[Framework for the study of the relationships between work, women and health]

Abstract

The present paper aims at showing the importance of the gender approach in the theoretical construction of the field of worker's health since men and women are exposed to different work conditions within the productive process. In the case of female workers, we point to the liaison of capitalism and patriarchy as determinants of women's oppression in the hierarchical relationships of labor as well as to the hidden social responsibility of the housework, which is carried out in the private sphere thus keeping women distant from the social and political world and generating strong impacts on their health. According to the sexual division of labor, female work in industry is restricted to rather repetitive tasks that require a great nervous resistance - not especially healthy conditions that lead to a specific consuming pattern. We concluded that changes should occur in the social life schemes, besides breaking with the myths that support the sexual division of labor, so that the aggressive conditions imposed on men and women's health in the work process can be altered.