UW-Madison sociology professor Jane Collins took a new look at the 2011 Wisconsin protests when she kicked off the gender and women’s studies department Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series Thursday, presenting her findings on gender and racial inequality within the public sector.
With domestic duties largely falling on women and minority groups throughout history, Collins said people tend to typecast public service duties to the oppressed, leading to issues of sexism and racism. She added the government has historically described public workers, unions and public services with stereotypes like “lazy” and “dependent.”
Collins recalled her firsthand perspective of these issues during the 2011 protests at the state Capitol. She said part of what was happening was a conflict of social reproduction labor, or how inequality is passed from one generation to the next based on jobs.
Public work, like teaching, is considered social reproduction labor, equivalent to domestic labor for society, Collins said.
Madeleine Pape, a UW-Madison sociology graduate student, said she appreciated hearing Collins’ new perspective on old issues.
“I work with sociology of gender and wasn’t familiar with Jane’s work. I loved [the talk],” Pape said. “It opened up a theoretical puzzle, taking theories and thinking about them in a new light.”
Collins invited the audience to discuss what they thought of her talk and theories, and whether they disentangle social reproduction services from race and gender. With audience interaction, Collins heard from fellow educators’ and students’ thoughts.
Having recently moved from New York to Madison, Kristina Fullerton said she came to the talk to get further educated on the events that occurred at the 2011 protests.
“I heard about the budget cuts and they directly affected teachers, but I didn’t know that policemen and firefighters were exempt from the public service group,” Fullerton said. “I’m committed to fighting racism and sexism as well.”
