Sustainable work - and women? Pleading for gender-sensitive socio-ecological research

Abstract

This article deals with the emerging discourse on sustainable work, which has been triggered by the ecologically initiated discussions on sustainable development. It gives a critical overview of the most important approaches to this subject from a feminist perspective. From a feminist point of view many of the current concepts of 'sustainable society' and 'sustainable work' have several deficiencies. The main point of criticism is that these approaches do not consider gender differences appropriately, especially with regard to the gendered division of work. Feminist approaches to the sustainable redefinition of work, on the other hand, tend to be essentialist and therefore have to be looked upon critically, too. Trying to escape both of these pitfalls, the author suggests a gender-sensitive socio-ecological approach to the complex field of sustainable work. This approach views socio-ecological problems as gendered problems and appreciates a transdisciplinary access to questions of sustainable development.