Gender and labor in world history

Abstract

Gender inequalities remain up to the present and show no sign of disappearing any time soon, even if they are now less acute in more parts of the globe than at any time in history. This chapter reviews the historical influence of gender on labor and looks particularly at the ways that women's and men's work has been valued differently over time, from the earliest human societies to the age of globalization. As wage labor and capitalist market relations developed historically, gender divisions became more sharply defined. The progressive militarization of societies accentuated the gender division of labor in which men's skills as warriors became increasingly valuable for defending territorial integrity or for maintaining trade routes. Although scholars have debated the origins of women's subordination within the gender division of labor, they have discovered that gender divisions appeared long before modern capitalism came on the scene.