ON THE DEVALUATION OF WOMEN'S LABOUR:
HEGEMONIC AND LOCAL IDEOLOGICAL PRACTICES

PAUL SHREENAN
Carleton University

INTRODUCTION

The Atlantic region of Canada has a history of
underdevelopment beginning shortly after confederation and which
continues to the present . The particular form of capitalist
underdevelopment which has occurred in the region is one
characterized by a heavy reliance on the government sector and also
on resource extraction industries like fishing and forestry. The
fishing industry presents a complex of relations between levels of
state regulatory mechanisms , class conflict, and gender inequality.
One particular division, that between inshore and offshore
fishing, is important in this paper. Offshore fishing is carried
out on large vessels (65 feet and over) owned by large fishing and
fish processing companies (e.g., National Sea Products or Fisheries
Products International). Small boat fishers with boats under 45
feet in length pursue inshore fisheries including lobster, herring,
mackerel, cod and other groundfish when conditions permit. They
are versatile, multi-purpose fishers. Small boat fishers operate
out of the household unit of production and comprise the mainstay
of hundreds of small fishing communities on the whole of Canada's
east coast.

In fishing communities, the focus of this paper, women
contribute to the family economy through a variety of productive
strategies including subsistence production, the informal economy
and waged labour (Connelly and MacDonald, 1983:46), yet women's
work has consistently been devalued, undervalued or simply ignored
by both the scholarly and broader community (Porter, 1987:48). It
is in the sphere of domestic labour, both productive and
reproductive, that women's work is most undervalued because it is
not public/visible and because its contribution has been
systematically ignored in terms of the enduring cultural production
surrounding the fishing industry and related sea-going cultures.
In Brunton et al . (1981) we see, for example, an extensive
compilation of song and poetry about the lives of working class
(including fisher) Atlantic Canadians over the past century or
more. Unfortunately, as the authors are well aware, the material
is practically devoid of the presence of women and women's
experience except where they are mentioned in a sexist and
derogatory way. Cultural production, thus, reflects the kinds of
ideological practices which legitimate certain kinds of discourse
and render alternate voices inaudible. In this paper I will be
concerned, mainly, with the question of how the invisibility of

44



much of women's labour and its under-valuation is reproduced
through ideological practices which legitimate female
subordination . I will examine the ways in which three hegemonic
ideological practices (capitalism, liberalism, patriarchy) together
legitimate and reproduce this subordination. Then moving from the
general to the specific I will introduce an exploratory discussion
of a local ideological practice which, though not unheard of in
other industries or regions, has manifestations peculiar to small
boat fishers.

The purpose of this paper is thus modest; to begin to
recognize particular, local forms of knowledge and practice which
articulate with other hegemonic practices hence contributing to the
reproduction of the subordination of women. I offer an analysis of
those ideological practices integral to the reproduction of unequal
gender relations in the Maritimes. In particular the focus is on
the culture in which small boat fisher families are immersed. It
should be stated at the outset that my analysis is an exploratory
discussion of gender relations in Maritime fishing communities
rather than a comprehensive examination. The analytical focus is,
therefore, admittedly theoretical and self-consciously lacking in
detailed empirical material. In addition this discussion should
not be read as an attack on small boat fishers, their communities,
or their ways of surviving. Instead, it is advanced in an effort
to recognize gender inequality in this historically specific
material and cultural context; to begin to explicitly define one
such local ideological practice, what I call the ideological
practice of independence; and to make some tentative suggestions
pertaining to possibilities for social action and social change.

Few studies articulate the actual labour processes of the
women of fisher households in the contemporary context. However,
in an important case study on women of small boat fisher households
in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Clark shows how women's labour is
integral to the overall labour processes of small boat fishing.
In some circumstances, for example, women may represent the fisher
household's interests at the level of political organizing
activities, whether these are formally established or not. This
may entail lobbying at the local level or at other state regulatory
sites. Clark also explains how some women have initiated creative
marketing of the catch through marketing a cookbook which spreads
the knowledge of local seafood cookery. Women, acting as "land
agents" for the household fishing enterprise work to get the best
deal possible for the catch by negotiating with more than one
buyer; they are, in other words, sales agents for the catch.
Fisher women have often stayed in school for significantly longer
than their partners, their reading and writing skills are better
than their partners' thus enabling them to be more effective
managers of particular organizational tasks involved in the
fishery. They have been responsible for the negotiation of loans,
equipment purchases, bills payment, crew payment, repair
arrangements, mortgages, insurance policies and licences (Clark,

45



1988:264-8). Each of these tasks merits close examination in order
to articulate the nitty gritty of household production in the age
of monopoly capitalism.

As already mentioned my goal here is more modest -- to move
toward the recognition of local ideological practices and the
development of a theoretical framework which may assist in this
area of research. To that end the concepts of hegemony and
ideological practice must be introduced.

The concept of hegemony borrowed from Gramsci and developed by
others serves as a corrective to the exclusively class determined
analysis of orthodox Marxists (Mouf f e, 1987 ) . Hegemonic domination
in present day capitalist society, or the way in which capital
establishes and reproduces its rule is not accomplished through
force. Hegemonic rule is always precarious or unstable. Consent
or hegemony is produced and reproduced through the institutions and
practices of civil society as opposed to being solely enforced
through the repressive state apparatus.

The concept of ideological practice is central to the present
analysis; practices are ideological when they legitimate relations
of inequality . As Dorothy Smith points out ideological practices
"are pervasive features of the organization of the juncture between
the relations of ruling and the actualities of people's lives they
organize and govern" ( Smith, 1990 : 43) . These practices make social
relations intelligible to us although they are systematically
selective and incomplete. They tell partial truths, thereby
obfuscating the major contradictions that characterize power
relations. These concepts will be more fully developed below, but
will nevertheless be illuminated here.

What makes certain practices ideological is that they embody
highly selective representations of reality. For example, liberal
philosophy posits free and equal individuals; by doing so it
defines out of existence a vast array of social structural elements
like gender, class, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Furthermore
the philosophy posits that all individuals are equal before the
law; yet when confronted with the reality of the law, individuals
who bring to the court vastly different economic and social
resources predictably get vastly different outcomes. In fact,
given an historically informed theory of social relations it would
indeed be odd if all groups had similar experiences vis a vis the
law

.

Formally equal individuals also freely compete for places in
the world of paid work. If we systematically ignore the above
mentioned structural differences we can look, for example, at the
labour market and assume that any individual is free to take up any
occupation given the proper motivation. The divergence between
ideological practice and reality is readily apparent. We know that
it is neither happenstance, poor individual choices nor biological

46



programming that push and pull women disproportionately into
particular occupations (Armstrong and Armstrong , 1978)

.

HEGEMONIC PRACTICES AMD WOMEN'S SUBORDINATION

In this section I will discuss liberal, capitalist, and
patriarchal ideological practices each of which includes important
constituent relations that contribute to the reproduction of the
subordination of women in general. It is, however, only for
heuristic purposes that I separate these hegemonic practices; in
everyday life they are inextricably intertwined.

Liberalism

Ideological practices make the contradictions between lived
experience and the theory disappear by not addressing them. As a
later example will illustrate in more detail, the pervasive liberal
conception of equality carries a highly specific meaning which is
much narrower than other conceptions of equality. One common
illustration of the breadth in the potential meaning of equality is
posed as the difference between equality of opportunity and
equality of condition. The everyday experience of people often
points up the contradictions between the purpose of ideological
practice and reality, but there remains albeit a limited and
selective "truth" to the practice nevertheless. The liberal
subject is thus formally free and formally equal; these formalisms
are supported by selectively chosen examples (the Fords, Horatio
Alger and other dead white males that are part of the cultural
baggage of the Americas) which are used to illustrate that "anyone
can make it". It is true that these individuals have succeeded;
what is ideological in the use of the examples is that the vast
majority of hard working people do not make it, and cannot, for
structural reasons.

Pervasive though it is, liberalism should be understood as
having developed out of a particular historical conjuncture and as
a result it embodies a set of practices which are historically
specific. So often today analyses utilise a totalizing discourse
which confers an almost transhistorical status to the liberal
status quo. One of the main tenets of liberalism is that all
individuals are equal before the law; this postulate establishes
the grounds for another liberal principal, that of, equality of
opportunity. In our society, however, the belief in not only the
ideal but also the practice of equality of opportunity (and this
practice has some major flaws) has served to both obscure and
legitimate in significant ways inequality of condition. Since
liberal theory posits that all people are free individuals
abstracted from society and history, as it were, anyone can simply
be or do anything one wants given the proper motivation. Women's
oppression in this case may be conceived of as their own fault and
the familiar practice of blaming the victim is reinforced.

47



Liberal feminists contend that women's subordination is
reproduced through traditional (i.e. Non-western and therefore by
definition non-rational or illiberal) values and their concomitant
social structures. This position has certain idealist tendencies
which have important consequences for the kinds of political
strategies or policy goals that are suggested. In her discussion
of liberal feminism (in particular the WID school) , Asoka
Bandarage makes reference to the kinds of social and economic
strategies of this kind of analysis,

Similar to liberal thinkers in the West, WID thinkers
seek this [primarily economic] integration [of women]
through legal measures and changes in attitude. To this
end many conferences, declarations and legislation
including the UN decade for women (1984:498).

There is a problem with these strategies; to the extent that
they spend a great deal of time and energy on the changing of
attitudes they neglect the more fundamental problem of material
conditions. Even legislation, in and of itself, does little to
address this problem as has been seen throughout the world where
women in industrialised liberal democracies who enjoy de jure equal
rights remain marginal in terms of ownership and control of
resources

.

Capitalism

Capitalism is a mode of production which entails a variety of
ideological practices. My discussion of capitalism is very much
tied to the preceding section on liberalism because the two are
inextricably linked historically, as such, in this section I make
frequent reference to both liberalism and capitalism. The point of
departure for critical, gendered analyses of capitalist society is
Engel's treatment of gender inequality in The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State . In this work Engels drew from
notes written by both he and Marx while reflecting on the work of
Lewis Henry Morgan who wrote extensive empirical researches on the
Iroquois in New York (Leacock, 1973:9). While Morgan was
interested in how change occurred in terms of social relations and
ultimately developed a typology of stages of human history
supporting the unilinear evolutionary theory of his day, Engels had
quite a different use for Morgan's empirical data. He used
Morgan's work as a basis upon which to develop a more consistent
and theoretically informed, materialist understanding of the
question of the social change from so-called primitive society
onward. Leacock points out that the issues raised by both Morgan
and Engels remain the concern of many scholars today. Socialist
feminist scholars like Mies (1982;1986) and Eisenstein (1979:43)
acknowledge the importance of many of Engels' insights, but
reformulate his question about the origins of gender inequality in
such a way that it serves to explain the ongoing problem of women's
subordination. That is, they ask how women's subordination is

48



reproduced and attempt to get at questions of reproduction, and the
legitimation of subordination.

In a context of regional underdevelopment, distinct from, but
in many ways similar to, that experienced by women and the broader
working class in the third world, Connelly and MacDonald make the
another important link between capitalism and women's
subordination,

working class households here always required more than
the male wage and [...] women here always contributed to
the family household either by intensifying their
domestic labour in the home, by earning money through an
informal econojny, or by participating in the labour force
and earning a wage themselves (in Porter , 1987 : 47 ) .

Since in many cases women's work has been in the home it has
remained invisible (and was considered private, domestic and non-
productive). When they have gone, or do go, from the household to
sell their labour power women's work has, however, been devalued.
It has become apparent that this enabled capitalists to exploit
women's labour to an even greater extent than has traditionally
been the case with men's. The most important international example
of this is found in the burgeoning maquiladoras of Mexico; however,
the same strategies are in evidence around the world (Elson and
Pearson, 1981:92). In part this is where the practice of
patriarchal relations is important, but this is the focus of an
ensuing section.

In terms of the focus on capitalist production what the above
quotation leaves out is the fact that women contribute directly to
what is generally thought to be their husband's fishing enterprise.
The fact that this is largely ignored may be a result of the
structural invisibility of the woman's contribution to what I and
others argue must be recognized as the household's fishing
enterprise -- not just that of the male fisher (See Klein and
Davis, 1988:31-33). This broader perspective on the fishing
operation, one that is based in the household unit of production,
would be a positive step in challenging the false dichotomy of the
public/private work worlds where one is viewed as productive and
the other is regarded as natural (Mies, 1982:2-3).

In Canada, for example, the public/private split only occurred
with the development of capitalism and eventually with the de facto
privatization of land across the country. Popular knowledge of
this is, however, limited and there seems to be the broad based
perception that the public-male/private-female split has always
been the way social life has been organized. Once the land was
claimed immigrants could no longer go out and enter subsistence
production where men and women living in households worked together
or separately, but almost always from the household (household
production for use-value). They were forced to find work as

49



labour for capitalist enterprises or government inf rastructural
projects which ultimately were built to the great benefit of
capital

.

Several of the characteristics of liberalism were taken up and
utilized in the development of capitalism. One example of the
interconnectedness of capitalism and liberalism is the particular
usage or definition of the concept of equality. Capitalist
practice and its ideological use thus overlaps with liberalism
(they are in agreement). Each shares the ideal of equality, but as
Mina Davis Caulfield points out, the conception of equality which
they share has a culturally specific and consequently a very
limited meaning. Equality,

was inextricable from the concept of individual
achievement in 'free' competition, and never included
(except among socialist theorists) the idea of any kind
of equal sharing of societal products (1981:202-203).

Caulfield elaborates further on how this cultural ideal of
equality (and the widespread belief in this particular definition
of equality as the only possible one) acts to conceal the extreme
inequality inherent in capitalist society. She offers an important
critique of the capitalist definition of equality. What Caulfield
does not bring out is the connection between the capitalist and
liberal definitions of equality. Fundamentally they rely on a
definition of equality which targets equality of opportunity and
not that of condition. Equality of opportunity focuses, as
Caul field makes ,clear , on the freedom of individuals to compete for
unequal rewards'. The individualist emphasis in capitalism is in
many ways an outgrowth of the same emphasis in liberalism which
conceives of individuals as existing prior to, or as Jaggar says,
"in abstraction from" a society. This leads to the faulty
assumption that individuals' needs can be fulfilled without any
real impact on others (1983:29). Another contradiction between
capitalism and liberalism is apparent when we look at the idea
that, in liberal theory, inequality can be eliminated or minimized
through reform. From this conceptualization, liberal theory
legitimates inequality by suggesting that inequality is an
aberration that can be eliminated through education, attitudinal
changes, legal reforms and intervention projects (Bandarage,
1984:499) none of which broach the problem of inequality as a
structural imperative of capitalism (Bandarage, 1984 : 500) . Both
Caulfield and Bandarage bring out important criticisms of liberal
theory and capitalism which illustrate how each established beliefs
and practices which, understood in culturally specific ways, serve
to legitimate the structure of inequality.

Mies points out several major contradictions of capitalism
when she discusses the approach which she advocates (socialist
feminism) in opposition to the dominant, capitalist and patriarchal

50



practices. First she points out the ideological nature of the
dominant definition of work.

It is thus necessary, regarding the concept of the
productivity of labour, to reject its narrow definition
and to show that labour can only be productive in the
sense of producing surplus value as long as it can tap,
extract, exploit, and appropriate labour which is spent
in the production of life or subsistence production which
is largely non-wage labour done by women (Mies, 1982:3).

What Mies argues here and elsewhere is that traditionally
defined "women's work" is the fundamental precondition of all other
work including that involved in capital accumulation. Women, then,
can be conceived of as productive and exploited even though they
appear external to the direct processes of capital accumulation.
In fact they are not external, but are intimately connected to the
system through their labour. To the extent that women's work is
considered private and nonproductive their subordination under
capitalism is reproduced through a systematic ignorance of the
material base of the actual system; it therefore becomes, as Mies
points out, "a mystification" (1982:4) which legitimates women's
subordination, thus the practice is ideological.

Classical or orthodox Marxist accounts of productive work also
offer little room for analyses of work which does not take place
under the classical capitalist relations of production: where
surplus value is directly extracted from the labour of the
dispossessed worker. Other forms of work which do not directly
produce surplus value as a result fail to pass the test of the
definition of "productivity". As has been pointed out this is
often the bulk of the work done by women. The effect of defining
work in this way is important in terms of reproducing the
subordination of women because it reinforces the widespread
dualistic notion of private and public work stratified by gender.
There are those who argue that the underlying use of dualisms
(i.e., as in the work of Levi-Strauss) is itself a product of male
modes of analysis (Daly , 1978: 11) . However, the use of dualisms
often relies on naturalistic explanations of gender differences
which see, for example, the family and women's traditional role
within it as products of biological differences and therefore their
legitimation relies on a functional analysis of nature shaping the
human social order (Barrett ,1985 : 199)

.

The Ideological Practice of Patriarchy

In the broadest terms, patriarchal ideological practices may
be defined as social relations in which women tend to exist in an
unequal and subordinate power relation vis a vis men. In
explaining patriarchal relations the view that male dominance is
biologically determined is widespread among both anti-feminists and
feminists. Anti-feminists see women's subordination (although they

51



would not call it that) as designed by nature; therefore; it cannot
even be conceived as oppressive ( Jaggar , 1983 : 88-89) . Anti-
feminists often adopt a scientific discourse to explain women's
inequality as natural. In Gough's analysis she unmasks the
implications of such naturalistic, and biologically determinist,
theories

;

A "scientific" argument which states that all such
features of female inferiority are instinctual is a
powerful weapon in maintaining the traditional family
with male dominance (Gough, 1975:58).

Gough is critical of anthropologists who attempt to establish
a scientific basis for a theory of gender inequality in humans;
however, the critique works equally well when applied to capitalism
because it is under capitalism that the rational, scientific model
heavily influenced by the ideological practice of patriarchy, has
been largely developed and tested.

Radical feminists like Firestone (1970) and Brownmiller (1976)
also consider biology to be the determining factor in their own
analyses of, for example, the division of labour by sex and rape
respectively. A variety of criticisms have been levelled at
analyses which favour biological determinism. Among the most
problematic assumptions made by those who accept biological
determinism is the fact that such a position makes social change
highly unlikely if not impossible because of the "fact" of this
biological or natural inequality.

In her discussion of the lacemakers of Narsapur, Maria Mies
shows how the system of capitalist production built upon previously
existing patriarchal practices and beliefs to transform the lives
of the Kapus , a peasant agricultural caste, and some Christian
women. As the industry developed women became segregated in the
production jobs while men captured the jobs of agents -- which gave
them access to the actual site where the value of the women's
labour was realized. In this way the women's labour was exploited.
The reason that was given for women's exclusion from the activity
of agent was that they were not mobile enough since, among other
things, they could not ride bicycles due to local social traditions
(1982:10). Such beliefs about what is socially acceptable are
effective ideological and material barriers to women's
emancipation,

The tenacity with which women cling to these oppressive
[patriarchal] norms, because they are symbols of a bygone
higher status ... is the ideological and psychological
base on which a new phase of exploitation can be built
(Mies, 1982:13).

Similar methods of social control and gender oppression are
evident in the fisher society of Atlantic Canada. One researcher

52



relates how women in the fishing communities of Newfoundland
formerly had a higher status because their work was more directly
related to production,

The older women are guided by the past in much the same
way as the men, and they too defer to the identity of
"fisherman" ... Their role as fishermen's wives has
vanished. Not only are there no fish to be dried on
flakes [drying racks], but virtually all other aspects of
their past lives have gone as well (Porter, 1988:175).

The tendency to want a return to the old norms which guided
life is evident as Porter indicates. We must recognize, however,
that such practices offer hierarchical, gender inegalitarian based
definitions of women and men. For example, the idea that the man
is the head of the household in fisher society, as in India,
legitimates such things as the knowledge that women's sphere of
activity is in the house, and more broadly, it can legitimate the
unequal gender division of labour. Finally, it is in evident that
material interests underlie these ideological practices.

Although Porter makes useful reference to the desire to
maintain the norms of a bygone era, I think she over-states the
case when she says that "virtually all other aspects of their lives
have gone as well". In the past women's labour may have been more
visibly a part of the fisher household's production . In contrast
to Porter what I am emphasizing here is the extent to which women's
labour remains an indispensable, albeit ignored, component of
contemporary household production. Women in small boat fisher
households are not left with nothing to do, rather with the
concentration on production for exchange-value, women's labour
(connected to the household's fishery activities) has become less
visible, but it has not ended.

To expand on this, I would suggest that the development of
capitalism has distorted the labour processes of women such that
the content of their labour has changed, but not necessarily the
amount. They have in some cases been left with a much less public
role within the family of the fishing household; for example, most
fish processing is now done in specialized processing plants --
that job, as a productive household or community -based activity, is
no longer available. Since processing work is almost always
seasonal women's public exposure through this sort of work changes
accordingly. The point here is that while the demands of
capitalism have changed the process of production immensely, it has
left women in a less powerful position, but not a less integral
one.

53



Southwest Nova Scotia's "Independent" Small Boat Fishers: Culture
and Class in a Harsh Environment

In this section I will examine another ideological practice
which helps to legitimate and reproduce the subordination of women
in various parts of the Atlantic Provinces. The sub-region of
southwest Nova Scotia is of interest here as a kind of precursory
case study. The dominant ideological practice in southwest Nova
Scotia, especially prevalent in the powerful fishing community
(fishers, processors and suppliers inclusive), comprises a brand of
laissez-faire capitalist and petty bourgeois production (Clement,
1986). This practice is distinctly free enterprise in relation to
the rest of the province and the region. In practice however, even
southwest Nova Scotia's fishers analyze the system based on their
own constellation of interests and objectives. Like other groups
they selectively reject laissez-faire policies when it is in their
interests to do so. In instances where fishers have felt
threatened by a particular group or perhaps a state policy they
have mobilized in order to circumvent the strictly laissez-faire
operation of the market. Special social programs represent the
most obvious state interventions taken at the behest of fishers;
examples include, special loans for vessel replacement and
unemployment insurance considerations, but virtually all state
policies affect the market in some way. Under such circumstances
fisher families, like many other actors in the economy, are often
unwilling participants in a hegemonic practice, namely capitalism
and they attempt to make the best of their situation -- sometimes
successfully, sometimes not.

As explained earlier, small boat fishing tends to be gender
stratified activity with men tending to do the fishing and women
being involved in a variety of on-shore labour processes.
Typically, a male fisher has formal ownership of the boat and crews
are made up of family members whenever possible. Otherwise close
friends or neighbours crew boats on a share of the catch basis
(Clement, 1986:27,29,32; Brym and Sacouman, 1979). In his
discussion of some of the contradictions between fishers' view of
their work and the reality of their work, Davis clearly gives his
analysis of the contribution that the fishing labour process makes
toward the fisher's ideological practice of independence,

Fishing boats and gear are formally the property of their
users. The units of production are self-contained small-
scale and individually operationalized in an often risky
environment. All of the work tasks in each unit of
production are generally completed by its crew members.
Fishing incomes are solely derived from the production
strategies and the expenditures of each unit of
production. In short, small boat fishing is in many ways
characterized by the independence and the individuality
of each crew. Moreover, attributes of production
strategies lend a sense of inter-boat competition to some

54



of the activities, e.g., lobster fishing. The
fishermen's ideology of self reliance and rugged
individualism is in these ways reflective of aspects of
their real experiences (1984:435).

Fishers clearly have a material basis for the ideological
practice of individualism and "independence". However, it has been
constructed on a highly selective basis. The influence of
patriarchal practice is evident in Davis' quotation in that the
work task description has excluded virtually all work that does not
take place at sea. Again, in the highly gender stratified society
of the fishing communities this, by definition, excludes most, if
not all, of the work women do. By ignoring the contribution of
women the ideological practice of independence is reproduced along
with women's subordination. The labour process, as just outlined,
is one characterized in some instances by autonomy or "self-
dependence", but not independence. It is true that fishers decide
when, how, where, and how hard to work. They do not make, however,
these "autonomous" decisions as though they were extracted from the
exigencies of daily survival as fishers or as members of households
-- outside forces affect their decisions and these include the need
to turn a profit which in practice translates into catching enough
fish, and selling it, at the going rate of fish per kilogram or
tonne to reproduce the enterprise. Women's role in affecting the
decisions that fishers make have also traditionally been ignored by
scholars (Porter, 1987:45) as well as by the state and capital.

At the level of the market where oligoponistic and
paternalistic relations abound (Kearney, 1983) between fishers
(sellers) and merchants (buyers/processors) the ideological
practice of independence ceases to function. In that context the
bases of the fisher's sense of independence, the product of their
labour, and the romantic, idealist notions of fisher "independence"
produced in patriarchal culture and folklore are unmasked before
the harsh material forces of market exchange. The glorification of
the male culture of fishers is an important part of the ideological
practice in the Maritimes where the male culture is often
characterized as engaged in a taming the natural "she-world".

The peculiar strain of the ideological practice characteristic
of southwest Nova Scotia, with its perhaps more adamant than
average free enterprise position, is more completely understood
when we also consider the cultural ties or the historical linkages
between the area and New England. The local adherence to the
individualism of laissez-faire capitalism is, in effect, a function
of these two primary influences -- the material base of fishers at
the level of labour process and the New England connection. New
England's historical economic and cultural \ideological domination
of southwest Nova Scotia established conditions which clearly
fostered a cultural climate amenable to their free enterprise
practice.

55



In the market exchange the unequal and antagonistic nature of
relations (fishers dependent on a few buyers for the purchase of
their catch) is de-emphasized in the local culture; instead,
paternalistic relations between them often legitimate these
inequalities in conjunction H^-th the hegemonic ideological
practices: capital ism/ 1 iberalism. Fishers are relevant here in
two particular respects. First, fishers' labour is commodified in
the fish that is caught, consequently when they sell their fish
they are actually, at some level, selling their labour power. In
the same labour process women's organizational labour is also
commodified in the fish which is caught; this is so because their
labour is socially necessary. Socially necessary labour or
abstract labour, as opposed to individual labour in any given firm,
is defined in terms of units of time and entails "the labour time
required to produce any use-value under the conditions of
production normal for a given society" (Marx, 1986:46-47). We also
know that Marx and many others regard certain practices as
productive which at first glance do not seem to be. Consider, for
example, the case of manufacturing. Actual manufacturing is
proceeded by organizational labour processes in which raw materials
must be purchased, the labour that goes into this is thus socially
necessary, as is women's organizational labour in the fisher
household. Furthermore the distribution of the product is regarded
as productive. So too I would argue is organizational labour in
fishing which is broader than the simple labour process of casting
nets or laying traps and later pulling them in. Nevertheless, the
value of a commodity appears only as the exchange ratio between the
commodity in question and the money commodity in a particular
exchange and at the time of sale the social relations which
produced the commodity are not readily apparent, except to the
producer. In this way women's labour is obscured through a form of
commodity fetishism. That is, the sales transaction is allowed to
reify relations between commodities, while relations between
producers and buyers are conceptualized as free transactions
uncumbered by enduring social relations of either a classed or
gendered character.

Secondly, because of the oligoponistic nature of the fish
markets, which are inextricably linked to and are part of the
capitalist system, "freedom" is limited to such an extent that it
is equated with coercion, i.e., sell on the oligoponistic market,
even if you are not being paid the real value for your fish, or get
out of the industry. The fisher, and for that matter the entire
household, is in a position similar to that of any other worker
under capitalism. They are freely compel led to sell their labour
(commodified in the fish they catch) or not sell it and take no
income

.

One other important characteristic of the ideological practice
of independence is the underlying misogyny which structures the
gendered division of labour. For a variety of local cultural
reasons women rarely take part in the fishing (Porter, 1988:170;

56



Davis, 1984). Several instances of this are noted in Faris
(1972:73). For example, women may not be permitted to set foot on
the boat for fear of "polluting" the vessel for the day. Such
social prohibitions additionally serve to perpetuate women's
devalued and subordinated status within the household by clearly
situating the means of production in the hands of the male. The
fact that women's contribution to their household's fishing
enterprise is minimized or ignored completely is, as I have argued,
partly a manifestation of the hegemonic ideological practices
discussed in the first section and also the local fisher variant.
There is relatively little work done on what I have termed here the
"ideological practice of independence" specific to Atlantic
fishers. One of its most striking facets is the exclusion of women
from its analysis and the lack of attention to women's work which
contributes directly to the fishing enterprise of the household.
It is slowly becoming recognized that, historically, women's labour
was important in the mercantilist (or salt-cod) era of fishing.
Ellen Antler wrote an important piece on women's historical, though
often hidden contribution, to production in the Newfoundland
fisheries as well as producing a wide variety of use values for
subsistence. In it she estimated,

that the process of drying fish added $2400 (1950 values)
to the value of the seasons catch in Labrador, and $1500-
2000 (1969 values) in Conception Bay. In all Antler
suggested women contribute around 35% of the family
income in direct, measurable economic values
(Porter;1987:45)

.

Equally important as Porter indicates is the fact that
Antler's analysis finally made visible the economic activity of
rural women which, to that point, had been ignored by male
analysts. However recognizing past sins is easier than admitting
those of the present. Nevertheless recognition is slowly emerging
as to the extent of the contribution to the fisher household by
women today (Connelly and MacDonald, 1990).

Since there is little research that deals specifically with
the issue of women's labour in fishing, empirical evidence of their
participation is difficult to locate. My own research points to
some trends already mentioned. During field work in the summer of
1989 I was able to discuss with a lobster fisher, albeit
superficially, the question of the household as a unit of
production and the gendered division of labour that existed
therein. In this discussion, the male fisher while admitting that
his spouse's labour was important attempted to minimize it by
making light of it:

PS: When you do your income tax or your inventory of how much
you've spent on equipment ... does your wife do that?

57



Fisher: Oh yeah she does it ... in fact she gets paid year round
for doing it ... she gets to live with me.
(Southwest Nova Scotia Interviews, June 23, 1989).

The underlying relations of ruling are made apparent and the
ideological practice of independence is shown to be in effect even
at the level of casual conversation. Unfortunately what barely
gets recognized in the informal context of casual conversation is
ever more difficult to recognize and legitimate in public
discourse

.

Subsistence activities were undertaken by each partner during
other times of the year, but during the fishing season both
partners, not only the male, contributed to the fishing enterprise.
The woman I spoke with did what she modestly called "book-keeping"
and was therefore instrumental in terms of budgeting, maintenance
decisions, crew payment and outfitting (i.e. equipment purchasing).
The problem of recognition, however, requires discussion in a
theoretical light which will make visible that which much past
theoretical and empirical work made invisible. Additional
fieldwork is planned to explore this.

Women's labour is commodified in the fish they make it
possible to catch. What I attempt to highlight is the diversity of
labour processes which are included in the term "domestic labour";
and the way in which this term slides women's decidedly productive
labour into the category of unproductive or domestic labour.
Through this I attempt to problematize fisher women's productive
and reproductive labour and sketch the kinds of considerations that
must inform a fully developed analysis. The requirement therefore
is to begin to recognize and value women's decidedly productive
labour and to formally differentiate it from other domestic labour
while at the same time attempting to change the fact of women's
sole responsibility for domestic labour. In terms of the
ideological practice of independence, the women of fisher
households are caught in a difficult position. Their unpaid work
is not recognized as contributing to fishing and as long as their
work is not recognized as productive they remain subordinate in the
household unit of production.

CONCLUSION

At the level of praxis, women are developing strategies which
may begin to break down the exploitative elements of the
ideological practice of independence. One such strategy would be
to take an active part in gaining recognition of their work. This
might be done at the individual level by encouraging more women to
go to the dock side to be part of the fish sales process. In this
way women would be part of the process in which the value of the
catch is realized; their contribution would be concretized. I
think this might be a significant material change in circumstances.
It would perhaps change the woman's role from that of isolated,

58



powerless and dependent worker in the household domain to that of
equal partner/actor in the realization of the household's material
well-being. Initially such a transformation would have to be
negotiated at the level of the individual . Notwithstanding some
imminent structural transformation in both gender and class
relations it seems to me to merit some consideration. This
practice of course has been happening in some areas (Clark,
1988:267) and it has an admittedly double-edged characteristic.
While it would help to concretize the labour of the women it adds
yet another task to women's already double-burdening responsibility
for reproductive labour in the home. Another facet of this
strategy would have to include a redistribution of reproductive
domestic labour -- not an easy challenge.

As in the Gloucester example, women may establish their own
organization where they could act at a political level in their own
and their household's interests. Another possible strategy might
be for women to struggle for a place within the local fisher's
associations or the Maritime Fishermen's Union (MFU). At present
the MFU only allows certain types of fishers in the union and all
of them actually have to be "doing fishing"; however, some other
fishing unions encompass both "shore/plant" and "at sea" workers
(e.g., NFFAWU -- Newfoundland Fisherman, Food and Allied Workers
Union). If this approach were adopted the union would have a
greatly expanded membership. On the other hand it would have to
begin to address the very real issue of women's subordination in
fisher households.

59



Endnotes

1. Thanks are due to Jared Keil and Mary-Anne Kandrack for
comments on early and later drafts respectively.

2. For a variety of positions discussing the meaning of
underdevelopment in Atlantic Canada see Brym and Sacouman, 1979.

3. Things ideological here are defined in a way that has been
termed critical by Thompson who points out that ideology "is
essentially linked to the process of sustaining asymmetrical
relations of power - that is the process of maintaining domination"
(1984:4).

4. Dorothy Smith (1990) calls these "relations of ruling" and
others have different names for such relations. See Armstrong and
Armstrong (1990); Thompson (1984).

5. Women in Development (WID) .

6. Jaggar (1983:62) points out the contradiction inherent in the
liberal focus on equality of opportunity; equal opportunity to
compete for unequal rewards is impossible to achieve as long as
rewards are conspicuously unequal.

7. Initial fish processing work used to be organized and
controlled by women in a community based labour process.

8. Although the capitalist mode of production and its many
underlying practices derived from the practice of the theory of
liberalism this is not to say that the two are, in fact,
unproblematical ly compatible. See for example Mcpherson on the
contradictions between capitalism and democracy. In practice
liberalism has clearly served as a legitimating force for
capitalism.

9. As noted in a previous example Mies gives of the prohibitions
that certain women should not ride bicycles.

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