ABSTRACT
The massive increase in women's wage labor both in advanced industrial and in developing countries has generated intense debate over its effects on women's status. The rewards of wage labor in the United States were governed by race, class, and gender hierarchies and maintained the supremacy of the male white elite. The myth of the male breadwinner is a powerful norm in Western industrial society that is rooted in women's dual productive/reproductive role. Women’s efforts to gain greater control over their own pottery or weaving production in Chiapas have led to increasing marital tension, as men feel their patriarchal control is threatened. The continued separation between the private and public spheres in the Hispanic Caribbean, or the distinction between casa/calle, helps explain why the impact of women's paid wage labor may be stronger in the home than at the workplace or in the polity.
