Main Post 3/29

Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s – General Strike

Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s speech about Wages for Housework does not translate well into a contemporary American context. I think that it would have been much more palpable in the seventies, when it was delivered, particularly in Italy which was more deeply influenced by Marxism at that time. It is very hard for the contemporary American to grasp this idea (I know I am making assumptions) for a couple of reasons. Firstly, gender roles have changed since the seventies and housework is no longer a strictly female obligation. Granted, the domestic space still has a feminine connotation, but men assume much more responsibility today than they did thirty-five years ago. This makes Dalla Costa’s generalized claims about “50% of the population” and “all working women are also housewives” a bit more complicated than when she spoke them.

Ultimately, her argument is that women’s work has gone completely unappreciated by society since the implementation of currency. She claims that Wages for Housework is not only something that women deserve, but it can serve as a uniting force among them because it is the one thing “all women have in common.”

Ann Critenden – Mommy Tax

I always knew children cost money. But in this article, Ann Critenden breaks the cost down into dollars and cents. She compares how the decision to have children affects men, women, and people of different socio-economic classes. The figures weren’t exactly astonishing. Nor was the fact that our society does not cater to the decision to have children. Capitalism has bred us and perpetuated the idea that companies and organizations have the right to employ the most “qualified” individual, that is, the individual who can contribute the most without distraction or conflicting obligations. When you put yourself in the position of a freely operating employer, it makes sense. Barring morality (which businesses are trained to do), there is no motive to hire a person who is liable to get pregnant and take a few months of pay without working. These practices often lead to women taking on more part time employment, and it prevents women from following the career paths that lead to seniority or pension.

Critenden does a good job of narrowing the scope of her argument to prove that mothers are the most affected by the decision to have children. She does so by comparing the impact on fathers to the constant of women (of a comparable age) without children. She also takes into consideration the pressure to have children that society puts on women of a certain age that does not exist for men. In discussing possible solutions, Critenden makes the important comparison to how other countries handle this social gap. Overall, her argument is compelling and encourages a more contemporary approach to considering female disadvantage, one that is much more palpable and logic-based than Dalla Costa’s.

Barbara Ehrenreich – Maid to Order

This article talks about one way in which our society has begun to quantify housework with money. Unfortunately, Ehrenreich argues, the work is still viewed as secondary or subordinate in terms of value. In essence, the stigma that accompanies housework and cleaning was transferred from female housewives to maids, made up largely of females of lower classes. It has become both a gender issue as well as a class issue made only more complicated by the intimacy of the domestic setting. A social hierarchy has been set up because of the employer-employee relationship and encouraged the idea that cleaning implied some inferiority. On the flip side, having someone to clean for you became a sign of status and superiority. Ehrenrich explains how sanitizing is not as important as giving the illusion or “setting the stage” of a well kept home. She even argues that the servant economy produces a greater mentality of irresponsibility and a lack of accountability for one’s own actions, particularly for children. Our society has undergone a long process of distancing the consumer from the work behind the product; everything needs to be laid out cleanly, presenting the “shopper” with ultimate simplicity. Ehrenreich calls for a reversal of this process in order to bring people into closer contact and awareness of “the work.” It is her belief that this will encourage people to better respect one another and take more responsibility for the repercussions of their actions.