Social Citizenship and Women’s Right to Work in Postwar America

Abstract

According to political theorist T. H. Marshall, the right to work is an essential civil right. 1 For women, however, exercising this right depends on acquisition of more rights. These include other civil rights, such as equal pay and freedom from discrimination, as well as the rights of social citizenship, such as child care and maternity leave. Such services or benefits neutralize the cultural assignment to women of child bearing and rearing, thus allowing them to participate in the labour force on an equal footing with men. Insofar as women’s struggle for equality in the workplace entails articulating their differences from men — establishing their rights as workers who are also, often, mothers — women become embroiled in the discursive paradox of sameness/difference. 2 This formulation implicitly casts them as subordinate at the very moment it invokes their responsibilities to home and family. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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