Empowering Work
Our theme of 'Empowering Work' came out of the ideas of getting in touch with what it is that can make work empowering for women and understanding better the shifts in women's work that have taken place to such dramatic effect in recent years. We want to explore how women mobilise to claim rights as workers, especially in poorly paid and stigmatised professions.
Our projects enquire into the conditions under which work and welfare can be empowering for women, and what it takes to realise them – whether in terms of mobilising women to claim their rights as workers, or designing cash transfer programmes with a more explicit feminist perspective.
A sample of our activities around this theme over the last year includes:
Organising in the Informal Economy
Photo: Fernanda Capibaribe Leite |
Pathways facilitated a visit of Creuza Oliveira, the president of the Brazilian Federation of Domestic Workers, to Delhi, to participate in a workshop exploring women's experiences of organising in the informal economy. Creuza's visit coincided with a national gathering that brought together people seeking to organise domestic workers in India. From the reflective space of the workshop, Creuza went first to the crowded room where activists welcomed the inspiration of the Brazilian experience - the first domestic workers' association was founded in the 1930s, and domestic workers in Brazil have been unionised since the early 1990s - and then to the streets to demonstrate with the domestic workers for rights and recognition. The workshop traced the commonalities across entirely different kinds of workers, many in jobs that remain stigmatised, hidden and poorly paid. In a visit to a slum on the outskirts of Delhi, Creuza was able to see just how striking the differences were between Brazilian and Indian domestic workers. 'What do you enjoy about your job?', she asked one woman. 'Nothing', came the reply. Creuza had talked before about the sense of satisfaction of a clean house, of a job well done. And she'd shared her belief that it was not domestic work per se that was the problem, but the conditions under which it is carried out and the pay and recognition it receives. But here were women for whom the drudgery of cleaning floors had nothing positive about it at all. For Pathways, the question of what it is that makes a job - any job - empowering is critical. Many of the forms of work that Pathways researchers study are badly paid, arduous, sometimes hazardous and often carried out in conditions where women lack basic labour and social rights. And yet, there are aspects of those jobs, whether the solidarity amongst workers, the relief of getting out of the house and doing something, the incomes that give women room for manouevre in dictating some of the terms on which they live their lives and, like Creuza, a sense of a job well done, that can be pathways of empowerment. A lasting memory of Creuza's visit to India was the scene of her in the midst of a demonstration demanding rights for domestic workers assuring her Indian colleagues that change IS possible, that she's living proof of that change.
Domestic Workers in Brazil
Notorious for its low wages, and lack of social benefits, domestic work remains one of the major occupations for women in Latin America. In Brazil, it accounts for nearly 19% of the female labour force, close to 60% of them being black.
However, as a result of the organisation of domestic workers and their collective actions, legislation was passed to extend labour benefits such as paid holiday, maternity leave and pensions to these workers, with significant improvements in their work conditions. In addition, FENATRAD, the National Federation of Domestic Workers, is engaged in the development of different programmes to value domestic employment, as a means of promoting the enlargement of union ranks throughout the country.
That is what motivated the project Empowering Domestic Work, led by Terezinha Gonçalvez, at the Latin American Hub, Brazil at NEIM - Nucleus of Interdisciplinary Studies on Women. This research intends to contribute to the advancement of FENATRAD and to the empowering of domestic workers in other countries covered by the RPC, by re-tracing the pathways covered in the organising of domestic workers in Brazil and their struggles.
As one of the tools of communications for this project, in August 2008, the Empowering Domestic Work Project set up a blog to share information about the outcomes of the research and the background of the domestic worker legislation. The weblog is fed by Terezinha and her interns and as soon as the research is ended the blog will given to FENATRAD, so they can have their own space online. The blog is hosted at: http://projetodomesticas.wordpress.com.
Women in Non-Traditional Roles
Social Transformation and Non-Traditional Occupations for Women
Rasha Hassan's work concerns social transformation and non-traditional occupations for women. In her thesis, she has tried to understand the effects of social transformation (social and economic changes in Egypt's society) and how these changes can create new jobs for women especially those who work in traditionally male occupations.
Photo: Amanda Kerdahi Matt |
Mona is 40 years old and single. Her father is an old man and sick, and her mother is a housewife, she has five sisters (three of them married) and three brothers.
When she was a child in primary school, she used visit her father's mechanic store. She liked to work with him and he was interested in teaching her about his occupation. She did poorly at school, eventually leaving school when she was in the fourth year. She began to work with her father when she was 11 years old.
She was called "El osta belia" (a nickname for children who work with mechanics) and she performed well in her father’s shop. When an accident befell her father, he stayed at home and she became the head of household. She works to provide her family with a good life.
Photo: Amanda Kerdahi Matt |
Om Kareem is 32 years old. Her husband left her over five years ago with three children and without money. In efforts to provide for her children, she began to work preparing tea in a microbus station for the drivers, but this job wasn't satisfactory for her and her children. She began considering working on microbuses, so she asked her neighbour to teach her how to drive. He helped her and after she learned, she asked one of the drivers to let her work with him in his car. Thus, she became a microbus driver and has been able to support her children.
Photo: Amanda Kerdahi Matt |
Sohier is 50 years old, married with one daughter. She didn't enjoy learning at school. Her brother was violent with her and treated her badly. Her cousin had a coiffeur (salon) for women and she asked him to let her work with him. He refused at first but finally agreed and she began working with him. When she was 14 years old, she left him and worked at another coiffeur to learn more, (as she enjoyed this job). However, her manager treated her badly and fired her. Soon after, she met her sister's husband and told him her story and he happened to be on his way to visit a friend with a salon. Sohier went with him and discovered that a Greek girl was working in the salon as a hair stylist. She wanted to do the same work as this girl so she asked her sister's husband to work with his friend. Though he refused, his friend agreed to hire her.
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