Being a Member of Two Social Groups ≠ Being an Individual

In this blog post, I want to lay out Anderson’s presentation of the case study of women and her proposed solution to improve the unequal share in the benefits of marriage women receive. I seek to critically examine Anderson’s solution, especially as it relates to the distinction between identifying as an individual and identifying as a member of a group. 

Anderson points to the fact that wives’ performance of the majority of domestic labor enables husbands’ production of household income. In this way, the income earned by husbands, who are able to pursue employment outside the household, is really the product of the joint production of the married couple. This is because, had the wife not performed domestic tasks, the husband would have had to spend some of his time doing these tasks, and would have been unable to devote the same amount of time to his employment outside the household. Despite the fact that husbands’ earned income is the product of the married couple’s joint production, husbands and wives do not share equally in the benefit derived from this income. 

According to Anderson, this unequal distribution of benefits is for several reasons. First, women have more to lose if the marriage were terminated, and this unequal reliance on the marriage diminishes wives’ bargaining power. Second, wives self-perceive as members of groups rather than as individuals, so they act in the interest of the family units instead of in their self-interests. Third, women accept social norms and notions of desert that convince them that they “should not act like a hard bargainer” (35) and that they do not deserve a more equal share of household benefits due to the perceived lower value of domestic labor in comparison to labor outside the household. 

According to Anderson, bargaining theory can offer a solution to these problems: women should seek employment outside of the home. Anderson gives two reasons why this might be an appropriate solution. First, employment would reduce how much wives would lose in the case of the marriage ending, and this would eliminate the unequal reliance on the marriage that diminishes women’s bargaining power. I agree with Anderson that employment outside the household would give women more equal bargaining power in discussions about the distribution of benefits in the marriage. Second, according to Anderson, employment gives women the opportunity to acquire a new identity beyond belonging to the family unit. Employment gives women the opportunity to identify as workers in a corporation. According to Anderson, gaining this new identity may help women seek “yet another identity…the identity of an individual self” (35). 

Why does Anderson think employment will make women seek out identities as individuals? The vast majority of women who gain employment outside the household work for corporations rather than being self-employed or starting their own enterprises. Working for a corporation does not foster individuality or a sense of self. Rather, the incentives that influence workers in corporations encourage workers to devote themselves to company goals and perceive themselves as members of the company as a social group and at least temporarily set aside their individual interests. The addition of membership in a second social group would likely reinforce the pre-existing tendency in women to perceive themselves merely as members of groups rather than individuals. 

Anderson claims that individuality “emerges out of a certain kind of social order” (36), one that includes multiple social groups. However, if each social group contains incentives that motivate women to prioritize group goals, why would the addition of new social groups cause women to develop individual interests? Anecdotally, as a college student, I feel that the more organizations I join and the more group interests I must pursue, the less time I have to pursue my own individual interests. Intuitively, I think the same must be true for women who feel defined by their role in domestic life. Giving these women new sets of group interests to pursue would likely further diminish their senses of self. 

Perhaps Anderson could avoid this criticism about individuality by advocating for women to gain employment outside the household through self-employment or individual enterprise. However, this would jeopardize the first reason why employment outside the household is beneficial, the opportunity to gain income independently of the husband and the implications of this opportunity on bargaining power. Self-employment and individual enterprise are far riskier financial endeavors than gaining employment with a corporation, so pursuing these avenues might not really increase wives’ bargaining power.