This critical feminist scholarship utilizes Social Reproduction Theory (SRT), a Marxist Feminist theory, to explore the connection between social reproduction and higher education labor. Given capitalism’s quest for accumulation, the neoliberal university is an interesting reproductive site to consider labor exploitation. Social Reproduction Theory reveals the ways women are exploited in their homes as uncompensated providers of gendered care work. Utilizing a post-intentional phenomenology (PIP) methodology, this study invited 11 HEI staff members into conversation to not only explore the phenomenon of interest—gendered labor exploitation—but to also answer the call for additional scholarship concerning an often overlooked yet critical population of higher education workers—staff members. Because it is a site of reproduction, the academy is an excellent venue for political engagement and disruption of the phenomenon.
Findings from this PIP study revealed the insidious ways gendered labor exploitation manifests in two separate but connected sites: the home and the workplace. Women, who are socialized as caregivers to maintain social reproduction in the home, find themselves acting as caregivers in administrative assistant roles within R1 higher education institutions. Meanwhile, various employment structures within the workplace (e.g., insufficient wages, workweek structure, job classifications, institutional hierarchies) hinder women’s ability to perform necessary social reproduction in their unique and varied family formations and home configurations. Under the system of capitalism, social reproduction work remains necessary (i.e., the worker must be maintained), yet it is also unvalued. As such, women find themselves under-compensated providing gendered caretaking work in their employment within academia before heading home to complete entirely uncompensated/unvalued labor in their home. With the overt feminist and PIP intention to address social change, individual, higher education institutions, and societal implications are provided. Additionally, several opportunities for future research are provided for those inspired to address gendered labor exploitation within and outside of the academy.
Findings from this PIP study revealed the insidious ways gendered labor exploitation manifests in two separate but connected sites: the home and the workplace. Women, who are socialized as caregivers to maintain social reproduction in the home, find themselves acting as caregivers in administrative assistant roles within R1 higher education institutions. Meanwhile, various employment structures within the workplace (e.g., insufficient wages, workweek structure, job classifications, institutional hierarchies) hinder women’s ability to perform necessary social reproduction in their unique and varied family formations and home configurations. Under the system of capitalism, social reproduction work remains necessary (i.e., the worker must be maintained), yet it is also unvalued. As such, women find themselves under-compensated providing gendered caretaking work in their employment within academia before heading home to complete entirely uncompensated/unvalued labor in their home. With the overt feminist and PIP intention to address social change, individual, higher education institutions, and societal implications are provided. Additionally, several opportunities for future research are provided for those inspired to address gendered labor exploitation within and outside of the academy.