2.4. What about Gender?
Another possible objection to the commensuration theory of mass consumption is that it ignores gender diferences in work and consumption. At least according to some accounts, in the earlier twentieth century, women formed, in the United States, a majority of consumers (L. Cohen 2003). At the same time, until relatively recently, female participation in the labor force has been significantly lower than male participation. If consumers have predominantly been women, while men have tended to be the breadwinners, that would seem to weaken the connection between consumption and work. For if nonworking female consumers are somewhat removed from the logic of wage-labor exchange, then, arguably, the force of that logic will be attenuated in the sphere of consumption.
This is a complex theoretical and empirical issue. Conceptually, it raises the question of whether, and to what extent, the household should be thought of as a composite of individuals as opposed to a corporate entity. If the household is a corporate entity, such that its members think and act in a collective manner, then the justification of the labor of the household’s wage earners might well inform the consumption behavior of everyone in the household. If, on the other hand, households are composites of individuals, then, to the degree that there is a gendered division of labor that separates work and consumption, the latter will be insulated from the logic according to which the former is justified.
There is some evidence from US history that women, when contributing to the household’s consumption decisions, had in mind issues of fairness and commensurability that were very much connected to wage labor. Women were at the forefront of campaigns for fair prices, as a means of preserving the purchasing power of the wage. They were also key actors in the movement to boycott non-blue-label (that is, non-union-produced) products during the early and middle years of the century (Frank 1994; Glickman 2009). This suggests that women were conscious of notions of fair exchange in consumption that were indeed articulated to conditions of production—whether workers were unionized and getting paid fair wages. And of course, in every period of industrial capitalism, large numbers of women have participated in the labor market, albeit often in part-time or temporary work.
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