A review by labyrinth_witch
A Woman's Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences by Alice Kessler-Harris

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

For anyone who is interested in social history- or, like myself, are just perpetually frustrated by the glass ceiling when it comes to your pay- this book has your answers. And reading this type of history will piss you off, so be ready to rage. Ultimately, Kessler-Harris is arguing that the wage is socially constructed and not “simply” a product of supply and demand. She used the notion of the “woman’s wage” to demonstrate her argument. Chapter 1 argues for how male wages were conceived as a product of the value of the job, while women’s wage rates were predicated on a needs-based assessment of basic sustenance. This time period produced the myth of the “independent women” or “lone woman” who only had her self to consider. She further shows how the arguments were never applied to “single men” and are there for social mythology. Next, chapter 2 covers the early movement for the minimum wage, including the debate between free labor and freedom of contract. Chapter 3 discusses the conceptualization of who is a “I provider.” By the say, did you know that it was married women working that causes the depression. Lol, read the sarcasm and then the chapter to find out why working married women were the scapegoat of the era. Chapter 4 traces how the slogan of equal pay for equal work went from a threat to family to a means of upholding the family over the course of 4 decades. Chapter 5 introduces the history of comparable work and its potential to delegitimize gender lines in labor. And finally, Chapter 6 discusses where the movement is stalled today, including introducing the social wage, the welfare rights movement, and the perpetual attempts to reconcile motherhood and work.