Essentially, the text challenges 5 neoclassical assumptions about women, namely:
1. All women are married, or, if not yet, they will be. Similarly, all women have or will have children.
2. All women are (and ought to be) economically dependent on a male relative: father or husband.
3. Women are (and ought to be) housewives, their reproductive capacities specialize them for that function.
4. Women are unproductive (whether absolutely or relative to men is not always clear) in the industrial workforce.
5. Women are irrational, they are unfit as economic agents, they cannot be trusted to make right economic decisions.
According to Pujol, the first two assumptions paves the way to the problematic reasons for women's presence in the labour market. In this case, unlike men who, according to neoclassical assumption, have justifiable reasons to participate in the labour force, women are standing in a fragile ground to insist their participation in the labour market. This is only one part of thr story. Another part is that women's participation in the labour force is associated with adverse effects. Pujol points to the works of Marshall (1930), Jevons (1904), Pigou (1960) that claim the relationship between women's employment and infant mortality rates. Pujol's contention on this matter tries to reveal the hidden question of neoclassical economists. For Pujol, neoclassical economists do not question whether women receive equal wage in the labour market, instead why they exist in the labour market. This reflects insecurity from men's side concerning their privileged access to employment.
The third assumption is closely connected to the first one. Once women are married and have children, they are responsible for child caring. Pujol describes how neoclassical assumptions are actually against working mothers due to the negative impact that could occur on children. However, as Pujol correctly puts it, neoclassical economists do not perceive this behavior as rational exercise of economic agents, unlike working fathers. Pujol also argues that women are not free to make their own decision and are forced to behave and act according to what is said to be their "natural duties".
On the fourth assumption, neoclassical economists reinforce the assumption that women's low pay are due to their low level of productivity. Pujol proposes several studies that disprove this assumption. In the contemporary context, women are even perceived to be the most productive profile in the textile and apparel industry. Pujol's analysis actually goes beyond this debate. If the claim is true, she is curious why women's low productivity problem was not followed by efforts to increase productivity, just like what happened to men. According to Pujol, such efforts will be useless from the neoclassical economists' point of view due to the assumption that women "should not remain in the labor force, that their dependent status removed all motivation for productivity improvement, or that women's unproductivity is irremediable".
Regarding the fifth assumption, women are often contrasted with "rational economic men". Unlike men -who are independent, make their own decision, possess access to the market sphere - women are dependent, less able (if not totally unable) to exercise their own rational decision-making, and have limited access to market sphere. In this discourse, Pujol contests how differs women from men. She claims that women are substantially not different from men in terms of their rational behavior. However women are perceived to be irrational because they are constructed to be so and are not allowed behave rationally because it will contradict to "natural" characteristics attached to them.
Intended to recover women's voices, Pujol's text resonates this spirit. It goes without saying that Pujol succeeds to confront mainstream assumptions about women.
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