Wages for Housework, Notebook No. 1.
Second-Wave Feminist Arguments in Favor of Wages for Housework
[Labor]. Montreal Power of Women Collective. Wages for Housework Notebooks #1. Montreal: Montreal Power of Women Collective, (1975).
4to.; mauve construction paper wrappers, stapled; 18 mimeographed typescript pages; pg. 18 detached from the bottom staple; title in child-like black block letters on upper wrapper; spine and bottom-edge sunned.
First edition. Issued by the Montreal Power of Women Collective, this mimeographed typescript was presented as part of a larger series exploring the theoretical arguments concerning wages for housework. The inside of the lower wrapper lists other publications in the series and other Power of Women Collectives working in tandem with the Montreal Power of Women Collective, including chapters in New York and Toronto. The pamphlet contains three articles from 1972-1974, one written by an Italian feminist, one by the London chapter of the Power of Women Collective, and one by a member of the New York Collective.
In the introduction, the goal behind this international collaboration is made explicit: to expose “the various aspects of women’s exploitation and oppression,” all of which stem from “the unwaged labour that women universally perform in the home.” Demanding wages for housework will legitimize the “invisible work” done by women in their homes and reduce women’s economic dependence on men, transforming working class dynamics and the balance of power between the sexes. By uniting on this issue, feminists around the world can capitalize on the “revolutionary potential” of the wages for housework perspective, “in contrast to the fragmented, disconnected approach of previous feminist analyses.”
The first article, “Wages for Housework,” was written in 1972 by Italian feminist Giuliana Pompei and outlines what women’s housework generally entails:
having children and taking care of them, feeding a man, keeping him tidy and cheering him up after work…A woman is a mother, a wife, a daughter; she is loved only if she is willing to work without grumbling in the service of others for hours and hours, Sundays, holidays, and nights. This labour relationship is seen always, and only, in personal terms: a personal affair between a woman and the man who has the right to appropriate her labour. (p. 2)
If a woman manages a part-time job outside the home, she faces exploitation and discrimination there as well. Maternity presents another problem, for as Pompei writes, “[it] is the most effective ideological instrument for controlling women” (p. 4). At the very least, Pompei argues that the government should assume some of the costs associated with child-rearing.
The second article, written by the London chapter of the Power of Women Collective, reinforces the mission of the housework wage initiative: to “destroy [women’s] dependence on men and therefore to destroy their destiny as housewives” (p. 10). However, the argument is taken beyond just the issue of wages– women’s control over their own bodies is demanded as well. This control is defined as “the power to demand birth control that works, that doesn’t pollute our bodies, having children when we want them without dooming us to dependence on a man and slavery in the home, and being able to raise children without constant financial worry and housing crisis, without having to be confined to heterosexuality, without having our arms and legs trained to follow the rhythms of an assembly line” (p. 11). Citing Marx as a source, the London Power of Women Collective believes all feminist movements can be linked to the lack of wages for household work, because “to demand money is to determine the grounds of the struggle…and our struggle is based on our need for money, on our need for power, on our need to undermine the power of men over us, to undermine the power of capital over us, and over men and women” (p. 11).
The final article, by Silvia Federici of the New Y
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