The Canadian and Argentinian textile industry: Gender and working process, 1888-1951, an exploratory research from Political Economy of Gender perspective

Abstract

In this paper I analyze the working process of the Canadian and Argentinian textile industry between 1888 and 1951. Based in Buenos Aires and Montreal as case studies, these two cities concentrated the textile industry in the two countries. I approach this historical process from a gender, social history and economic perspective, doing an original research of the working process since I include the unpaid domestic work as part of it. The starting point of this analysis is that capitalism is patriarchal. One of the main conclusions of this work is that the women workers had not two workdays (unpaid domestic work and workday), but only one extended workday that included the domestic work and their work in the factory, for which they received a minimum paid. These workdays had a duration of roughly 17 or 19 hours in Canada or Argentina, respectively. Finally, in this work I demonstrate that gender relationships cannot be excluded of the study of the working process.