ABSTRACT
Industrialization changed working patterns for women employed in areas affected by technological innovations. Before industrialization, most workers worked from home or in the homes of others, e.g. spinning, brewing, food production and clothes making.3 During industrialization outwork, as it was called, became increasingly devalued and skilled areas of work, such as handloom weaving, were moved into factories and workshops and carried out mainly by men.4 Further, since the seventeenth century, the practice of women undertaking skilled work alongside their husbands or in widowhood had declined.5 Although women worked in factories alongside men, the work they undertook was regarded as less skilled and of less value than the work that men performed. So why were women less valued than men as workers during this period? Walby, focusing on the interplay between patriarchy and capitalism in the workplace, argues that shifting patterns of employment in the first half of the nineteenth century were the result of shifts in the accommodation of the needs of capital and patriarchy in certain key occupations. Trade unions and friendly societies in the early part of the century were largely skills-or crafts-based and used their ability to exclude women from apprenticeships and trade union membership to control the numbers of workers entering the trade which, in turn, kept up wages.6 Women, from the sixteenth century onwards, were increasingly flexible, casual workers able to turn their hand to the particular task required rather than skilled workers. This was a weakness as it was impossible to organize workers not working in a recognizable trade at this time. However, women were unionized from the early nineteenth century in the cotton weaving industry. It is no coincidence that these women earned the best rate of pay and undertook similar skilled work to men in this sector. Walby further argues
that capitalism and patriarchy do not always work in harmony over gender relations.7 This is borne out throughout the period covered by this book. In the first half of the nineteenth century, there was a continuous struggle between the needs of capitalism for a cheap flexible labour force and patriarchal interests that wanted to maintain existing gender relations or, indeed, further the marginalization of women from the better paid sectors of the labour market.8 This tension was played out in various arenas through a discourse of the domestic ideal. Women had very little formal power at the time. No vote, limited legal rights and limited access to education and training. All these factors contributed to the continuing and, indeed, growing limitations placed on women’s employment opportunities. This was articulated in different ways in different employment sectors.
