A-Infos (en) France, Alternative libertaire de septembre - The sexual division of labor activists (fr) [machine translation]

The issue of gender relations through the whole of society, it is inevitable that it also 
passes through activist organizations. A set of recent work in sociology seeks to 
highlight these inequalities. ---- The first element of social inequality between men and 
women for the activism. So traditional social space was divided into two kingdoms: the man 
the public space of the city, the woman, the domestic hearth ... ---- One might think that 
in contemporary Western societies traditional view is exceeded. However, engagement in the 
public sphere of women is lower than men and varies depending on the type of activism. 
Indeed, women invest more easily in the associative activism considered more practical 
than political activism, more ideological, and the proportion of women in the 
organizations of the extreme left is low, more in anarchist organizations.

It seems in particular that virile image conveyed by the latter sometimes is not unrelated 
to this feature. This report to the public space is also reflected in a greater difficulty 
for women to speak in such general meetings. It should also take into account the unequal 
investment of men and women, the problem of the sexual division of labor within the 
domestic space. The assignment still often dominant female tasks of raising children and 
household activities.

The iron law of patriarchy

We often talk about the glass ceiling which reflects the fact that women do not occupy 
leadership positions in companies or under-representation of women among the elected 
representatives of the political parity laws do not compensate. It should however be noted 
that the militant organizations, especially trade unions, suffer from the same 
inequalities. Women are still less women than men in positions of responsibility. Thus, 
the model of the iron law of oligarchy - which states that any organization beyond a 
certain mass tends to generate a ruling bureaucracy - some sociologists speak of iron law 
of patriarchy. More, some studies show that it is often women who are able to behave says 
men who succeed in these positions.

Such a state of queries again the capacity of grassroots organizations to adopt other 
values ââthan those of male domination to be open to activism which emphasizes an ethic of 
care, values âârelated to care .

Mixed and non-mixed

The work of feminist theorists have led to broaden the concept of work, which remained in 
the theory of Marx limited productive labor of the worker, and the exploitation of 
invisibilisant reproductive work performed by women within the domestic space. In 
continuation of these studies, sociologists analyze the sexual division of labor activist.

We can notice the existence of a vertical division of labor which also affects the content 
of the tasks performed by the one and the other. Women often invest more on technical 
tasks as more political. It must be remembered that the feminist movement of the second 
wave, the Women's Liberation Movement (MLF), has just formed around the non-mixed because 
of the difficulty for women to find their place in the spaces militants mixed .

Current work on these issues sociology show the importance of paying attention to this 
dimension in our activism today.

Irene (AL Paris North East)
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