109 110 111

p One of the contemporary features of the labour market in advanced capitalist countries is the increasing demand for female participation in the labour force. It is conditioned both by the objective laws peculiar to capitalist production, and by new phenomena characteristic of contemporary state-monopoly capitalism. One of the most important phenomena is the scientific and technological revolution, which has had an extraordinarily contradictory influence on production and labour resources.

p Drawing up general conclusions on the contemporary state of affairs, the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (Moscow, 1969) noted that the scientific and technological revolution accelerates the socialisation of the economy; under monopoly domination this leads to the reproduction of social antagonisms on a growing scale and in a sharper form. Not only have the long-standing contradictions of capitalism been aggravated, but new ones have arisen as well. This applies, in particular, to the contradiction between the unlimited possibilities 112 opened up by the scientific and technological revolution and the roadblocks raised by capitalism to their utilisation for the benefit of society as a whole. This is the contradiction between the social character of present-day production and the state-monopoly nature of its regulation. This is not only the growth of the contradiction between capital and labour, but also the deepening of the antagonism between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial oligarchy.  [112•1 

p Capitalism is incapable of guaranteeing the total employment of the able-bodied population, in particular the female labour force; it cannot bring the general educational and professional level of workers into line with the demands of the scientific and technological revolution. This further exacerbates the contradictions and class struggle in capitalist society. As a result question of the women’s status remains an acute, burning issue in capitalist countries.

p Already in the middle of the nineteenth century capitalist industry had simplified the process of labour, thus opening up a wide range of possibilities for involving women and children in the process of production, for work which had previously demanded heavy physical exertion could now be done by machines. With the help of machines, wrote F. Engels, "Six hundred thousand factory workers, of whom half are children and more than half female, are doing the work of one hundred and fifty million people."  [112•2  Whole branches of production appeared (spinning and 113 weaving, for example) in which women constituted more than half of all factory workers.

p As machines were perfected, women and children could take the place of men, and because they were paid lower wages, capitalists could earn greater profits.

p “Machinery, by throwing every member of that family on to the labour-market,” wrote Karl Marx, "spreads the value of the man’s labour-power over bis whole family. It thus depreciates his labour-power.” by virtue of that tact women’s and children’s labour became "the hrst thing sought for by capitalists who used machinery".  [113•1 

p At the same time the founders of scientific communism have always stressed that "the drawing of women and juveniles into production is, at bottom, progress! ve”,  [113•2  for social labour frees women from the narrow confines of domestic and family relations; highly mechanised industry aids in their development, raises their class consciousness and involves them in the liberation struggle of the working class.

p The rapid development of science and technology, the application of scientific methods and discoveries to production, the introduction of automation and computer technology, structural shifts in the economy of capitalist countries, including the appearance of new branches of industry and rapid growth in the non-productive sphere—all these factors open up new possibilities for the application of female labour.

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p Among the significant reasons which lead a woman to seek work are the constant rise in the cost of living and the fact that blue- and white collar wages lag behind the living \vage.

p In the last several years there has been a marked tendency to broaden the sphere of application of female labour: the number of working women has gone up and they make up an ever increasing proportion of the employed population. Thus, according to statistics provided by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the number of working women in advanced capitalist countries has increased from 46.4 million to 77 million in the past 20 years.

p This tendency is most clearly seen in the United States. From 1960 to 1970 the number of hired workers increased by 12 million, and women accounted for 65 per cent of that increase. By 1973 women constituted approximately 38 to 40 per cent of the country’s labour force. American economists acknowledge that women today represent one of the most dynamic forces in the economy.

p An analogous process can be observed in the capitalist states of Western Europe. In the countries that make up the European Economic Community (the original Six) there are 22,654,000 working women, or 37 per cent of the female population. The highest percentage of employment among women can be seen in France, where 46.6 per cent of the female population is employed; in the FRG the figure is 40.3 per cent, in Belgium and Luxemburg—33.6 per cent, in Italy—29.9 per cent, and in the Netherlands—27 per cent. It is noteworthy that here, too, the rate of employment among women is rising faster than among men. In France, for example, the number of working men rose by 10 per cent between 1962 115 and 1968; the rate for working women during the same period was 15 per cent. Between 1968 and 1972 the rise in rate for working men was 3 per cent, and for women—11 per cent.

p When we consider the entire self-employed population of the Common Market for 1973, we find that women make up the following percentages of the total: France—37 per cent, the FRG—34 per cent, Belgium—29 per cent, Italy—27 per cent, Luxemburg—26 per cent, and the Netherlands—23 per cent.

p The policy of rapid economic growth adopted during the 1960s by the government and monopoly capital of Japan has led to a significant rise in the application of female labour. In 1964, there were 8,350,000 hired female workers; in 1970 the figure was 10,960,000 or 33.2 per cent of the total labour force of the country.

p A significant number of working women are employed in the sphere of production. Whole branches of industry have appeared where, thanks to technical progress, female labour is not only applied on a broad scale, but even predominates; these include the electronics, radio engineering, pharmaceutical, electrical engineering, chemical, machine building, metallurgical and other industries. In the United States, for example, the number of women working in the aluminium industry ranges from 20 to 60 per cent; the figure is even higher for automobile factories.

The massive introduction of new technology, not only in the sphere of material production, but also in various branches of non-industrial labour—state establishments, commerce, consumer service establishments—together with the mechanisation and automatisation of office work, financial transactions and the like, has led to 116 a considerable increase in Ihe number ol’ women employed in these areas. Here, for example, is a breakdown of the female workforce in Western Europe at the beginning of the 1970s in terms of industrial and non-industrial labour:

Country Industry (per cent) Agriculture (per cent) Service professions (per cunt) FRG 34.7 14.4 50.9 Franco 25.9 13.7 00.4 Italy 31. G 20. 8 41.6 Netherlands 23.7 4.1 72.2 Belgium 28.8 6.4 04.8

p The gradual erosion of the borders demarcating male and female forms of labour is also due in part to the fact that women are mastering more and more professions. Gradually we see more and more women working as technicians, engineers, computer programmers and operators. In 1906 in France there were only 37 women lawyers and 600 women doctors; at the beginning of the 1970s their number rose, respectively, to 1,200 and 6,000 women. A survey to determine whether the public believed that women could work on a par with men in jobs that have traditionally been considered “male” produced the following statistics: 64 per cent of those questioned expressed their confidence in women lawyers, 75 per cent in women doctors, 39 per cent in women surgeons, and 26 per cent in women pilots.

p The expanded application of female labour, a tendency made feasible by the scientific and technological revolution, shows that it is 117 objectively possible to give women a greater role in the economic and social development of society.

p But it is women who are the first to suffer from the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution. Supposedly for the sake of industrialisation, modernisation and reorganisation of production the most propitious conditions for the growth of powerful monopolies are created, to the detriment of smaller firms, which have a tradition of hiring women. The disappearance of these small industrial enterprises, the further concentration of production, the influx of youth and rural dwellers into the labour market—all these things have an unfavourable effect on female employment. So, too, does the effort of the state and monopolies to encourage the development of specific, more profitable branches of industry—metallurgical, chemical, instrument-making—which inevitably leads to the demise or stagnation of industries which produce consumer goods that are in wide demand—textiles, ready-made clothing, electrical household appliances and so on, industries which have already experienced the consequences of inflation. But it is these industries that for the most part employ women. According to official statistics for Italy, a comparison of the first ten months of 1970 with the first ten months of 1971 alone indicates that textile production dropped by 6.7 per cent, and the production of ready-made clothing by 13.6 per cent. As a result female employment in these branches of industry also dropped.

p The use of advanced technology also leads to a reduction in female employment. In France it is calculated that by 1985 automation will have liquidated 135,000 jobs in the ready-mado 118 clothing industry, and 170,000 jobs in the textile industry, i.e., more than 300,000 jobs, most of them held by women. In the area of postal and tele-communications 25,000 jobs held by telephone operators and prstal workers will be abolished as a result of automation. The same prospects await female workers with specific, limited skills such as typists, when machines take over their work.

p Unemployment is usually much higher among women than among men, and it rises more quickly among women than among men. In addition women, as a rule, remain unemployed far longer than men. In the United States the unemployment rate for females in August 1973, was 48 per cent higher than that of males. The problem of female unemployment in Italy is particularly acute. Sharp fluctuations in economic development and crises in production bring about mass unemployment. The reserve army of labour consists primarily of women, who, moreover, enter the labour market as second-class workers. From 1961 to 1971, 1,300,000 female production workers were forced off the job. From July 1971, to July 1972, the employment level of the ablebodied population dropped from 18.9 million to 18.4 million, a reduction most strongly felt among female workers. The percentage of the total female population that comprised the female workforce decreased in the 1960-1971 period from 24.9 to 19.2 per cent. As noted in the Italian press, this was the lowest level of female employment in the world.

p One of the important factors accounting for the dismissal of female production workers in capitalist countries is their inadequate professional training and the loss of professional skills. 119 The scientific and technological revolution, with its ever increasing demands for professionally skilled workers, finds women less and less able to compete with men for a number of reasons: discrimination in receiving secondary and higher education, difficulty in improving their qualifications and receiving promotions because of the traditionally prejudicial attitudes they face on account of their dual work-load—at home and on the job; for these reasons they are most often the first to be dismissed from work. Even when economic conditions are favourable and the demand for workers is sufficiently high, unemployed women cannot fill vacancies because they do not possess the requisite skills.

p In the 1960s, in view of the effects of the scientific and technological revolution, a number of governments in capitalist countries adopted programmes which included special measures and additional financial aid for education, professional training and retraining for workers. The funds allotted for these programmes, however, are inadequate to the real needs. This exacerbates the problem of unemployment among women, particularly those over the age of 35, who wish to resume work after a considerable period of absence spent rearing their young children. Employers are unwilling to train or retrain workers when they can hire those who already have the necessary skills.

p To this day in capitalist countries, despite the absence of legal prohibitions and the steady rise in the general educational level of women (the decrease in illiteracy, an absolute rise in the number of girls studying in secondary schools, technical schools and institutions of higher learning), the number of female students, particularly 120 in technical schools, is still fairly low. In England, for example, among the 17.800 students studying to be draughtsmen at the end of the 1960s, there were only 350 women, and amonf the 12,310 future technicians only 160 women. At the beginning of the 1970s only 7 per cent of the girls who be^an work fas opposed to 42 per cent of the boys) were rn’ven the opportunity to receive professional training and thus f’ll positions as skilled workers. As a result women make up only 5 per cent of all skilled production workers.

p In France erirls constitute only 35 per cent of those studying in trade schools, and only 25 per cent of those studying in technical colleges and vocational schools. Furthermore in these institutions girls are permitted to choose among only 170 trades and professions, while boys are given a choice of 400. The same is true for Italy.

p In the United States, as a result of workers’ actions and public opinion, the government began in 1961 to implement a series of special measures to provide professional training for factory personnel. As a result the number of women receiving professional training at the end of the 1960s was increasing more rapidly. According to official statistics the number rose by 78 per cent between 1964 and 1968, while for men there was a 65 percent increase in the number of thoseattendiner courses of professional training. But despite this increase women still made up less than 1 per cent of the total number of registered students.

p The disparity between qualitative and quantitative indices of education among young men and women can also be seen in institutions of higher learning. At the end of the nineteenth century in the United States women made up 121 one-third of all students attending colleges and universities. In the 1969/70 academic year women accounted for 42 per cent of the total. The majority of girls, however, were students at junior colleges, where the level of instruction is comparable to that of the upper forms of secondary schools in other countries. Moreover, female students have a high dropout rate as a result of the cost of a higher education. Statistics published in America show that in the 1960s only 7 per cent of all women over the age of 25 had college degrees.

p A characteristic feature of the system of higher education in capitalist countries is the fact that women predominate in the humanities, but they are rarely to be found in departments of engineering and technology.

p As a rule the majority of workers involved in unskilled labour are women. In France, for example, the number of hired women decreases in direct proportion to the degree of skill required at any given job: women make up 29.6 per cent of all unskilled workers, 22.9 per cent of all semi-skilled workers, 15.8 per cent of all skilled workers, 11.1 per cent of all technicians and 3.4 per cent of all engineers.

p Employers justify paying lower wages to women by pointing out that their level of general and professional training is lower than that of men, and that they are generally employed in jobs that require fewer skills.

p The working class and working women in particular have brought pressure to bear on employers who in the past have refused to grant women equal pay for equal work, and consequently they do not practice this sort of discrimination quite so openly. They are all the more hesitant because 122 in all capitalist countries the principle of equal pay is proclaimed in the constitution and written into law, and its implementation is stipulated in collective agreements. Moreover, this principle is reflected in a number of international documents: the Charter of the International Labour Organisation, ILO Convention No. 100 Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value, and others.

p But a large number of capitalist stales are not party to Convention No. 100, and even in those which are, employers find any number of pretexts to subvert the principle of equal pay for equal work. As a result the disparity in wages paid to men and women for work of equal quality and quantity ranges from 10 to 65 per cent in a number of capitalist countries.

p At the beginning of the 1970s, for example, Swedish women in industry received 36 ore per hour less than men for the same work. The difference in pay for white-collar male and female workers was equal to 142 crowns per month. In France women, on the average, receive 33.6 per cent less in wages than men (as a result of the kind of jobs they hold, the length of time they work, and so on). The difference in hourly wage for men and women of equal qualifications was 6.9 per cent in January 1972. In Britain, the average wage for women is slightly more than half of the average wage for men, while in the Federal Republic of Germany women earn on the average 31.3 per cent less than men.

p Equal pay for equal work is one of the main demands made by workers’ movements and democratic movements, for wage discrimination leads to the reduction of all workers’ wages both in 123 individual firms and industries and in the country as a whole. In France, for example, whole areas of production where a great number of women are employed are subject to such discrimination, including the clothing, textile, leather, and food industries. The average pay of workers in the clothing industry, which was already 20 per cent lower than the average wage of other workers, dropped in 1972 to a level of 23 per cent below the average professional wage.

p A similar tendency toward increasing the wage discrepancy between male and female workers may be observed in the United States. In 1956, the average annual earnings of a white woman were only 62.8 per cent of the earnings of a white man. In 1964, the percentage dropped to 59.4. And in the early 1970s women earned only 58 per cent of the amount earned by men.

p Workers’ movements and democratic women’s organisations in Italy have made considerable progress in their struggle to secure equal wages. According to rates stipulated in collective agreements in 1954, there is a minimum difference of 16 per cent in the amounts earned by men and women for equivalent labour; this ranged from 16 to 24 per cent in the textile industry, from 20 to 22 per cent in the printing and paper industries, from 16 to 18 per cent in the food industry, and from 16 to 25 per cent in the clothing industry. In trade it was 10 to 20 per cent in 1956. Women farm-labourers and agricultural workers above the age of 17 earned 30 per cent less than men, whereas girls of 14 to 17 earned from 38 to 50 per cent less.

p Due to the persistent efforts of working men and women and the unity achieved among trade unions and women’s organisations of varying 124 persuasions, by 1958-1959 approximately half of all collective agreements renewed in industry, commerce and agriculture provided for the curtailment of discrepancies in male and female wages and for increases in women’s wages. By 1964 this discrepancy had been reduced to 7 per cent for industrial workers and 5 per cent for those employed in commerce.

p Despite measures taken to curtail discrimination against women workers, Italian manufacturers and landowners made every effort to delay or limit the implementation of equal wages. As a result, in 1970 women earned an average of 24.8 per cent less than equally qualified men in processing industry, and in the textile industry an average of 19.2 per cent less.

p Some employers attempted to justify such discrimination, claiming that women’s earnings were largely a supplement to the family budget. Such rationalisations are clearly untenable. Many unmarried women, widows or divorcees also head families in capitalist countries; their earnings are their only source of income. Furthermore, more and more families cannot get along without a second paycheck.

p Scientific and technological progress has exercised a contradictory influence with regard to female labour, particularly when it comes to measures for the protection of female labour. Thanks to complex mechanisation, automation, electronic technology, and calculating machines and computers, many labourconsuming processes are simplified and made less strenuous; thus more and more areas are opened for working women. Contemporary technology has reduced professional injuries and occupational deseases. But there are many 125 disadvantages to such technology. The process of labour has become increasingly disjointed and workers have been reduced to functioning as adjuncts of machines; there is increased noise and growing mental and nervous strain; new chemicals present additional hazards; the work has become monotonous. All of the aforementioned has affected the health of working women, particularly pregnant women and nursing mothers.

p The working class has managed to achieve legislation in many capitalist countries that guarantees restrictions in the hiring of women for jobs that are hazardous for women’s health in such areas as underground work, heavy labour, and plants where harmful substances are manufactured.

p But facts published in the Western press show that occupational deseases and injuries are on the increase as a result of inadequate safety measures. A study of working conditions among women at the Sescosem Factory in Grenoble, France, showed that 56 per cent of the female workers frequently consulted a doctor because of the difficult working conditions; 46 per cent regularly take medicine in order to sustain the tempo of their work; 74 per cent suffer from headaches; 80 per cent claim that they cannot longer endure the noise or the rhythm of their work and complain that their psychological state has sharply deteriorated.

p Labour is proceeding at an increasingly intense pace in non-industrial areas as well. Bank clerks, stockbrokers and dish washers suffer from this problem as do laundresses and sales girls in large department stores. The increasing tempo of modern life has engendered new sources of nervous tension and overwork. The situation is aggravated because laws governing labour do not apply 126 to a significant portion of working women, including peasant women, craftsmen who work at home and servants.

p There are two aspects to measures for protecting women workers on the job: medical and social. Frequently women are obliged to work in areas of production that are less mechanised and consequently involve heavier labour and more health hazards. They are forced into such work because of inadequate skills. All women are faced with an ever present threat of leaving the factory and returning to their homes. Poor working conditions often accelerate this process. Thus, the improvement of working conditions and the implementation of safety measures would not only preserve working women’s health, it would also serve to guarantee their right to work.

p The problem of protecting the health of mothers is closely linked to the problem of protecting working women on the job. Having encouraged women to participate in the country’s economic and social life, the state must provide legislation that will guarantee the health of women in their capacity as mothers and help them to bring up a new, healthy generation. In the last few years the working class and progressive forces in capitalist countries have taken important steps in this direction. But motherhood often proves tragic to a working woman, for in many countries women are fired when they bear children or upon getting married. Manufacturers prefer to replace married women with young girls thereby avoiding bonuses for long service and allowances for pregnancy and births.

p The ILO conventions on measures for protecting the rights of mothers (No. 3 in 1949; No. 103 in 1952; No. 110 in 1958) stipulate 127 minimal norms including maternity leave at least six weeks before delivery and six weeks following delivery, time off for nursing the child, and prohibitions on firing married women on maternity leave. Nevertheless, the ILO notes that many countries have not instituted these minimal measures and do not provide sufficiently lengthy maternity leave with compensation for lost earnings to working mothers. Laws protecting mothers do not apply to significant categories of women workers in capitalist countries, including those working in agriculture.

p Working mothers also face the problem of providing adequate care for their children, particularly for infants. Government facilities for providing such care are underdeveloped. Most childcare centres are privately owned and therefore inaccessible to large sections of the population. In France, for example, territorial and departmental child-care centres can accommodate 32,828 children, while according to the norms of the World Health Organisation a country whose population exceeds 40 million should be able to accommodate 200,000 children. In Italy, 140,000 children are enrolled in state nurseries and 1,316,000 in private institutions; one million children from the ages of 3 to 6 cannot be accommodated at all in existing facilities. By 1974, almost two million Italian children from working families could not get into communal nurseries. The same is true of England, the Federal Republic of Germany, Spain and many other capitalist countries. Domestic obligations consume a significant part of a working woman’s time after the working hours. She has less time to regain her strength, improve her skills, enjoy cultural pursuits and to be active in her leisure hours. This twofold 128 burden results in an early loss of working capacity among women.

p To conserve time that would otherwise be spent on domestic tasks, it is important to provide housing with modern conveniences: central heating, gas, electricity, running water, plumbing. But many workers do not have such accommodations. In many countries whole sections of the working population cannot afford such housing.

p One of the difficulties in combining domestic and industrial work is the length of the working day. In many countries various parties, trade unions, women’s organisations and industrial circles discuss this question.

p Industrialists would prefer to employ parttime women workers, paying them for time spent on the job. But considering labour conditions in capitalist countries and particularly the reduction in employment of working women in many countries, this would do incalculable harm to working women. It would in effect establish female labour as temporary and secondary; it would intensify discrimination against women with regard to employment, wages, pension benefits and promotions and it would create even more competition among women in the labour market.

p Leftist parties and democratic organisations speaking for the working class favour the gradual reduction of the working week to 40 hours and two days off for all workers, men and women. As a first step toward this goal, they suggest that women’s working time should be shortened without a corresponding cut in pay, maintaining that fulfilling household responsibilities and raising children should be acknowledged as important, socially useful functions.

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p Some bourgeois scholars believe that women’s social and domestic obligations cannot be combined and therefore conclude that society should return to the traditional strict delineation of male and female roles. A man, as they see it, should work to support the family and a woman should be a good wife, caring for the home, and bearing and raising children.

p Others who recognise that women are productive and needed members of the labour force believe that their burdens must be lightened. But they propose to do this by curtailing their professional activities rather than through special governmental measures aimed at creating auspicious conditions for working women.

p Still others insist that mothers of young children should enter the labour force only after fulfilling their maternal obligations or that they should interrupt their professional activities until their children grow up.

p Marxist scholars continue to maintain that once the process of including women in the labour force has begun it cannot be reversed. They advocate that women be freed as much as possible from domestic labour rather than from social labour. Communist and Workers’ Parties and all democratic forces are lighting to include women in industrial and socio-political activities on as broad a basis as possible, to create the most auspicious conditions for working women, and to help them function as mothers, workers, and citizens.

The struggle to attain equal economic, social and political rights for women and to eliminate all forms of discrimination is one of the urgent tasks put before the workers’ movement in advanced capitalist countries. To improve the 130 socio-economic stains of women workers in conjunction with further developments in .science and technology is to improve the slalns of all workers, for working women are members of working men’s families: their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters.