A NEW GENDER(ED) ORDER? RESEARCHING AND RETHINKING WOMEN’S WORK

Abstract

Rosemary Crompton, Women and Work in Modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, £27.50 (£9.99 pbk), xi+155 pp. (ISBN: 0-19-878096-6 hbk; 0-19-87097-4 pbk).

Susan Halford, Mike Savage and Anne Witz, Gender, Careers and Organisations: Current Developments in Banking, Nursing and Local Government. London: Macmillan, 1997, £42.50 (£13.99 pbk), xi+292 pp. (ISBN: 0-333-60977-8 hbk; 0-333-60978-6 pbk).

Elizabeth Higginbotham and Mary Romero (eds.) Women and Work: Exploring Race, Ethnicity and Class. London: Sage, 1997, £45.00 (£19.95 pbk), xxxii+269 pp. (ISBN: 0-8039-5058-6 hbk; 0-8039-5059-4 pbk).

As we approach the Millennium there are clear signs of major upheavals in the established gender order. In September 1996 for the first time women were recorded in government statistics as outnumbering men in the labour force; girls are doing better than boys in school examinations; young women are asserting ‘girl power’, appearing confident of their ability to succeed. Such changes might be viewed positively, as a triumph for feminist campaigning and Equal Opportunities programmes. Increasingly the press treat them negatively, fostering a ‘moral panic’ about the adverse consequences for men. Indeed, in a slightly tongue-in-cheek recent article, Fay Weldon (1997) advocated the formation of a ‘masculinist movement’ to redress the balance of this ‘gender switch’.