Women and Men in the Class Structure

Abstract

The stratification position of women is generally more complex than that of men. By the crucial class distinction of organizational power position, most women are either white-collar working class or blue-collar working class (order takers, not order givers). However, many women are involved in “Goffmanian labor” of presenting the frontstage image of an organization, with the result that they have a somewhat more “official” attitude than typical male working class, who are usually in a backstage position and hence are cynical of frontstage images. In the home, housewives do considerable surplus domestic labor, devoted to the production of symbolic status rather than material reproduction. Women's paid employment is often concentrated in the formal organizations producing and distributing cultural goods and status-laden objects; the leisure activities of wives of the higher social classes also concentrate in realms of symbolic status, including the arts and charity. The class cultures of women can be explained by their structural locations. Modern capitalism itself may depend heavily on the dynamic of producing and consuming status-laden material objects and hence upon female activities.