Janet Zollinger Giele

Maternity Policies and Working Women.

PrefaceI. Past Times II. The Last Fat Year (1930) III. Lean Years (1931-1932) IV. The Leanest Year (1933) V. New Deal Baseball (1934-1935) VI. Toward Recovery (1936-1937) VII. Pathos and Progress (1938-1939) VIII. Baseball Lives IX. Shadowball X. Recovery and War (1940-1941)Postscript Notes Selected Bibliorgraphy Index

1. NEW LIFE PATTERNS AND CHANGING GENDER ROLES

Abstract This chapter links new life patterns in western industrial societies to societal change and a new division of labor between women and men. Four aspects of this change are shown to parallel the processes of adaptive change that Talcott Parsons outlined in his theory of evolution of modern societies and that Miriam Johnson applied to the gender revolution: (1) technological innovation and new patterns of time use (adaptive upgrading); (2) wider role options for men and women (goal differentiation); (3) new rules and policies about equity and integration of work and family (inclusion and integration); and (4) reframing of values to achieve a better balance between productivity and caregiving (value generalization).

14. WOMEN AND MEN AS AGENTS OF CHANGE IN THEIR OWN LIVES

Abstract This chapter focuses on the ways that personal biographies of individuals are related to their gender roles. Using biographical methods, the chapter develops a conceptual scheme for linking past experience to current life patterns. Modern work-centered women and the new care-oriented men are different from their traditional counterparts in their identity, social networks, goals and ambitions, and strategies for combining education, work, and family life. They are likely to seek out roles that allow them a greater degree of crossover in working and caring. A question for the future is how such preferences form and how they shape the broader gender contract of the larger society.