The dissertation explores the differences in time spent by women and men in different activities in Matsanjeni Swaziland. We classify the activities under the Systems of National Accounts (SNA), as SNA activities, non-SNA activities and non Productive activities. The study used a 24 hours time diary to collect data from a sample of 50 respondents, 25 of whom were women and 25 were men. The results show that on average, women and men spend almost equal time doing SNA activities, with men spending slightly more time than women. On the other hand, the results show that women spend a lot more time on Non SNA activities compared to men. Finally, the results show that men spend more time on Non Productive activities compared to women. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

<p>The object of this essay is to discuss the relationship between the definition of the concept of gender equality and attitudes towards gender equality and their consequences for gender equality measures. The point of departure is feminist political theory and interviews about attitudes towards gender equality at a department at the University of Linköping. The conclusions of this study is that there are a wide range of definitions and attitudes, and these conceptions are not necessarily the same as those being pointed out in the official gender equality policy at the University of Linköping. In this study the opinions of measures for gender equality among the interviewed are widely spread. Some finding Swedish men and women already being equal and therefore there is no need for measures, since this would result in discrimination of men since women would gain advantages from being women. Others find measures for gender equality important since the society and the University is male-defined and therefore not equal. Following, there is a need for further discussions on the definition of, and measures for gender equality. The feminist perspective on the concept of gender equality highlights the need for consideration on how the measures are reproducing, reinforcing or reconceptualizing the signification of gender.</p>

This thesis explores variations and shifts in gender roles in housing delivery and the construction. Although presently excluded from construction activities, women have in the past constituted substantial proportions of builders in many countries worldwide. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, women have traditionally been responsible for building house. However, recent studies and reports indicate that women in Botswana and other countries in the region are grossly underrepresented in construction activities. The few women currently employed in the construction industry work mostly as labourers. Boserup and other scholars have attributed the gendered division of labour to economic development, technological changes, patriarchy, capitalism colonialism or modernisation Based on qualitative and quantitative studies undertaken in the township of Lobatse, Botswana, and adopting a pluralistic and holistic approach, I however posit that gender roles and relations are outcomes of negotiation and normalisation processes through which men and women (as individuals or in groups) use their power and positions in society to access and control resources and services. The outcomes and negotiation processes are themselves conditioned by a web of interacting and intersecting historical, social, economic, political and environmental factors. I further argue that in the context of Botswana, traditional gender roles were shaped by prevailing patriarchal ideologies and institutions, the country's fragile environment, subsistence modes of production, and frequent intertribal wars that characterised the region. However, men's takeover of housing and construction activities that emerged during the colonial period was due to the intersection of Western influences, men's temporary migrations to South Africa, commoditisation of labour and the introduction of the market economy. Women's exclusion from the construction industry has since been entrenched through the atrophication of women's traditional building skills caused by widespread preferences for exogenous building materials and Western style houses. Due to lack of non-traditional building skills, women have been forced to work as labourers in the waged construction industry or as unpaid managers, supervisors and caterers in self-help housing. Robbed of their ability to build houses, women have been obliged to negotiate new gender relationships and strategies for accessing and owning houses. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Os processos de flexibilidade produtiva com transformações tecnológicas e organizacionais nas empresas, que ocorrem no Brasil sob a égide da reestruturação produtiva capitalista desde 1980 e com maior ênfase em 1990, são observados neste estudo à luz da problemática da divisão sexual do trabalho, tomando como campo de análise o segmento de eletroeletrônicos, o qual possui a mais elevada proporção de mulheres da indústria metalúrgica. A pesquisa parte da problemática da visibilização de trabalhadoras como objeto de conhecimento nas análises sobre a classe trabalhadora, procurando oferecer contribuição à sociologia do trabalho a partir de reflexão empírica-teórica gendrada sobre o trabalho, sustentando assim a necessidade do reconhecimento da composição sexuada da classe e reivindicando a indissociabilidade das dimensões classe e gênero. Com base em estudo setorial focado em duas indústrias eletroeletrônicas transnacionais no ramo de telecomunicações e informática, cujas plantas analisadas localizam-se em municípios do interior de São Paulo, foram identificadas e analisadas características do processo de trabalho em diversos setores produtivos das empresas. Essas empresas fabricam no Brasil - uma desde a década de 1990 e outra desde 2000 - telefones celulares, tablets, monitores, notebooks, entre outros equipamentos, e empregam majoritariamente mulheres. A partir do enfoque sobre o processo de trabalho, a pesquisa procurou investigar formas contemporâneas de organização do trabalho (flexíveis ou rígidas) na indústria eletroeletrônica e as condições de trabalho que delas resultam, especialmente para as operárias. Estas condições se produzem em ambiente com flexibilidade interna e externa do processo produtivo que, contudo, manteriam mecanismos rígidos de gestão, como trabalho prescrito, controle sobre o tempo, pausas e cadência e pressão por metas, métodos que predominam nas funções taylorizadas e que costumam, também, ser funções femininas. Assim, foram analisados os critérios e as formas apresentados para a divisão sexual no interior do processo de trabalho em diversos setores das duas fábricas, abordando permanências históricas e mudanças nessa divisão, assim como especificidades sobre o controle e a qualificação do trabalho feminino. Foram investigados, também, elementos da subjetividade e significado social do trabalho para as operárias, bem como práticas sociais que derivam de sua condição de sujeitos sexuados, forjadas em relações sociais de sexo/gênero e classe, nos espaços interno e externo à fábrica. Por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com trabalhadoras/es e dirigentes sindicais representantes das/os trabalhadoras/es das duas empresas, o estudo procurou compreender em que medida as formas de organização produtiva e de divisão sexual do trabalho identificadas na indústria eletroeletrônica influenciam na reprodução das relações sociais de classe e de gênero e/ou nas possibilidades de sua transformação. / The manufacturing flexibility processes together with technological and organizational changes in companies, which have occurred in Brazil under the aegis of the capitalist productive restructuring since 1980 and with special emphasis in 1990, are observed in this study in light of the sexual division of labour issues, taking the electrical & electronic field to be analysed, which has the highest proportion of women in the metallurgical industry. The research is built on the gender-awareness issues as knowledge object in the analysis of the working class, seeking to contribute to the sociology of work with a gendered empirical and theoretical reflection on work, thus justifying the need to recognize the gendered composition of the working class and claiming the inseparability of gender and class dimensions. Based on the sectorial study focused on two transnational electrical & electronic industries of the telecommunication and computer field, whose plots analysed are located in cities in the countryside of São Paulo State, characteristics of labour process were identified and analysed in various productive sectors of the companies. These companies have manufactured in Brazil - one since the 90s and the other since 2000 telephones, cellphones, tablets, monitors, laptops, among other pieces of equipment, and employed mostly women. Focused on the labour process, the research sought to investigate contemporary forms of work organization (flexible or rigid) in the electrical & electronic industry and their resultant working conditions, especially towards the female workers. Such conditions exist in an environment with internal and external flexibility of the productive process. However, these conditions would maintain strict management mechanisms such as predetermined tasks, strict time management, breaks and cadence and pressure to reach targets, methods which prevail in the Taylorized occupations which are often female occupations as well. Thus, the criteria and the forms presented to the sexual division within the labor process were analysed in various sectors of both factories, covering historical continuities and changes in this division, as well as specificities over the control and the qualification of female labour. Elements of subjectivity and the social significance of labour for the female workers were investigated, as well as the social practises that derive from their condition of gendered subjects, generated in social relations of sex/gender and class, in and out of the factory. Through semi-structured interviews with both female and male workers and trade union leaders, representatives of the workers from both companies, the study sought to understand to which extent the forms of productive organization and the sexual division of labour identified in the electrical & electronic industry influence on the reproduction of the social relations of class and gender and / or on the possibility of their transformation.

Os processos de flexibilidade produtiva com transformações tecnológicas e organizacionais nas empresas, que ocorrem no Brasil sob a égide da reestruturação produtiva capitalista desde 1980 e com maior ênfase em 1990, são observados neste estudo à luz da problemática da divisão sexual do trabalho, tomando como campo de análise o segmento de eletroeletrônicos, o qual possui a mais elevada proporção de mulheres da indústria metalúrgica. A pesquisa parte da problemática da visibilização de trabalhadoras como objeto de conhecimento nas análises sobre a classe trabalhadora, procurando oferecer contribuição à sociologia do trabalho a partir de reflexão empírica-teórica gendrada sobre o trabalho, sustentando assim a necessidade do reconhecimento da composição sexuada da classe e reivindicando a indissociabilidade das dimensões classe e gênero. Com base em estudo setorial focado em duas indústrias eletroeletrônicas transnacionais no ramo de telecomunicações e informática, cujas plantas analisadas localizam-se em municípios do interior de São Paulo, foram identificadas e analisadas características do processo de trabalho em diversos setores produtivos das empresas. Essas empresas fabricam no Brasil - uma desde a década de 1990 e outra desde 2000 - telefones celulares, tablets, monitores, notebooks, entre outros equipamentos, e empregam majoritariamente mulheres. A partir do enfoque sobre o processo de trabalho, a pesquisa procurou investigar formas contemporâneas de organização do trabalho (flexíveis ou rígidas) na indústria eletroeletrônica e as condições de trabalho que delas resultam, especialmente para as operárias. Estas condições se produzem em ambiente com flexibilidade interna e externa do processo produtivo que, contudo, manteriam mecanismos rígidos de gestão, como trabalho prescrito, controle sobre o tempo, pausas e cadência e pressão por metas, métodos que predominam nas funções taylorizadas e que costumam, também, ser funções femininas. Assim, foram analisados os critérios e as formas apresentados para a divisão sexual no interior do processo de trabalho em diversos setores das duas fábricas, abordando permanências históricas e mudanças nessa divisão, assim como especificidades sobre o controle e a qualificação do trabalho feminino. Foram investigados, também, elementos da subjetividade e significado social do trabalho para as operárias, bem como práticas sociais que derivam de sua condição de sujeitos sexuados, forjadas em relações sociais de sexo/gênero e classe, nos espaços interno e externo à fábrica. Por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas com trabalhadoras/es e dirigentes sindicais representantes das/os trabalhadoras/es das duas empresas, o estudo procurou compreender em que medida as formas de organização produtiva e de divisão sexual do trabalho identificadas na indústria eletroeletrônica influenciam na reprodução das relações sociais de classe e de gênero e/ou nas possibilidades de sua transformação. / The manufacturing flexibility processes together with technological and organizational changes in companies, which have occurred in Brazil under the aegis of the capitalist productive restructuring since 1980 and with special emphasis in 1990, are observed in this study in light of the sexual division of labour issues, taking the electrical & electronic field to be analysed, which has the highest proportion of women in the metallurgical industry. The research is built on the gender-awareness issues as knowledge object in the analysis of the working class, seeking to contribute to the sociology of work with a gendered empirical and theoretical reflection on work, thus justifying the need to recognize the gendered composition of the working class and claiming the inseparability of gender and class dimensions. Based on the sectorial study focused on two transnational electrical & electronic industries of the telecommunication and computer field, whose plots analysed are located in cities in the countryside of São Paulo State, characteristics of labour process were identified and analysed in various productive sectors of the companies. These companies have manufactured in Brazil - one since the 90s and the other since 2000 telephones, cellphones, tablets, monitors, laptops, among other pieces of equipment, and employed mostly women. Focused on the labour process, the research sought to investigate contemporary forms of work organization (flexible or rigid) in the electrical & electronic industry and their resultant working conditions, especially towards the female workers. Such conditions exist in an environment with internal and external flexibility of the productive process. However, these conditions would maintain strict management mechanisms such as predetermined tasks, strict time management, breaks and cadence and pressure to reach targets, methods which prevail in the Taylorized occupations which are often female occupations as well. Thus, the criteria and the forms presented to the sexual division within the labor process were analysed in various sectors of both factories, covering historical continuities and changes in this division, as well as specificities over the control and the qualification of female labour. Elements of subjectivity and the social significance of labour for the female workers were investigated, as well as the social practises that derive from their condition of gendered subjects, generated in social relations of sex/gender and class, in and out of the factory. Through semi-structured interviews with both female and male workers and trade union leaders, representatives of the workers from both companies, the study sought to understand to which extent the forms of productive organization and the sexual division of labour identified in the electrical & electronic industry influence on the reproduction of the social relations of class and gender and / or on the possibility of their transformation.

Orientador: Ricardo Luiz Coltro Antunes / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-11T21:25:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Villen_Patricia_D.pdf: 3130406 bytes, checksum: 30536681b8a6c654d7a1bd8f0187817d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: O presente estudo tem por objeto o trabalho imigrante no Brasil. A tese demonstra a atual configuração polarizada da imigração no país e as principais tendências manifestadas no trabalho imigrante. Essa perspectiva lança luz sobre os espaços subterrâneos e invisibilizados desse trabalho ¿ ou mesmo longínquos, sobre as águas do mar ¿ simultaneamente apontando as contradições inerentes àqueles eleitos para aparecerem como uma imigração escolhida. Trata-se de um campo de visão que permite discutir as novas bases histórico-sociais da imigração no Brasil, sua alta representatividade de proveniência periférica e as diferentes modalidades de manifestação ¿ via circuito indocumentado, autorização de trabalho para estrangeiros, Mercosul, refúgio, visto humanitário, estudo, casamento, turismo ¿ analisadas em seu conjunto e em sua relação com o trabalho. As dinâmicas relativas à posição periférica do Brasil no mercado mundial e às particularidades de sua formação socioeconômica de base escravista são consideradas para evidenciar o lugar que a força de trabalho do imigrante ocupou nos diferentes momentos históricos do país. Para tanto, duas categorias são adotadas como premissas analíticas do fenômeno da imigração internacional: o trabalho livre e a divisão internacional do trabalho. Ao demonstrar a posição atribuída aos "braços civilizatórios" (trabalhadores imigrantes brancos europeus), problematiza-se o papel historicamente conferido a essa imigração no movimento de modernização dependente do mercado de trabalho brasileiro no passado, bem como a continuidade de suas dinâmicas e efeitos no presente. Essa incursão temporal dialoga com o contexto internacional e oferece elementos para se entender como as modalidades de entrada (imigração documentada e indocumentada) e de trabalho imigrante (com inserção nos estratos altos e naqueles mais precários do mercado de trabalho brasileiro) começam a se manifestar de forma polarizada nos anos 1970 e esse desenho bifurcado da imigração ganha força após a eclosão da crise global (2007). Foram caracterizados os traços gerais dos dois polos da imigração ¿ denominados polo da qualificação-especialização produtiva e polo dos periféricos emergenciais ¿, segundo o ideário, o tratamento legislativo, as vias de entrada no país, os principais setores de inserção no mercado de trabalho brasileiro, a divisão sexual do trabalho, o racismo, as condições de trabalho e de estruturação de vida enfrentadas pelos imigrantes. O estudo mostra como o fato da indocumentação abrange todo o espectro do trabalho imigrante ¿ mesmo aquele com perfil qualificado-especializado ¿, porém atinge sobremaneira os imigrantes representantes do que se denominou periféricos na periferia. A imigração feminina no Brasil também é analisada, bem como o desequilíbrio de gênero nos dois polos da imigração / Abstract: This study analyses the immigrant labour in Brazil. The thesis demonstrates the polarized immigration movements to Brazil and the trends concerning the immigrant labour. This analytical perspective shows the labour that is hidden in underground and invisible spaces - even those far away, over the sea waters -, pointing out the contradictions of the groups elected to appear as a chosen immigration. It allows the discussion of the new historical and social bases of immigration in Brazil, its largest representation from peripheral countries and its different forms - work permits, Mercosul, refugee, humanitarian visa, undocumented circuit, study, marriage, tourism - analysed as a whole and in its relation to labour. The dynamics related to Brazil¿s peripheral position in the world system and the particularities of its social-economic formation on slavery base are considered in order to analyse the place conferred to immigrant labour force during different moments of the country¿s history. Two categories are considered to analyse the international immigration phenomena: free labour and the international division of labour. By demonstrating the position assigned to the "civilizing arms" (European immigrants workers), this study discusses the role of this immigration for the Brazilian labour market¿s "dependent modernization" on the past, as well as its continuous dynamics and effects on the present. This temporal incursion dialogues with the international context and provides elements to understand how the polarized way of entries (documented and undocumented immigration) and immigrant labour (highest and precarious Brazilian labour market strata) emerges in the 1970s and takes force after the beginning of the global crisis (2007). The general characteristics of the two poles of immigration are characterized ¿ productive qualification-specialization pole and emergency-peripherals pole ¿, concerning the ideology, the legal treatment, the entry routes in the country, the main sectors for the insertion in the Brazilian labour Market, the sexual division of labour and and the working conditions faced by immigrants. The researches demonstrate that indocumentation regards all the categories of immigrant labour ¿ even those considered as qualified-specialized ¿, but it touches much more the here named peripherals in the periphery. Women immigration to Brazil are also analysed as well as the gender inequalities in the two poles / Doutorado / Sociologia / Doutora em Sociologia

Após centenas de anos de exploração dos recursos naturais, a Terra começa a mostrar as consequências de seu uso descontrolado. Nas últimas quatro décadas o homem tem voltado seus olhos para a causa ambiental de forma mais intensa e conciliadora. Como resultado dessa nova maneira de pensar, a sociedade e a indústria, que se veem obrigadas a se adaptar às novas tendências de mercado e novas formas de produção. Produzindo melhor e consumindo menos, fecha-se uma cadeia de produção estruturada. Mas, por mais que se invista em tecnologia, um problema sempre existirá: o resíduo, incluindo-se nesta categoria, também os rejeitos produzidos pelas atividades humanas. O tratamento de resíduos é uma questão de difícil solução mesmo à longo prazo. As cooperativas de reciclagem se apresentam como uma nova forma de empreendimento, inserido em moldes mais modernos, baseados nos princípios da Economia Solidária, existente em países da Europa e América Latina, com destaque para o Brasil. É nesse cenário que se encontra o objeto de estudo da pesquisa: a mulher catadora/recicladora. Estatísticas apontam que em muitos estados do país elas chegam a 65% dos trabalhadores. Muitas dessas cooperativas são administradas por mulheres, quando não, frequentadas majoritariamente por elas. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa é analisar como se configuram as relações de gênero e divisão sexual do trabalho, partindo da visão das dirigentes das cooperativas. Questões semiestruturadas, com abordagem qualitativa foram elaboradas e aplicadas à nove líderes de associação de catadores da região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro e do Vale do Paraíba Fluminense (Resende). As entrevistas foram filmadas para a elaboração de um documentário acadêmico, também produto desta pesquisa. Foram encontradas na pesquisa, convergências em relação à divisão sexual do trabalho, partindo de princípios sexistas onde os homens deveriam se encarregar do trabalho mais pesado e as mulheres do trabalho mais fino, como a triagem. No entanto, a realidade apontada pelas entrevistadas nos remete à naturalização do trabalho multitarefa, onde elas se incubem de realizar todos os procedimentos, estando ou não na presença de homens na cooperativa. / After hundreds of years of exploitation of its natural resources, the earth starts to show the consequences of being uncontrollably used. In the last four decades, man has turned his attention to the environment in a more concerned and responsible way. As a result, society and industry are forced to adapt to the new market trends and modes of production. Improved production and reduced consumption are structuring the new production chains. However, in spite of all tecnological advances, there will always be the problem of waste. Disposal of waste presents a challenge in the long term. Recycling co-operative societies, found in many countries in Europe and Latin America, and particularly in Brazil, are enterprises based on the principles of solidarity economics. The object of this research are the women working on such enterprises, the female collector/recycler and her environment. Statistics show that, in many states in Brazil, they may compose up to 65% of workers and often run the co-operatives themselves. The broad goal of this paper is to examine how gender issues, such as divison of labour are perceived by women running the co-operatives. Leading women from several collector co-operatives active in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro and of the Vale do Paraíba region were asked to answer a series of semi-structured questions. Interviews were filmed and edited into a short documentary. Results showed a persistent trend of sexual division of labour where men were responsible for tasks requiring strengh , such as carring heavy loads and women were responsible for tasks requiring concentration and precision, such as sorting out materials. However, there was evidence of a growing tencency of women carrying out all activities, regardless of the presence of men.

Home-based work employing information and communications technologies (telework) is held up in contemporary academic literatures, policy formulations and the popular media as the cure to a panoply of contemporary problems, particularly the difficulties of combining caring responsibilities and careers. This thesis takes up the question of how teleworkers talk about and practise home-based business. It pivots on the exploration of the simultaneity of parenting, partnering and paid work for home-based business people. The 'teleworking tales' of eleven home-based entrepreneurs form the heart of the thesis, as they discuss their negotiation of 'home' and 'work' where the usual temporal and spatial boundaries between these arenas are removed. While previous studies assume that telework is 'family-friendly', most do not investigate the perspectives of other family members on the effect of home-based business on their households and relationships. This thesis speaks into this silence in the literature by contextualising telework within family relations, including as participants the partners, children and child care workers of the eleven home-based businesswomen and men, interviewing thirty people in all. Three strands of analysis regarding discourses of the organisation, domesticity and entrepreneurship were pursued in relation to these 'teleworking tales'. It was found that these 'tales' were told differently by teleworking women and men, the women focusing on the untenable nature of continued organisational employment as women and mothers, while the men established home-based businesses because of declining employment security and redundancy. In the midst of these constituting relations, the discursive injunction to be a 'fit worker' and a 'good parent' had different implications for the women and men; where as the women negotiated home-based entrepreneurship through domesticity, the men navigated their way around domesticity in order to maintain a singular focus on their businesses. The effect of the cross-cutting axes of domesticity and entrepreneurship significantly curtailed the opportunity for teleworking to represent a new crafting of the relationship between 'home' and 'work' as teleworkers negotiated the simultaneous demands their families and businesses made upon them. It was also the case that home-based businesses were a source of pleasure and of productive forms of power which encouraged home-based entrepreneurs to watch over and discipline themselves. The research unfolds as both a warning and a promise with regard to the 'choice' to telework, in terms of what is 'chosen' and how that is 'controlled'. It is particularly a contribution to current debates regarding the complex patterning of gendered and familial practices which continually fragment the freedoms promised by the discourse of entrepreneurship.

Após centenas de anos de exploração dos recursos naturais, a Terra começa a mostrar as consequências de seu uso descontrolado. Nas últimas quatro décadas o homem tem voltado seus olhos para a causa ambiental de forma mais intensa e conciliadora. Como resultado dessa nova maneira de pensar, a sociedade e a indústria, que se veem obrigadas a se adaptar às novas tendências de mercado e novas formas de produção. Produzindo melhor e consumindo menos, fecha-se uma cadeia de produção estruturada. Mas, por mais que se invista em tecnologia, um problema sempre existirá: o resíduo, incluindo-se nesta categoria, também os rejeitos produzidos pelas atividades humanas. O tratamento de resíduos é uma questão de difícil solução mesmo à longo prazo. As cooperativas de reciclagem se apresentam como uma nova forma de empreendimento, inserido em moldes mais modernos, baseados nos princípios da Economia Solidária, existente em países da Europa e América Latina, com destaque para o Brasil. É nesse cenário que se encontra o objeto de estudo da pesquisa: a mulher catadora/recicladora. Estatísticas apontam que em muitos estados do país elas chegam a 65% dos trabalhadores. Muitas dessas cooperativas são administradas por mulheres, quando não, frequentadas majoritariamente por elas. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa é analisar como se configuram as relações de gênero e divisão sexual do trabalho, partindo da visão das dirigentes das cooperativas. Questões semiestruturadas, com abordagem qualitativa foram elaboradas e aplicadas à nove líderes de associação de catadores da região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro e do Vale do Paraíba Fluminense (Resende). As entrevistas foram filmadas para a elaboração de um documentário acadêmico, também produto desta pesquisa. Foram encontradas na pesquisa, convergências em relação à divisão sexual do trabalho, partindo de princípios sexistas onde os homens deveriam se encarregar do trabalho mais pesado e as mulheres do trabalho mais fino, como a triagem. No entanto, a realidade apontada pelas entrevistadas nos remete à naturalização do trabalho multitarefa, onde elas se incubem de realizar todos os procedimentos, estando ou não na presença de homens na cooperativa. / After hundreds of years of exploitation of its natural resources, the earth starts to show the consequences of being uncontrollably used. In the last four decades, man has turned his attention to the environment in a more concerned and responsible way. As a result, society and industry are forced to adapt to the new market trends and modes of production. Improved production and reduced consumption are structuring the new production chains. However, in spite of all tecnological advances, there will always be the problem of waste. Disposal of waste presents a challenge in the long term. Recycling co-operative societies, found in many countries in Europe and Latin America, and particularly in Brazil, are enterprises based on the principles of solidarity economics. The object of this research are the women working on such enterprises, the female collector/recycler and her environment. Statistics show that, in many states in Brazil, they may compose up to 65% of workers and often run the co-operatives themselves. The broad goal of this paper is to examine how gender issues, such as divison of labour are perceived by women running the co-operatives. Leading women from several collector co-operatives active in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro and of the Vale do Paraíba region were asked to answer a series of semi-structured questions. Interviews were filmed and edited into a short documentary. Results showed a persistent trend of sexual division of labour where men were responsible for tasks requiring strengh , such as carring heavy loads and women were responsible for tasks requiring concentration and precision, such as sorting out materials. However, there was evidence of a growing tencency of women carrying out all activities, regardless of the presence of men.

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies / One of the most pressing issues contributing to the persistence of gender inequality is the gendered division of domestic labour. Women still carry out more domestic labour than men. Housework is shared quite unequally among most married couples. Work performed directly in the service of families including housework and childcare is often unacknowledged all over the world because of cultural assumptions that a wife or mother should work in the privacy of the home. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couple negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. This study therefore seeks to discuss numerous variables that impact the division of household labour between men and women. This study suggests that patriarchal power structures seem to take a powerful and effective impact on the South African marriage institution, especially in the black communities. The study was therefore conducted in Schoemansdal village situated in Nkomazi region, Mpumalanga Province. To explore issues behind gender division of labour within households. The study embarked on a qualitative research design to collect and analyze the data. Samples of married men and married women were selected in this study. The findings of the study are as follows: Women do a disproportionate share of the housework, even when the women work and the men don‟t, and even when the women want to share the housework more equally. When men aren‟t working, they don‟t see domestic labour as a means of contributing. In fact, they double down and do less of it, since it challenges their masculinity. But when men earn more, women who are almost all working too, feel obliged to contribute in some way to maintaining the household, generally by cooking and cleaning. / NRF