and ~ ncludng one hour a.m). There were of course exceptons to ths prohbton for some knds of occupatons for some tmes of year and for some ndustres. Moreovlr the legslaton excluded the famly workshop. n 1900 the coverage of the law was extended to nclude men workng n the same unt of producton and a unform maxmum of 11 hours was set wth the eventual goal of

14 Reducton of women's hours of work was always part of a larger demand by the labour movement to reduce hours. Begnnng n the last decades of the 19th century trade unons struck over shorter hours and moblzed for state actons especally n and 1919 when 8-hour legslaton came to France. 19 Socalst leaders proposed shorter hours as a means of solvng many socal lls; the campagn was a drect response to the effects of economc restructurng and socal problems. Thus an 8- hour day was supposed to allevate structural unemployment reduce the psychologcal and physcal mpact of ntensfyng and unsklled work elmnate overproducton ncrease tme for famly lfe (n partcular by gvng the father more tme wth hs famly) and result n healther workers [Cross 1984: ]. But t was not only the labour movement whch advocated reduced hours. Socal Catholcs and radcal republcans ncludng employersalso argued that a general reducton of workng tme would ncrease effc~ncy and productvty [McDougall 1988: 4-5]. A frst breach n the opposton to reduced hours came then wth the 1892 law regulatng women's and chldren's hours. The grounds used for 'protectng' some of the populaton were that they were the ones wthout cvl rghts wthout resources to protect themselves through workplace or poltcal acton. Argll:ments about lack of cvl rghts overwhelmed references to women's physcal nfrmtes - partcularly menstruaton - whch also were sometmes cted as a reason makng shorter hours desrable [McDougall 1988: 9 and passm]. Also embedded n the dscusson was the noton that shorter hours would enable women to do housework and look after ther chldren ~etter. ndeed n explorng the 'need' for shorter hours and no nght work nvestgators nqured nto the effects of long 13

15 days and nght work on nfant feedng [McDougall~ 1988: 11-12]. n ths way the great concern wth natalsm lnked up the 'protecton' of women workers. The need for more tme for famles to spend together especally wth ther chldren provded the core theme used by both labour movement actvsts and busnessmen n ths dscusson who saw socal peace and natonal well-beng as hostage to long hours whch. left chldren unsupervsed homes dsrupted (thus encouragng men to seek solace n the cafe) and nfants wthout proper food. 2o The goal was always to gan ths reform for all workers and grantng t to women was clamed as a breach whch would of necessty wden n the future. 21 The m~n could and dd rde to lesure on the skrts of the women. The development of 'protectve' legslaton n the USA took a qute dfferent course. The trade unons dd not lead the movement for the legslatve reducton of hours; the craft-domnated Amercan Federaton of Labor (AFL) preferred a collectve barganng strategy. Ths meant barganng employer by employer and by the late 19th c~ntury many male workers had negotated reduced hours. t was those parts of the reform movement concerned wth the socal condtons of women of whch femnsts were a most promnent segment whch nsstently advocated legslatve restrctons on the hours and occupatons women could work. As a result protecton of women had an uneven hstory untl the landmark case of Muller v. Oregon decded by the Supreme Court n Ths case provded the justfcaton whch lasted untl the 1970s for dfferental treatment of women and men workers. Muller accepted the protecton of women workers n terms of hours and condtons of work because women 14

16 were dfferent from men physcally and n ther socal roles. Ths vew of protecton emerged n a perod when lberalsm was at ts heght n Amercan legal doctrne. Freedom of contract set out n the smlarly landmark case of Lochner v. NY n 1905 domnated the Court's understandng of labour relatons. Snce Lochner found t 'unreasonable' to lmt the hours of work of male bakers the Natonal Consumers League and Lous Brandes who prepared the arguments n the Muller case were forced to argue wthn the Court's dscourse and demonstrate that lmtaton of women~s hours was by contrast 'reasonable'. They dd ths by marshallng statstcal and anecdotal materal from around the world to 'demonstrate' that long hours and nght work were detrmental to women's long-term health an argumentaton strategy labelled the Brandes Bref. Ths bref made two smultaneous arguments. One drawn from the emergng scentfc lterature on work clamed a lnk between fatque overwork and low productvty; short hours were smply more effcent. Another was that long hours and nght work threatened the health and well-beng of the 'mothers of future generatons' [Lehrer 1987: 20; 34]. The Court's opnon partcularly stressed the latter wrtng nto Muller the noton that there were nnate and nherent dfferences between women and men whch meant that women would always need protecton even f t nfrnged freedom of contract [Hll 1979: 253]. However for men wth ther dfferent bology and socal responsbltes Lochner held that perm ss able protecton depended upon the strong demonstraton of extraordnary condtons of work. n ths case the requrement of 'reasonableness' had come to depend on dfferentatng women and men and the Court became fxated on the dea. 1.5 ".1

17 ' The decsons about the protecton of n the USA also lnked up to the second area of nvestgaton here - maternal and nfant protecton - and the Brandes Bref promnently dscussed the effects of long hours and nght work on nfant mortalty rates [Baer 1978: 61). Nevertheless the USA dd not develop leaves pad or unpad for pregnant women and/or new mothers. n 1916 the Amercan Assocaton for Labor Legslaton proposed a federal law to provde maternty benefts modelled on the Northern European examples. Any woman earnng less than $ a month (e most women workng for wages) would have receved two-thrds of her \ wages from an employer-employee-government fund plus free medcal care for two weeks before and sx weeks after delvery on condton she dd not work n that perod [Wertz and Wertz 1977: ].%8 The law dd not pass beng opposed by employers who argued t was not necessary because they dd not thnk women worked after marrage. Despte the theme of the naton's need for babes whch charactersed the perod of World War One especally few calls for leaves were heard.%4 \ The belef that motherhood was woman's prmary msson could have been used as an argument n support of federal maternty benefts. The same belef however was a ratonale for gnorng the plght of women who could not take tme off from work to recuperate or to nurse or who feared they would lose ther jobs f they dd so. Women who were both mothers and workers were not supposed to exst. They were nvsble. [Wertz and Wertz 1977: 224) As proposals for maternty leaves fell by the waysde greater attenton n both publc and prvate programmes turned to nfant protecton and reformers drected most of ther efforts towards nfant care partcularly to combattng darrhea the number one cause of nfant \ mortalty. Two knds of ntatves developed. One was the provson of pure mlk to mothers who dd not nurse through a system of mlk statons. 16

18 The second was programmes establshed frst by muncpaltes and then extended to purfy' the mlk supply avalable to consumers. Both prvate phlanthropsts and state offcals promoted these efforts [Blake 1977: 13ff; Wertz and Wertz 1977: 202ff]. n the USA there was at frst less emphass on teachng mothers the mportance of breastfeedng than n the European movements for nfant health: Whle Amercans especally were apt to measure ther success by the number of bottles of mlk whch had been dstrbuted Budn [a leadng French specalst actve n the nfant-care movement] n contrast tended to measure the success of hs Consultaton by the number of mothers who were breast feedng. [Blake 1977: 22] Such efforts 'to educate mothers about breastfeedng depended on a more holstc understandng of the problem ncludng the needs of mothers for care durng and after pregnancy. Ths understandng penetrated Amercan debates only n the second decade of the 20th century [Blake 1977: 36; Megs 1977: 9; Wertz and Wertz 1977: 202]. When the dscusson dd begn t tended to focus on provdng proper 'scentfc' medcal care and teachng women to feed ther babes better whether at the breast or on the bottle. As a result just as n other programmes lke those for Mother's Ad polces of nfant and maternal protecton nsttutonalsed two channels of state w~lfare one for workng men and one for mothers. 25 Women who crossed the boundares - workng mothers - found no programmes to meet ther needs. 26 n France the process of genderng nvolved an assumpton that women worked and that restrctons on hours should apply to all workers whereas n the USA assumptons about gender made workng. mothers nvsble and encouraged state polces whch separated the polcy channels n whch women and men's socal roles developed. How can we 17

19 understand ths cross-natonal dfference n the rep~esentatons of gender relatons and the genderng effects of state polces? Why dd two states n smlar perods of socal uncertanty develop qute dfferent polces drected towards workng women and mothers?. Genderng Effects n the Poltcs of the Thrd Republc The 19th century n France brought economc upheavals. 27 ndustral producton export growth and the expanson of free waged labour all occurred under a system of compettve regulaton n a 60ntext charactersed by economc and poltcallberalsm. 28 But compettve regulaton dd not endure. By the end of the century poltcal partes trade unons and socal movements for reform ncludng a femnst movement emerged to provde support for a common poltcal dscourse centred around the general dentty of ctzen-producer. The consoldaton of a common dscourse nto an hegemonc paradgm followed from a shared analyss of the socal and economc nstablty and " msery whch the French labelled the 'socal queston'. Numerous poltcans trade unonsts femnsts socal theorsts and state experts explored the condtons of French socety especally n Pars and other ctes and dscovered msery squalour mmoralty starvaton prosttuton and nfant mortalty all of whch ponted towards a severe socal problem. Compettve regulaton seemed to be dggng ts own grave. 29 Embedded n ths dscourse of economc and socal crss was a partcular representaton of gender and gender relatons. n the dscourse on the socal queston 'femmes solees [sngle women] represented the 18

20 doman of msery ~ world of turbulent sexualty subversve ndependence and dangerous nsub?rdnaton. They emboded the cty tself' [Scott 1987: 126]. Socal observers ponted to the falure of the wage system to pay women enough 'to support even themselves; women wth chldren were n substantally worse strats. Thus as poverty tself became gendered women's poverty represented everyone's poverty. But even more far-reachng was the noton that changes n gender relatons - as sngle women moved to the ctes - both caused and represented socal and poltcal nstablty. Assocated wth ths attenton to femnsed msery as the crucble of socal problems was the fear of depopulaton. Concern about savng the chldren of the pov~rty-strcken whch had prompted the development of facltes for abandonnng chldren as well as chldcare for workng women (n the state nursery schools [ecoles maternellesl for example) became an hystera about natonal declne after the defeat by Germany and the loss of Alsace-Lorrane. so Here too a sense that the socal changes of the 19th century and especally the deology of lberalsm whch had gven meanng to t were at the root of the problem nformed popular and expert perceptons of the real declne n populaton sze. Therefore wthn the concern about depopulaton was an analytc lnk to compettve regulaton whch was guaranteeng nether reproducton of the labour force nor a powerful naton state. 31 By the end of the 19th century poltcs n the Thrd Republc had made hegemonc a p~radgm contanng a unversalsng dentty whch can be labelled ctzen-producer. Generalsaton of ths dentty nvolved an acceptance of ndustral socety but allocatng a great deal of authorty to the state. French statsm so powerful snce the days of Colbert took 19

21 l::h1'n:'''::nl;~... ".... "....: ".'-j."'.11.1"'j~' ': :;' :-f _:: ~ ' on new meanng. The new noton of ctzenshp brought poltcs ncorporatng new socal strata and mmgrants and led to the organsaton of a poltcal form the poltcal party based on mass moblsaton. A \ consequence was consoldaton of democratc poltcs and defeat of conservatve natonalsm by the combned republcan forces. The Dreyfus Affar was symbolcally mportant because at that moment a large segment of the French pette bourgeose the class whch was the lnch-pn of the new poltcs detached tself from the clercally-based natonalsm whch had so nfluenced the frst decades of the Thrd Republc. S2 Unons cooperatves and professonal socetes as well as sngle-ssue movements au assumed ths new dentty.53 An allance of these gr~ups was expressed n practce as well as made possble by a seres of mportant reforms n these crucal decades whch gave some stablty to relatons both n the workplace and n the broader socety through socal polcy.s4 One mportant consequence of ths socally-constructed paradgm was that t carred wthn t mechansms of genderng whch shaped and lmted the denttes whch women seekng ther own poltcal and socal emancpaton - ther own access to ctzenshp n partcular - could moblse. One result of the specfc terms of the dscour~e around the socal queston was that socal reformers carred wth ther doctrnes an understandng of gender relatons and these deas were ~rucal components of the reform package. S6 As a symptom of the socal un~ertanty of the lack of paradgmatc hegemony was that the earler unverse of poltcal dscourse contaned a wde range of femnst postons au of whch jostled each other n the effort to shape meanng systems and femnst poltcs for the cornng century. Nevertheless femnsts ~ho were 20

22 comfortable wth the dentty of ctzen-producer and who could manpulate the dscourse surroundng t were most nfluental wthn the movements for socal reform. The femnst movement whch was reconsttuted after the defeat of the Commune n 1871 was very pluralstc. One mportant strand led by Leon Rcher and Mara Derasmes nssted that femnsm was 'reasonable realstc and centred on the reform of cvl rghts'. t demanded equalty n order to allow women to fulfl ther oblgatons as wves and mothers as well as. to receve a better educaton and exercse an 'nterestng' professon [Reberoux ~. 1976: 133]. Poltcal rghts bascally the vote were not a central goal of ths femnsm whch focussed more on the development of women's cvl rghts n a socety ordered by the Napoleonc Code accordng to whch the husband was offcally the patrarchal head of the famly unt. Other strands of femnsm closer to the workers' movement demanded educaton better workng condtons and hgher wages for women. These foc reflected the fact that the most poltcally nfluental femnsm at the t~e was deeply embedded n the poltcs of antclercalsm whch organsed the poltcs of both the centre and left n these years [Offen 1984: 652]. The strong Free Mason movement supported several femnst groups both materally and deologcally whle socalst femnsts depended upon as well conflcted wth the antclercal workers' movement. t was n large part ther ablty to speak to or n the dscourse of ther alles whch ordered the nfluence of the multtude of strands of femnsm present n the unverse of poltcal dscourse. Those whch ft well wth the vson of republcan men (demandng for 21

23 example secular for marred women or protecton of nfants for the naton) or socalst men (demandng for example greater unonsaton hgher wages and protecton of all workers) fared the best. Those femnsts for whom poltcal rghts were a central goal found few alles and were margnal to the socetal paradgm n whch the ctzen reman unabashedly male. Hubertne Auclert s the best representatve of ths strand. Her socalst femnsm advocatng complete equalty and thus suffrage too came to gref because republcans of all strpes feared that 'female suffrage would renforce the church and thus brng about the poltcal defeat of the republcan forces [Reberoux tl...al. 1976].36 The effect of ths balance of power wthn the women's movement was that pre-1914 femnsts pad a good deal of attenton to the condtons of women's work but less to ther rght to vote. As a movement of resstance then femnsm's fate rested not only on the actons of women but also on the practces of ts poltcal alles and ther understandngs of gender relatons. 37 One of these alles was the labour movement whch was an actve promoter of both protecton for workng mothers and of reduced hours for all workers. Sklled workers who tended to be men but ncluded women as well domnated the labour movement. The acceptance of lmted hours for women was part of a longterm strategy for reduced hours for everyone whch the labour movement sought. By the begnnng of the twenteth century the French labour movement had moved beyond a smple protectonst poston to ndude one of revolutonary syndcalsm. Revolutonary syndcalsm brought wth t the 22

24 domnance of a broader and more egaltaran dscourse on women's role [Sowerwne 1983: 412). Commtted to a class revolutonary stance and confronted wth rsng rates of female employment and captal's frequent preference for wom~n over men the Confederaton Generale du Traval (CGT) moved to organze rather than try to block women from partcpaton n the pad labour force. S8 The Courau Affar was a crucal turnng pont for the labour movement: n ths 1913 controversy the upper levels of the CGT dscplned the Lyon Prnters' Federaton for denyng unon membershp to a female prnter Emma Courau and for expellng her husband because he refused to forbd her to seek work and unon membershp. The dspute was resolved only after the nterventon of femnsts and the natonal labour movement n a local controversy. The resoluton n the drecton of equalty and acceptance of workng women's rghts was tremendously nfluental for the whole movement (Sowerwne 1983; Perrot 1984: 48; Zylberberg-Hocquard 1978: Chapter ). The consequence of the strategc choce made n the Courau Affar was far-reachng. The ncluson of women n unons became a poltcal task of the frst order. Confronted wth captal's resort to women workers n order to reduce wage blls the French unons nsttuted a strategy of emphaszng ncreases n the salares of the lowest pad as well as ntroducng nto poltcal dscourse the moblzng demand of equal pay for equal work. f employers could no longer pay women less than men women would not threaten men's jobs. Moreover unons' moblzng actons would soldfy the commtment of women to the goals of socetal transformaton whch the revolutonary unon movement promoted. Ths strategy of soldarty dd not dvde the workng class by gender and 23

25 .. ~ " ' unons or ther poltcal alles dd not systematcally promote the assumpton of the 'unnaturalness' of women's employment. As the debates around nfant protecton and hours legslaton revealed for French unons and the socal reformers close to them the world magned was one n whch women were not necessarly confned to the' home. Rather the magned deal was one n whch there was suffcent tme for both work and famly for lesure and for homelfe. As the poltcal struggle gave shape to an hegemonc socetal paradgm beng nsttutonalsed out of the conflct between organsed labour and other economc actors over the socal place to be granted workers and out of the conflct wthn the labour movement over the form ts organsaton would take a process of genderng was gong on. The effect of struggle wthn the labour movement was. that consequental choces were made about gender relatons and these choces had mplcatons for the dentty whch workng women mght adopt. As well wthn the struggles between labour and captal there was also a struggle between workng women and men about the gender self-presentaton that the developng class would make. The outcome was not '. gven. 10 advance nor was the result mposed on women who were present n' the struggles (although never n equal numbers); t was the result of concrete struggles n concrete stuatons. 39 But t was not only unons and left-wng partes 'whch contrbuted genderng effects. The doctrne of Soldarsm whch much nfluenced the Radcals and other republcans was another mportant source. n bref ' Soldarsm as socal theory stressed the recprocal rghts and dutes of ctzens and the state. Ctzens owed each other and ultmately the state 24

26 loyalty because they: were nextrcably bound n nterdependency (soldarty). Socety. composed of these lnks of rghts and dutes. resembled a contract. n ths way. the phlosophy provded mddle-class reformers wth a ratonale for socal programmes whch lad the foundaton for early programmes of state welfare. The socety envsaged n ths socal theory was very dfferent from one of pure lberalsm or from a class socety [Wess. 1983: 57]. Soldarsm was a phlosophy of the pette bourgeose. stll economcally and poltcally domnant n the Thrd Republc [Hayward. 1961]. Moreover Soldarsm unted not only the poltcal organsatons of these classes but also the growng corps of state experts. unversty-based socal theorsts and reformng Catholcs nfluenced by Rerum Novarum. Crucal to Soldarsm was a vson of socety made up of collectvtes more than ndvduals. Assocatve acton ncludng collectve acton n mutualsm. syndcalsm and co-operatves was central to Soldarsm. as was the dea of the famly as the basc socal unt. A drect consequence of the form the socal compromse took at the end of the 19th century was n shapng bourgeos femnsm. The 'soluton' of Soldarsm and the left-centre allance whch came out of the Dreyfus Affar. gave lfe to the dentty of ctzen-producer for women. Bourgeos femnsts acted n a poltcal stuaton n whch phlosophes of ndvdualsm were overwhelmed by the fears of excessve lberalsm and the socal costs of a lassez-fare state. The Soldarst soluton to the socal problem of 19th century France effectvely undermned any femnsm whch would have pushed for the smple equalty of women; such an actor was not legtmate wthn the hegemonc paradgm. Thus although

27 ~ organsatons dd exst whch advocated such a reform and therefore although the dentty of ndependent women dd exst wthn the unverse of poltcal dscourse the poston could gan no purchase to make ts dentty and ts organsaton vsble or vable. nstead the only vable femnsm was that whch joned the allance of radcal republcans comng to that poston as a result of support for freemasonry or antclercalsm or the rghts of man whch contnued to exclude women [Rabaut 1978: Chapter 9; Offen 1984]. n that allance however the poston of women was extremely contradctory. On the one hand ther male colleagues dd support emancpatory reforms and some mportant ones were nsttuted. On the other hand the socal doctrne whch provded the glue for the elements of the paradgm assgned a separate and not necessarly equal role to women qua women elevatng the famly to the status of fundamental socal unt. Therefore femnsts were caught n a dlemma. f they wshed to mprove women's stuaton whch was after all ther prmary goal they were compelled to operate wthn a paradgm whch recognsed them. Ths meant that they had to use the prevalng dscourse. But usng a dscourse much nfluenced by the paradgmatc dentty of ctzenproducer femnsts emphassed women's dutes to the naton and helped to nsttutonalse the dentty of ctzen-producer acceptng that women's most mportant product would be chldren for the patre."o t was never the case that chldren were to be the only product of women however; women would and should work for wages. n that sense the dentty of ctzen-producer could be taken up by women who saw themselves both as workers and mothers and state polces lke nfant protecton and hours 26

28 legslaton sustaned ths dentty. Absent from ths confguraton however was any dentty whch defned women as dfferent from men based smply on sexual dfference not maternty and whch promsed them greater equalty eve.n n dfference. The dentty of ctzen-producer accomodated women but n lmted ways; t had embedded wthn t a qute partcular representaton of gender relatons n whch women's place was n the famly although not necessarly n the home. Workng women as workng men owed ther frst loyalty to the famly and through t to the state. Other more ndvdualstc collectve denttes dsappeared from vew. They had been present as alternatves n the past however and they contnued to lve on n the shadow world of the unverse of poltcal dscourse as dd more crtcal class denttes to be actvated later as the contradctons of the new mode of regulaton ntensfed. n the meantme state programmes addressed women as workers w:ul as mothers albet through the famly. Many of the polces for maternal and nfant protecton were ntended to strengthen the famly rather than to address the needs of women per se whle hours legslaton for women was to be the openng wedge for workers ganng greater control over ther workng condtons. ndependent women as collectve actors were qute nvsble and dd not emerge from that shade for decades. Genderng Effects n the Pre-1914 USA n France the dentty of ctzen-producer was n large part nsttutonalsed by a poltcal process organsed through the legslature whch provded the focus of poltcs. The lack of workplace 27 '. ~

29 recognton of unons and workers made party poltcs and legslatve reforms crucal as the route to reforms. Moreover the hghly centralsed state tghtly lnked to Pars left lttle space for regonal varatons n poltcal programmes. n the USA the stuaton was qute dfferent. Federalsm and a poltcal deology of lberalsm had encouraged the 19thcentury development of what has been termed a 'state of courts and partes' a form whch had become by the last decades of the century napproprate to the new economc and socal condtons. The state of courts and partes was one n whch legslatures were less mportant as organsers of poltcs than were the courts especally the Supreme Court and poltcal partes [Skowronek 1982]. At the tme the economy was undergong ncreasng concentraton and ndustral captalsm acqured technologcal sophstcaton. By the last decade of the 19th century the Unted States was the world's frst ndustral power and manufacturng was generatng more of the natonal ncome than agrculture. Ths new emphass on manufacturng was accompaned by massve amounts of mmgraton urbansaton and the development of a huge mass market. At the same tme labour was scarce and sklled workers commanded hgh wages and had some workplace power. But the hgh producton costs assocated wth labour processes requrng sklled labour and the pressures for lower costs comng from an ncreasngly large domestc market led to new producton technques whch could allow substtuton of unsklled workers for sklled ones [Shefter 1986: 99ff]. Poltcal and economc uncertanty accompaned these economc developments. n these years an hegemonc socetal plradgm dd not exst and the unverse of poltcal dscourse contaned a wde varety of 28

30 potental responses t~ the unsettled condtons cornng from actors jostlng for attenton' and power. Out of the restructurng class conflct and complexty of those years carne new regulatory and bureaucratc bodes whch replaced to some extent courts and poltcal partes as the medators of state-socety relatons and natonal-level bureaucratc state nsttutons already famlar n Western European countres fnally took form n the USA [Skowronek 1982: Part ntroducton]. An mpasse was broken. But the new nsttutons whch took form dd not fall from heaven; they were produced by poltcal conflcts whch occured wthn the old nsttutons of the state of courts and partes. And the n~w was profoundly marked by the old. The courts n partcular contnued to play a substantal role. Whle recognsng the contnent-wde scale of the economc order and the need for governng authorty the courts had earler assumed the mantle of ratonal polcy-makers for themselves. n partcular wth consttutonal lassez-fare the Court sought to sharpen the boundares between the publc and prvate spheres to provde clear and predctable standards for gaugng the scope of acceptable state acton and to affrm wth the certanty of fundamental law the prerogatves of property owners n the marketplace. [Skowronek 1982: 41] Therefore any efforts at reform would engage the courts whch had approprated for themselves the rght to act as economc arbters. As a result all efforts to redesgn the state by makng t more subject to bureaucratc controls had to pass through the courts and were therefore subject to ts defnton of proper state nvolvement [Skowronek 1982: 166ff].'U The mpact of ths requrement of workng wthn the terms of the courts s very clear n the case of the legslaton regulatng women's 29

31 hours of work. As descrbed above Muller was grounded 10 a dscourse dfference. founded n bologcal dfferences between women and men. wth that argumentaton was the Supreme Court wllng to by-pass ts standard of 'freedom of contract'. Smlar efforts by the Natonal Consumers League or other reformers to ntroduce further workplace regulaton foundered on the Court's nsstence on upholdng ts defnton of lassez-fare lberalsm. Nevertheless ths was a moment of poltcal change out of whch eventually came a newly strengthened federal government. n the process large number of actors jockeyed for poston to defne the future of Amercan poltcs and state/socety relatons. Out of that jostlng n a moment of economc and socal restructurng came an hegemonc socetal paradgm whch was doubly bfurcated around a general dentty whch mght be labelled 'soecalsed ctzenshp'. The frst dchotomy was between workplace and poltcal denttes as the realms of work and poltcs separated. Ths was n many ways a classc paradgm of lberal democracy dvdng the world functonally so that the economy and poltcs appeared to be separate actvtes. Economc relatons were to operate on the bass of 'market prncples' whle poltcal actvty for dstrbuton of goods and servces was ratonalsed as mprovng the market at the margn when dstortons occured. Thus the state was to be an nspector lmt monopoles and provde help for those who could not compete. n addton ths paradgm ncorporated much optmsm about technologcal progress and the mutablty of economc' and socal condtons through the applcaton of scence and technology. A second dchotomy dvded the poltcal realm drvng a gender 30

32 cleavage deep nto the notons of ctzenshp. Whereas n France n these years the fundamental socal unt was the famly headed by a man n whom exclusve ctzenshp rghts resded emergng notons of Amercan women's ctzenshp were ndvdualstc but founded on a concept of 'dfference'. They transferred nto poltcs and especally new socal programmes notons of female qualtes of nurture and maternty whch had earler sustaned a strct gender dvde between prvate' and 'publc' realms. n ths way the two channels for state welfare whch conceved as workers as male and women as non-waged mothers began to take form as femnst reformers n allance wth male reformers pressed for new state actons. Once the socetal paradgm of specalsed ctzenshp was n place t became very dffcult for other denttes for women or a more egaltaran femnsm to gan poltcal legtmacy. Such postons were drven to the margns of the unverse of poltcal dscourse. The femnst movement as a whole contrbuted mportant terms to the doubly-bfurcated paradgm of specalsed ctzenshp. Femnsm n the early twenteth century extended the emphass of the 19th-century woman movement on equal rghts. n dong so t placed a great deal of stress on programmes and practces whch would ncrease women's ndvdualty whle newly recognsng the heterogenty whch charactersed women's stuatons [Cott 1987: 6-7; Chapter 1]. Real dfferences among women ncreased wth rsng rates of labour force partcpaton expanson of the servce sector hgh mmgraton from dverse countres and urbansaton and they "'R made unsustanable the assumpton of a common experence of woman'. Therefore the theme of varaton wthn a common dentty of women 31

33 emerged 2 n ths process femnsts made use of a complcated dscourse. They argued of course for a common human condton. Ths was the legacy of and the foundng rock of ther lberalsm. Out of that argument came the clam for ctzenshp rghts especally suffrage. Smultaneously however femnsts employed a dscourse of dfference one whch descrbed even defned women as more nurturng more maternal more carng than men [Gordon 1976: 99ff]. The njecton of ths specal female perspectve nto the poltcal world would mprove t mmensely they nssted and women needed the vote to make such mprovements happen. 48 Makng such clams to ctzenshp for a specfc group femnsts were dentfyng women as an mportant segment of the Amercan poltcal process watth specal talents whch had htherto been excluded but whch deserved a place. The genderng effects of the doubly-bfurcated paradgm were that women's dentty came to depend on ther poston as mothers of the future generaton and as ctzens wth a dfferent responsblty to the collectvty than men. Ctzenshp was gendered n other words along bologcal lnes. Women were hghly vsble both as the proponents of reform of state welfare programmes and as objects of reform but ther dentty was overdetermned by ther potental for maternal nurturng n both the prvate and publc realms. The brth control movement was an mportant source of ths dscourse about motherhood as women's vocaton. Women reformers n the USA had long pad attenton to the queston of control over reproducton. ndeed t was a more wdely shared goal than even the suffrage [Gordo~ 1976: xv]. n 32

34 the 19th century voluntary motherhood that s sexual abstnence by couples was the fu~damental prncple of the Amercan brth control movement. Only thr~ugh the exercse of ths knd of self -control could women be freed from unwanted sex and from repeated and punshng pregnances and famles from the costs of too many chldren. Yet by the frst decades of the. 20th century voluntary motherhood was attacked by those concerned about race sucde [Gordon 1976: Chapter 6]. Mddle-class women who tred to control ther reproducton were accused of contrbutng to the declne of Yankee stock and the values on whch 'the naton had been bult'. n other words the fears of the consequences of mmgraton and hgh brthrates among frst generaton mmgrants resulted n a turn aganst the women who had advocated brth control as a central poltcal reform. Respondng to ths vcous attack the brth control movement adopted a dscourse about motherhood and the possbltes of 'motherhood as a career' [Gordon 1976: 147]. Ths dscourse was ntended to confront head on the vcous attacks of the race-sucders. Yet a consequence was to make even more nvsble women who were not full-tme mothers and to renforce the noton that women's duty to the naton passed exclusvely through ther maternal roles. An mportant locaton for femnst poltcs was n the Progressve movement whch represented the reformng zeal of mddle-class Amerca dsgusted by corrupt poltcs whch had 'perverted' Amercan nsttutons and by the emergng evdence of the consequences of unregulated market forces. Reform of nsttutons and practces was needed to put the Amercan system back on an even keel. The Progressves challenged oldstyle party poltcs and n dong so helped to provde the glue for an 33

35 hegemonc socetal paradgm whch defned a somewhat altered role for the state wthn the pluralstc poltcs of contendng gr~ups. Ths poltcs was not only deeply nfluenced by the clams and actons of women but t was also vlfed by ts opponents as representng an effemnate form of poltcs [Baker 1984: 628; 640]. At frst the very noton of such reform n whch the state rather than market forces or poltcal partes took responsblty for relevng poverty or other forms of msery was defned as beng the equvalent of the consttuton of 'unmanly' poltcs. n the end 'femnsed' polces dd develop comng out of a prvatsed sector of phlanthrophc organsatons led by women whch provded the models for the frst socal programmes [Baker 1984: 634]. Amercan state welfare was more a vctory of women reformers and ther alles than of any workng-class organsaton. Progressve reformers were mportant actors n the consoldaton of a compromse around the hegemonc socetal paradgm at the end of the 19th century. Progressve reformers shared an optmsm about 'progress' and technologcal mprovements whch was an mportant element of the Amercan paradgm. Because Progressves beleved that smplstc acceptance of market-drven outcomes led to a seres of unfortunate albet unntended effects they demanded greater state regulaton. Ths regulaton ranged from trust-bustng and the empowerment of new regulatory agences to the campagns for governmental nspecton of food-processng. Embedded n ths poltcal poston was a great deal of fath n techncal achevement and technocrats actng n the state f necessary. nfant protecton n ths way developed a programmatc dentty whch maxmsed the role of scence 34

36 and medcne n producng healthy babes. The wdely-dstrbuted sterlsed bottle became the symbol of the dffuson of 'scentfc' chldcare from doctors to mddle-class mothers to workng-class mothers."" The Natonal Consumer's League was a central actor n the Progessve movement. t sought out the weaknesses n the system the places where the partcularly needy were beng abandoned. Orgnally the NCL had dentfed all workers as needng protecton from long hours and bad workng condtons but the opposton of trade unons and the courts soon turned ts focus towards women and chldren. Subsequently n makng clams on behalf of such groups va practces lke the Brandes Bref the NCL contrbuted to rather than challenged the lnk between women and maternty and ther s~parateness from men. 45 Dsputes over the length of the workng day rocked the Amercan eocnomy. However wth the growth of the Amercan Federaton of Labor n last decades of the 19th century workers ganed some power n the producton process and they sought redress for ther workplace grevances and demands almost exclusvely through collectve barganng whle organsng for poltcal acton n neghbourhood-based poltcal partes [Shefter 1986]. Such a prvatsed regulaton of the wage relaton nvolved prmarly sklled workers or workers whose ndustral producton could be labelled sklled. Because regulaton of wage relatons for other knds of workers was less nsttutonalsed such workers suffered all the effects of uncertanty and lack of a lvng wage. Many such workers were women and only n the frst decades of the 20th century dd ther stuaton begn to stablse bascally through state regulaton of hours and condtons of work ganed through the poltcal struggles of reform 35

37 movements often led by women. The unon movement domnated by men feared the effects of female employment on ther own wages. The soluton the unons chose was to seek 'protectve' legslaton whch would lmt women's labour force partcpaton and smultaneously to bargan hard for the famly wage [Lehrer 1987: 126; 142].46 Ths support for legslatve acton was one of the few tmes the AFL departed from ts preferred strategy of eschewng poltcal acton for workplace barganng. The low levels of organsaton of women workers provded the ratonale [Lehrer 1987: Chapter 7]. Gven ther understandng of the proper gender dvson of labour as well as organsed labour's usual focus on workplace struggles t s hardly surprsng that labour leaders dd not playa role n the demand for nfant protecton. For them the famly remaned a 'prvate' realm to be regulated by men and women wthout unon or state gudance. At the same tme any actons whch mght encourage more women workers were to be avoded because accordng to the AFL the unorgansed women would only drve down men's wages thus makng t more dffcult for them to support ther wves and chldren. The logc was tght and t clearly excluded the noton that women workng was a desrable state of affars. Some organsaton of workng women before World War One dd of course occur. Most mportant n organsng women was the Women's Trade Unon League composed of mddle-class and workng-class women who encouraged unonsaton. 47 After numerous efforts to set up unon locals and afflate them to the AFL the WTUL recognsed a s~res of obstacles. 48 One was that t had dffculty fttng women's work nto the skll categores the AFL was wllng to recognse and therefore male- 36

38 domnated unons sometmes rejected applcatons for afflaton. 49 But at the same tme the WTUL's long-standng commtment to the AFL made t mpossble for the organsaton to advocate any other form of unonsm. n addton the League encountered the same dffcultes establshng permanent unons among a dverse and transent labour force that other organsers had descrbed. Therefore eventually the WTUL began to place less emphass on organsng women and more on protectve legslaton. 50 ts analyss shfted from one whch stressed the commonaltes of female and male workers expressed through ther hoped-for afflaton n the same unons towards an emphass on gender dfferences among workers. n the USA then organsatons lke the AFL and WTUL as well as the domnant streams of femnsm contrbuted to the socetal paradgm's dentty for workng women as dfferent from men's. Women accordng to male unonsts were temporary workers whom marrage removed from the labour force. Ther extraordnary workplace weakness derved from ther lack of unonsaton whch n turn permtted an excepton to the usual unon practce of nsstng on makng gans n the workplace rather than through legslaton. 51 For the WTUL women workers were also dfferent from men caught up n famly and work stuatons that led to ther unusual explotaton. The way to deal wth the problem for the WTUL was to stress these dfferences and make demands for protectve legslaton. n the paradgm of specalsed ctzenshp women's needs and contrbutons appeared ther supposed potental for maternal nurturng translated nto poltcal acton. Unmarred workng grls were the 'mothers of the future' and as such they requred protectve legslaton to safequard ther futures. Yet ths resort to the state transgressed the 37

39 very rules of separaton of work and poltcs whch charactersed the Amercan paradgm at the tme. 'Real' workers barganed prvately n nonpartsan unons. Workers who made clams on the state dd no more than to reconfrm ther 'otherness' n the terms of the socetal paradgm. Moreover because the paradgm contaned no space for ther dentty as workers workng 'grls' appeared exceptons (because they were temporary workers) whle marred workng women became nvsble. Thrust nto the poltcal realm n ths way women's dentty became overdetermned by ther bology; t became prey to dscursve constructon by other actors lke the courts who saw women smply as mothers. The femnst movement whch had grown out of the 19th century woman's movement was confounded by the socetal paradgm and ts dentty of specalsed ctzenshp. The femnst movement n the early 20th century became entangled n a contradcton wthn the paradgm. Because work and poltcs was separated and there was lttle call ether by trade unons or reformers for the state to regulate the condtons of work when femnsts agtated for protectve legslaton for women at work or n maternty they soldfed popular notons of women as mothers as 'other' than workers as mnors. Ths classng of women as 'wards of the state' put them n the same category as chldren natve peoples and others often consdered wthout the capacty of carng for themselves. Thus wthn the terms of the hegemonc socetal paradgm as long as women remaned n need of state protecton they could never be full partcpants n the polty. Ths contradcton confronted the femnst movement wth a dffcult choce. f t stressed the specal nature of 'femaleness' the result was 38

40 to help embed gender dfferences at the heart of the welfare programmes a dfference accordng to whch men were fully adult workers and ctzens and women were mothers of the naton. f femnsts argued strctly for equalty n the real world of a segmented labour force hostle unons and bosses and wth courts drven by an deology of 'freedom of contract' women's lves would contnue to be dffcult. Ths resultng tenson over strategy held back Amercan femnsts after 1920 [Cott 1987: Chapter 8]. The practcal effect of stressng an dentty of dfference s seen n the ways that protectve legslaton women's work and suffrage ntertwned dscursvely before Femnsts were central actors not only n suffrage organsatons but also n the Natonal Consumer League and the WTUL. n both these latter bodes the demand for the vote for women became a central poltcal poston provdng the grounds for allance. Snce one of the arguments aganst women's poltcal rghts was ther economc and socal dependence the rse n female labour force partcpaton could only lay that argument to rest. Thus for suffragsts an allance wth workng women was crucal [Cott 1987: 24]. For organsatons concerned about work and women then the possble strength dervng from expanded poltcal rghts also became crucal. The belef that wth the vote came poltcal power encouraged many women reformers to combne demands for protectve legslaton wth demands for suffrage [Jacoby 1975]. n ths allance the vote emerged as a prmary goal a tool for reform whereas n France the Left feared female suffrage as a buttress for the church and also saw t as unnecessary n a Soldarstc socety of famles whose male head could represent the whole. Thus eventually the Amercan suffrage movement succeeded n ganng ctzenshp 39

41 rghts for women earler than n France and women could partcpate even before ganng the vote n the desgn of Amercan socal programmes. But the cost of ths early vctory was the creaton of a two-channel welfare system wth women's lves lmted by the state's wllngness to confne them to a sngle socal role. Concluson Ths paper has explored the ways the hegemonc socetal paradgms constructed out of the processes of nsttutonalsaton of new socal relatons n France and the USA at the end of the 19th century came to have partcular representatons of gender relatons and genderng effects. n nether country dd the hegemonc paradgm emerge magcally or smply out of poltcal debates. Each developed as a soluton to real problems faced by economc socal and poltcal nsttutons whch n resolvng them made use of the representatons of gender wthn ther own world vews. One result was that such representatons were further strengthened by beng embedded n the polces of emergng state welfare programmes. n France concerns about demographc 'catastrophe' as well as a socal doctrne of Soldarsm provded the mpetus for state polces whch sought to accomodate women's work and maternty. n the USA n contrast mddle-class Progressvsm and a femnst movement emphassng women's 'nurturng' Qualtes acted n a stuaton n whch actors looked to the state only n exceptonal crcumstances. The socal programmes whch developed n these years reflected such dfferences. Throughout ths story all actons for socal p~ogrammes took place wthn a context n whch representatons of gender '- and the denttes 40

42 whch followed from these representatons - were crucal organsers of the poltcal terran. n France workng women both sngle and marred were commonplace and state programmes for protecton of women and chldren reflected a wdely-shared acceptance of ths socal fact. The newly forged unversalsng dentty of ctzen producer ncorporated the dea that ctzens produced both n the workplace and n the home. The dualty of women's ctzenshp roles was crucal n the way welfare polcy took form wth programmes to meet women's needs as workers and mothers nscrbed n labour legslaton. Yet notons of ctzenshp n ths paradgm were not ndvdualsed so that forces for reform could smultaneously advocate greater workplace rghts for women whle opposng female suffrage. Women as ndvdual actors remaned enclosed and nvsble wthn the famly. t was always the famly whch needed both healthy and rested parents f t were to produce the naton's babes. n the USA by contrast a doubly-bfurcated dentty emerged based on the lberal-democratc assumpton of a separaton between poltcs and work as well as the publc/prvate dchotomy. Amercan women were nvsble as workers for everyone but those who argued for ther 'exceptonal' needs. Women's ctzenshp rghts were clamed almost exclusvely because of ther supposed maternal qualtes. Absent was an dentty for workng woman or for women unencumbered by nurturng responsbltes. Consequences of ths partcular collectve dentty for women are seen n 'two-channel' welfare programmes whch addressed women as mothers and men as workers as well as consttutng state welfare as a femnsed realm respondng to the poltcs of women and ther alles. At ths tme of the pre-hstory of the 'welfare state' n these two 41

43 countres then the collectve denttes avalable to women dffered. The nature of nterwar poltcs especally femnst poltcs was marked by ths dfference. 52 Each provded ponts of strength and ponts of weakness. Operatng wthn the nterstces of unverses of poltcal dscourse whch provded them wth dfferentally lmted space for manoeuvre French and Amercan women contnued after 1914 to search for the route towards emancpaton lberaton and equalty n dfference. 42

44 NOTES 1. Because ths s fundamentally an hstorcal and therefore emprcal method space lmtatons as well as nterest led to a focus on one set of socal relatons that of gender. For an applcaton to more tradtonal questons of poltcal economy see Jenson [1989a). 2. The theoretcal argument n the next few pages s based n part on an elaboraton of some of the notons developed wthn the French regulaton approach. For a presentaton of the more 'socologcal' versons of the regulaton approach see Lpetz [1987a; 1987b; 1987c). 3. Snce ts emergence as a separate scence of socety n the mddle of the last century socology's major contrbuton to our understandng of socal relatons has been ts nsght that the socal whole s greater than smply the sum of ts parts. For the socologst the world wthn whch we lve s one of on-gong socal relatons whch are never random nor dependent on actors' apprecaton of the need for socetal stablty or ther desre for change. Rather patterned nteractons exst through tme thereby reproducng socety and t s these whch structure the socal actvty of members of any socety. Yet for the same socologsts actors' partcpaton n these patterns depends somehow on the choces they make and thus on ther own subjectvty. t s the meanng of the 'somehow' whch has both plagued the study of socology and provded the major mpetus for magnaton and nnovaton. Each generaton of socologsts struggles wth the need to reconcle the two sdes of the dlemma by tryng to assgn the correct theoretcal weght to the mpact of structures and the contrbuton of agents n the consttuton of ther socety. 4. Three fallaces dervatve of the falure to recognse ths smultanety have plagued recent efforts to address the structure/agency ssue. The frst fallacy s obvously to deny the exstence of any dlemma by placng all the weght on one sde argung that structures create subjects or that subjects create structures. n the tortured hstory of poltcal socology advocates of both postons have been hegemonc at dfferent ponts n tme. But ths s not the only fallacy. A second s to accept that there are both structural effects and agency but then to try and dscover the actors whch are capable of recognsng the effects of structures on ther world and 'escapng' from those effects to transform t thus becomng the agents of hstorcal change. From ths perspectve there are some actors whch are capable of magnng change and some whch are destned to be no more than unconscous albet perhaps unwllng supporters of the structures whch exst. The thrd fallacy s commtted by those who accept that all actors are capable of beng subjects n ther own lves - but only sometmes. n other words there are moments of agency and moments of structuralsm. The argument beng made here rejects all three postons. 5. Ths dstncton can be called one between two worlds the esoterc - the world of structures - and the exoterc one of everyday lfe or Marx's 'enchanted world'. For a dscusson of the dstncton and applcaton to 43

45 the 'transformaton problem' see Lpetz [1985: especally Chapter 1]. 6. Of course these practces and meanngs do not exst n order to sustan the socal relaton nor does ther effect depend on an understandng that partcular practces and meanng have stablsng consequences. The pont stressed here s that socal relatons consst of both socally-constructed actons and some understandng of that acton by actors themselves. 7. The choce of the term 'paradgm' s made delberately. n grammar a paradgm lnks dfferent forms of the same root. Thus t s a way of orderng dfference demonstratng the connecton across all forms whch mght otherwse seem unlnked. The most famous use of the concept 'paradgm' n socal scence s of course by T.S. Kuhn who suggests that paradgms are hstorcal constructs whose selecton from a range of possble paradgms s based on struggle for the allegance of adherents. They llumnate the world for a lmted perod of tme but change as a result of revoluton once the contradctons whch they can no longer absorb permt other scentsts to magne an alternatve and moblse support for that vson [1970: Chapters 1-11]. 8. The factors behnd crss resoluton f t exsts are wde-rangng and beyond the scope of ths paper. Moreover the contrbuton of any partcular set of socal relatons - whether the wage consumpton gender famly or whatever socal relaton - to ths resoluton can not be asserted n advance. The specfcs of the combnaton s a matter for emprcal analyss. 9. t s perhaps easest to see ths pont by way of an example. As the later part of the paper argues the domnant understandng of gender relatons n the pre-1914 USA was based on notons of separate spheres for women and men albet wth shftng boundares for these spheres. However an egaltaran femnst stran carred by ndependent women and sustaned n part by nsttutons lke women's colleges exsted despte the hegemonc socetal paradgm. Whle ths stran was never wthout some nfluence t was margnal to manstream poltcs n these years. 10. Barbara Nelson's [1987] analyss of workmen's compensaton and mother's ad develops ths argument about two-channel welfare programmes n the USA. 11. Ths dscusson of the detals of nfant protecton draws frequently form McDougall [1983]. The prenatal allowance requred a medcal certfcate that contnued employment would endanger the mother or unborn chld but no restrctons but need appled to postnatal benefts. Thebaud estmates that n % of the new mothers of Pars met the means test despte the mnscule sum beng pad [1982: 88]. 12. Few partcpants n the polcy debate - the demographc and medcal experts who collected the data on nfant mortalty the women or men workers the socal reformers who agtated for the payment the captalsts who establshed prvate programmes and promoted publc ones and the poltcans who debated the specfcs of the programmes - thought 44

46 that poor workng women could count on a male wage to carry them through even a lmted unpad maternty leave. 13. For example state efforts to reduce chld abandonnment and thus to rase the brth rate (snce so many chldren left to asylums ded quckly) ncluded a small amount of monetary ad and larger amounts of materal help to poor mothers whether sngle or marred. Yet the ntent of the programme was that women would contnue to earn ther lvngs. Thus n the Department of the Sene (Pars) by the late 1880s muncpal offcals were wllng to pay a poor mother the whole cost of a wet nurse (the same amount as the average weekly wage of an unsklled workng woman) n order to dscourage unmarred mothers from gvng up ther babes. The rest of the costs of mantanng herself and chld were to be earned however. See Fuchs [1988: ; 304]. 14. Perhaps the best known of these mlk servces was the Goutte de Lat establshed n 1894 but many maternty hosptals and prvate chartes had smlar servces. The goals were the same: encourage breastfeedng teach the mportance of well-baby consultatons and provde sterlsed artfcal feedng when breastfeedng was mpossble. As each Goutte de Lat sad bottled mlk was 'faute de meux' [Blake 1977: 9-11]. 15. The frst creches dated from 1844 and expanded rapdly n number n the 19th century as places to care for the chldren of workng mothers. The goal was to elmnate 'baby-farmng' or the system of wet-nursng n whch the babes lved wth the nurse. The Lo Roussel of 1874 was a smlar effort. [Blake 1977: 5]. On Amercan wet-nursng whch was essentally part of the 'servant problem' see Golden [1987]. 16. t s mportant to note that many of these programmes were neutral on questons of the woman's moralty; they were only concerned that she would use the publc assstance to care for the chld. Thus women who were unmarred or were nvolved wth a man (or even several sequentally) were elgble for assstance as long as they demonstrated 'maternal affecton'. One mportant ndcator of such affecton was wllngness to breastfeed [Fuchs 1987: ]. Ths focus on the chld's welfare and wllngness to condone parental 'mmoralty' carred through nto the post-1945 welfare state [Jenson 1987: ]. 17. Ths law also regulated chdren's work but wll not gve the specfcs of those restrctons for reasons of parsmony. 18. For a more detaled descpton of the regulatons as they affected women see Boxer [1986: 46-47]. Her argument s that the result of ths 'protectve' legslaton was to margnalse the female labour force by encouragng homework. Snce all workers' hours were beng reduced over these years ths 'sngle factor' explanaton s hard to accept. 19. For detals about ths campagn see Cross [1984]. 45 '''' ~:lm~.~l'

47 .ry11r... l\'f ~\\"1 f. 20. Cross' ctaton from a later unon campagn to protect aganst encroachments on the 8-hour day can stand for the theme of the whole movement:... f the eght-hour day was lost not only would wages decrease but the worker would "lose dgnty" would not "be able to educate hmself or hs famly and women would have 'to return to the slavery of housework after a longer workday'". [1984: 202]. 21. Some femnsts were the major opponents of ths two-stage strategy because they thought the mmedate effect would be to close women out of hgher-payng jobs [Boxer 1986: 52-53J. 22. The analyss of Muller v. Oregon s from Baer [1978] and Lehrer [1987]. 23. Between 1910 and 1920 sx states dd pass legslaton lmtng women's work durng pregnancy but the federal law whch would have made the schemes workable dd not pass [Kamerman ~. 1983: 33]. 24. On the appeal to the natonal need and the wartme mportance of babes see Wertz and Wertz [1977: 209] and Megs [1977: passm]. 25. n the case of Mothers' Ad pensons whch began n some states by 1911 there was a dstnct shft n ant-poverty polcy away from day nurseres and other programmes whch permtted mothers to work towards programmes whch foreclosed the category of workng mother reflectng the relatve emptness of that dentty set. For more detals see Mchel [1987]. 26. The structure of even the educatonal programmes clearly reflect ths slence around workng women. The use of phlanthropc or muncpal mlk statons as the prmary mechansm for 'out-reach' for educatng new mothers assumed women were free n the daytme to vst the staton and pass tme followng ts programmes. Blake descrbes these programmes n detal [1977: 26ffJ. French programmes not only dstrbuted mlk through such statons but also agtated for the establshment of nursng rooms n factores as well as creches and organsed nstructonal programmes n factores and n the evenngs. 27. The descrpton of the economc condtons of 19th century France s based on Boyer [1979: 104ffJ unless otherwse noted. 28. The development of the labour market was encouraged by the Lo Le Chapeler (1791) whch forbade all collectve acton and whch establshed the prncple of ndvdual but not collectve freedom of producers to sell ther products. For a half a century the Lo Le Chapeler dened wage earners any possblty of collectvely defendng ther own nterest [Boyer 1979: 106]. Ths law codfed an 'atomstc' labour market thus nsttutonalsng a system of compettve regulaton. Nevertheless a purely atomstc or completely 'lberal' labour market dd not persst. By the end of the century a set of nsttutons and actors whch gave shape to a more collectvely-determned wage relaton replaced t. 46

48 29. n the debates about paupersm and paupersaton n the 19th century three ssues were ntertwned: the nescapable growth of wage labour the nadequacy of workers' wages and ther aleatory character whch mantaned workers n a stuaton of uncertanty [Hatzfeld 1971: 25). 30. For detals about populaton trends as well as the analyss of the problem see Offen [1984). 31. The lnk to ndustralzaton was explct n the programmes desgned to cope wth depopulaton especally the payments made to workng women to stay at home for a perod after the brth of ther babes [Jenson 1986: 17-20]. 32. At ths tme tradtonal Catholcsm was ejected from the socal compromse although socal Catholcsm wllng to accept the Republc dd jon the consensus [Reberoux 1975: 83-87]. The defeated forces could not threaten the republcan consensus precsely because they represented the forces of the past excluded from the new paradgm and unable to form any allance that would allow a competng dentty to moblse poltcal resources. 33. For the long lst of sngle-ssue movements ncludng the League for the Rghts of Man the Free Masons Lbre Pensee and others see Reberoux [1975: 41ff.]. 34. Testmony to the stablsaton s found n the synchronsaton of wage levels and cost of lvng whch had developed by the end of the 19th century and contnued untl World War One [Boyer 1979: 107). 35. For example Emle Zola whose polemc J'accuse began the Dreyfus Affar used hs tme n exle to wrte hs novel Fecondte. Ths celebraton of the archtypcal French famly of an artsan-turned-farmer and hs frutful wfe and daughters was part of Zola's mult-facetted effort to nstruct the French populaton on ts dutes n the dzzyng crcumstances of socal change. Offen [1984: 663] dscusses ths n more detal. 36. Jenson [1987a] descrbes n detal the opposton to expanded female suffrage n the nterwar years. t was opposton led by the Radcals but quetly accepted by the Socalsts. 37. n 19th century France utopans Sant Smon and Fourer wth ther commtment to the emancpaton of women were ousted n conflct wthn the labour movement by the followers of Proudhon whose strct genderbased dvson of labour gave women the famous choce between beng 'housewves or harlots'. Thus by md-century emancpatory femnsm was overwhelmed. But Proudhonsm lost ts hegemony n the latter part of the century. 38. There was never the same emphass on the famly wage n France as n the USA even n the nneteenth century [Perrot 1976; Questaux and Fourner 1978). The famly wage was advocated by a few unon actvsts 47