I think this is the key:
> ... In short, women were
> becoming more like men as far as employers were concerned. As a consequence,
> their employment status and earnings have risen. ...
Sex and its correlates are irrelevant, if not actually an impediment, to the formation of the ideal labor/consumption unit. This leads us to the science-fictiony question of the nature of the New Capitalist Man. In the old days, the various animal behaviors observable in unprocessed humans, like eating, seeking shelter, and reproducing, were made into opportunities and occasions to increase consumption of goods produced under capitalist control, thus maintaining the scarcity critical to the role and social position of the capitalists.
But the animal is willful, unpredictable; that's why it's named for _anima_, the soul. Perhaps the New Capitalist Man will consume as he, she, or it works: only on cue, and as directed.
-- Gordon