Gender Injustice: An International Comparative Analysis of Equality in Employment.

Vol. 15 No.5 (May 2005), pp.395-398

GENDER INJUSTICE: AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARARIVE ANALYSIS OF EQUALITY IN EMPLOYMENT, by Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 306pp. Hardback. $114.95 / £60.00. ISBN: 9-780754-623779.

Reviewed by Thomas Shevory, Department of Politics, Ithaca College. Email: shevory@ithaca.edu .

In GENDER INJUSTICE, Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter has taken on a formidable task, to give a truly international survey and analysis of global gender issues related to employment. To my knowledge, no one else has undertaken such a comprehensive look at gender equity issues globally, and for attempting to do so, Cotter deserves a great deal of credit. The book is exceptionally well-organized and clearly written. Cotter is a practicing lawyer, and her commitments to careful legal analysis are clear throughout the text.

The two opening chapters are designed to give the reader a sense of some key background concepts and issues related to gender inequality and employment, and to introduce aspects of feminist theory. In the introductory chapter, Cotter carefully details multiple gender inequalities that exist globally with special attention to employment differentials. As one might expect, Cotter finds a mixed response globally to these inequalities. On the one hand, “women’s participation in remunerated work in the formal and non-formal labor market has increased,” and “women have become increasingly involved in micro, small and medium sized enterprises.” Still, while employment options for women have expanded, a persistent wage gap has remained (p.11). In fact, gender discrimination “across the board” exists in terms of education, hiring and compensation, promotion, mobility, and inadequate sharing of family responsibilities (p.11). In short, “there are vast differences in women’s and men’s access to and opportunities to exert power over economic structures in society” (p.10). Feminist theory in its multiple forms reveals that these disparities arise from historically constructed dichotomies that are still often conceived of as “natural.”

Chapter Three provides a meticulously developed discussion of international legal conventions in terms of their treatment of gender equity issues. Cotter considers of variety of international treaties, some very well known, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Charter of the United Nations, and the Beijing Declaration, and others less so, such as the Equal Remuneration Convention, and the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention. There are general statements of equality in the United Nations charter, as well as specific statements, such as Article 55, which commits the UN to promoting, “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion (p.44). The most comprehensive international [*396] convention regarding gender equality in employment is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Sometimes labeled the “International Bill of Rights for Women,” parties to it “are required to end all forms of discrimination against women and to ensure their equality with men in political and public life with regard to nationality, education, employment, health and economic and social benefits” (p.53). From Cotter’s discussion of these various treaties, conventions, and covenants, it becomes clear that there is widespread formal protection from gender discrimination at the international level. In some cases, such as with the U.S., international protections are more explicit and specific than national ones.

The remainder of the book is constituted by sets of case studies. These are regionally focused with specific attention to particular national contexts: Australia and New Zealand (Chapter 4), Africa and South Africa (Chapter 5), Canada, Mexico, and the United States (Chapter 6), The United Kingdom and Ireland (Chapter 8), and the European Union (Chapter 9). Cotter also has an extended discussion of the gender implications of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Chapter 7).

From Cotter’s consideration of national and regional approaches to these matters, it is possible to learn a great deal. Each chapter is organized along somewhat the same lines. Each starts with a demographic overview involving a comparison of men and women in terms of such attributes as proportion of the population, kinds of employment practiced, fertility rates, divorce rates, education levels attained, and so forth. These provide a good benchmark against which to consider the legislative discussions that follow. They also provide a basis for comparing across national and regional systems in terms of their legal approach to gender equity in employment. Although Cotter does not engage in a great deal of cross-national/cross-regional comparison, she provides some tools by which others could begin to do so.

While it is somewhat difficult for me to assess Cotter’s discussions of national and international systems, given that I am not an expert in international law, I can say, based upon my fairly extensive knowledge of the American legal system, that she does an exceptionally good job of concisely summarizing the legal and constitutional aspects of gender discrimination in the U.S. She provides good summaries of important constitutional law cases, and she provides an excellent discussion of the problems confronting those seeking redress from gender-based employment discrimination. These include the difficulties of showing “intent” to discriminate, that seem to be firmly ensconced in American civil rights law, and of the problems more generally of relying upon the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. While “heightened scrutiny” exists in U.S. constitutional law for gender discrimination, it is, as she notes, “important to understand that the intermediate level of scrutiny, used for gender discrimination cases, is a lower burden than the one used for fundamental rights or suspect classifications, which requires an overwhelming and compelling state interest to contravene a right” (p.165). [*397]

I found the chapter on the North American Free Trade Agreement to be especially interesting. For one thing, it is refreshing to read a Canadian view of the NAFTA Treaty. The chapter provides a concise history of trade relations between the U.S. and Canada. The main theme is that Canadians have, for a very long time, attempted to maintain a sense of national identity and control over social and economic life in the face of the significant economic and political pressures that are generated from the U.S. Cotter gives an exceptionally even-handed analysis of the impact on NAFTA, systematically laying out the arguments both for and against in very lawyerlike fashion. A certain sense of antipathy does seem to seep through at various points, however, especially towards the end of the chapter where she considers gender equity issues. NAFTA, at least in formal terms, provides important protections for labor, although equal protection related to gender does not seem to be formally protected. (In the case of NAFTA, formal protections offer little if anything in terms actual protections for workers.) For Cotter, the primary gender issue arises from structural responses to free trade. Many jobs that have left and will leave Canada in the “search for the bottom,” are service sector jobs, jobs which have been crucial for women’s entry into and demands for equity in the workforce. As she notes, “Women and the types of jobs they occupy are especially vulnerable to free trade. Over 60 per cent of women work in the sectors of manufacturing, textiles, clothing, food processing, electrical, and leather products. . . There has been a major job loss by sourcing services outside Canada” (p.199). In the chapter on NAFTA, as with other chapters, Cotter is excellent at uncovering relationships between economic structure and gender inequity.

The strength of this book lies in the presentation of factual data and discussion of the formal rules related to gender equity in employment in diverse international contexts. There is a richness of information from multiple sources that make the book an incredibly good reference for anyone seeking to investigate the international and national mechanisms by which gender equality has been infused into law. In one sense, this book might even be considered as a reference book, given its emphasis on the factual and the formal. My guess is that lawyers internationally with an interest in employment discrimination cases would find GENDER INEQUALITY to be an especially useful resource.

A corresponding weakness of the book, perhaps primarily from the perspective of political scientists, is its focus on law as a set of formal rules. There is not a great deal of discussion of the political forces behind the adoption and implementation of the legislation that Cotter so carefully tracks. An important subtext of the book (but a theme that remains a subtext) is that formal legal commitments to gender equality in employment have become ever more advanced, but the actual disparities that exist in terms of wages earned and positions held have not correspondingly diminished. In virtually all of the contexts discussed by Cotter there are important legal protections against gender discrimination in employment, yet in each place disparities have decreased modestly. I would argue that politics occurs in this gap between the [*398] legal rules and the actual social practices. This is where power often manifests itself, and where it encounters resistance.

In my view, it is unfair for a critic to ask an author to write a different book than the one actually written, and I appreciate that this particular volume is packed with much that is useful and important. Perhaps it could provide a basis for other scholars to engage in a more political-oriented analysis. The book certainly points the way towards the kinds of comparative analysis of gender inequality that are sorely needed.

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