ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relation between gender and the work process in the new industries and concentrate on several issues arising from the position of women as the central productive labour force. It examines the specific form taken by the sexual division of labour in assembly-line production and analyse the way it interlocked with the technical division of labour. In general terms it could be argued that during the history of industrial capitalism job allocation on the basis of gender has been characterized by two fundamental features: segregation between the sexes and the subordinate position of women. Both have been of enduring significance and were basic to the sexual division of labour long before the invention of assembly lines. As a technical method, assembly-line production did not require the participation of either gender in any predetermined way. But in practice the technical division of labour incorporated a rigid gender structure right from the start.
