Page 165 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Citizenship 151

beneficiaries and also as workers in the health, social, and education ser-
vices. Women are often employed intermittently in paid work in order to
care for their families when children are young; they sometimes work
part - time as families are growing up, and even when they work full - time,
they are almost always paid less than men. As a result, women face a
higher risk of poverty than men throughout their lives. This is especially
true of female - headed households. Single parents, usually women, who
cannot afford childcare, and older women who often do not have occu-
pational pensions and who have outlived or separated from their hus-
bands are especially likely to be in receipt of welfare payments (Lister,
2004 : 55). Feminists see what is sometimes called the “ feminization of
poverty ” as the consequence of taking men as the norm. Social rights are
linked to a male norm of continuous, full - time employment in the labor
market, intended to be interrupted only, in the worst cases, by unfortunate
accidents or illness against which the worker has insured himself. However,
this type of work depends on unseen and unpaid work in the domestic
sphere, which is mainly done by women.
Feminists have linked women ’ s inferior social rights to their inferior
political rights. Women, it is argued, have less power in society than men.
It is for this reason that some feminists argue that the welfare state is
patriarchal. A number of Scandinavian feminists in particular, writing
in a context in which social rights for women are more extensive than
anywhere else in the world, have argued that women ’ s inferior citizenship
is due to their lack of decision - making power, both within welfare institu-
tions themselves and also in the institutions of representational govern-
ment. Although women are employed in large numbers in the public
sector, they occupy positions similar to those they occupy in the private
sector, low in the bureaucratic hierarchies, so that they do not make deci-
sions about how institutions are organized. It is also argued that, although
women have the same formal political rights as men to vote and to stand
for election, in practice very few women participate in “ high politics. ”
This is seen as due to straightforward discrimination on the part of politi-
cal parties who propose members for election and of electors themselves,
and also to the fact that it requires long hours which are incompatible with
women ’ s domestic responsibilities. It is argued, therefore, that although
social rights are valuable in allowing women to escape subordination from
individual men in the home, if women then become dependent on a state
over which they have no control, they have done little more than exchange
private patriarchy for public patriarchy (Hernes, 1984 ; Siim, 1988 ).
In recent years, then, the focus of the women ’ s movement has been
on political rights, both on the part of feminist theorists and movement