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.

"Mommy Tax" and Our "Hotel Civilization"

While Pinand’s writing focuses more on the individual experience of paying the “mommy tax,” Ehrenreich, Dalla Costa, and Critenden focus on overarching structural barriers that perpetuate the experiences Pinand fears as she contemplates motherhood and the advancement of her career. The theme for these readings is definitely a discussion on the “mommy tax” and how corporations are the invisible hands that shape and influence family and career values in a direction that may lead to a regressing society.

In my sociology class, we briefly discussed the America and the “culture of fear.” While Churchill insists “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Barry Glassner suggests that we have to begin fearing that we fear the wrong things, (Ferguson, 61). We’re scared of the world ending in 2012. We’re scared of teaching homosexuality in the classroom because we’re under the assumption that it will promote homosexuality and will spread like a disease. But right under our noses, our authors point out that corporations are out to devalue altruism and endorsing invisible taxes on caretakers. The scale of power already looks like this:



Do we really want corporations to have the loudest voice in deciding what our society looks like? Focusing on women, their campaign is objectifying workers, and punishing natural stages of life that cannot be helped. Through their biological capability, women promote and sustain civilizations. In an economic standpoint, sustaining the population of laborers. In a moral standpoint, creating a population that comprises of hope and spirit for a better future and overwriting the history of oppression that our civilization has. Yet, this biological capability that every civilization and society known to humankind depends on is punished and denigrated. When looking at the “mommy tax” and all of the opportunity costs to having a child, it is obvious that there is no more value to bringing life to the world. Cirtenden speaks about the “ultimate mommy tax: childlessness,” (Critenden, 107). This is what our “be a man” policy to promoting gender equality in the workforce has done to not only our women, but to our society that will bear the brunt of this forced choice in the name of success, the way our society – or rather our corporations – define it.

Many mini-themes emerged from these readings and the second point I want to focus on is housework. Dalla Costa’s speech frames housework as a job comparable to wage-earning occupations and yet, it is a job that garners no voice and no political power because apparently, money buys power and we all know that being a housewife doesn’t allow for financial stability. Dalla Costa encourages us to think about the nature of housework in the mindset that it’s a real occupation and to compare and contrast the benefits and setbacks. One thing that was brought up that really interested me was holidays and breaks in general. While store-owners, factory workers, or waitresses file home to a warm meal and a tidy home for rest, we tend to overlook who has to work to put out the warm meal and who has to work to clean the house, despite a declaration of a holiday (Freedman, 303).
Dalla Costa’s main focus was on housework as the unpaid shift, but Ehrenreich shows us that even as a paid job, housework still perpetuates discrimination on women and even spreads to larger issues encompassing those of race, age, and sexuality. Sociologist, Mary Romero, discusses employer’s inclination to employ young, naïve, docile, and dependent workers that tend to be women of color. Ehrenreich’s experiences working in the industry tells us that the antiquated maid uniform as well as images that the slogan, “on our hands and knees” generate not only perpetuates a subservient nature of women, but the images and connotations behind “maid-work” promotes heterosexuality as a norm. Thus, I think the maid industry’s success is highly due to an endorsement of a contradicting and hypocritical campaign. To draw in upper-middle class to upper class families – especially women – maid industries sell the service as liberating to women and marriages because housework is no longer a duty that is attached to the role of being a wife. Not only does this maid industry use new, feminist ideas to make the sale, it also promotes antiquated values through maid uniforms that contradict the theory of liberation.

Cornel West talks about our society gravitating towards a “hotel civilization.” We tend to disregard what goes on behind the scene and the reality that creates the illusion of a perfect, clean world we favor to see. Using West literally here, Ehrenreich talks about the inefficiency and sub-par services of the maid industry because the importance is not to actually doing the job to do the job, but to do the job to create the illusion of being clean (Ehrenreich, 67). But when we use West’s observation of a hotel civilization to analyze the act of hiring maids, we can begin to understand that the liberation of a small population of women from the burden of housework is actually counteracted by the creation of an invisible population of oppressed women – the women who get down on their hands and knees and do the dirty work, literally.

Thus, it is important to think about who is being oppressed at the expense of someone else’s liberation. In the end, women still lose the battle here. Instead of endorsing the hiring of maids as a way to liberate women from the oppressive duties of housework, we should be focusing instead on counteracting the influence corporations have in developing cultural values. Our societal ills concerning gender equality and the workplace are not going to be cured by a population of wage-earning maids in costumes, but by laws and campaigns to promote a truly “family-friendly” environment in the workplace, where currently, the words “family” and “friendly” are taxed and discouraged.

Response Post 3.29

Megan Pinand: “Stories from the Sidelines”

In this article, Pinand offers many personal examples of her experiences with gender and the corporate world. She discusses different types of jobs that she has had and how those experiences have taught her about sexism in the workplace. Her general experience with her superiors reminded me of a story that my friend once shared with me. She works at a large corporate company, and has been working there for a many years. In fact, she has been working there long to see her boss go from a single guy to a married man with kids. She told me that the company’s policy on maternity leave and work hours in general has completely changed since he has had children. Before the CEO had children, he was extremely strict and harsh about people (specifically women) taking maternity leave or leaving work a little early to do something with/for their kids. He was extremely harsh and made my friend feel like she had to make a very clear-cut choice between family and her career. Because of the strict rules, my friend had to work very hard with her husband to make everything at home go smoothly. For example, she wasn’t able to get home in time to cook dinner, so her husband would take on duty (among others).

However, once the CEO had children, his attitude on family-related things changed completely. Suddenly he was leaving work early and encouraging others to do the same! My friend was so happy that she could finally spend more time with her family. I think it was nice that the CEO finally realized that it’s very difficult for working parents to balance their family life with their work. However, it makes me upset that he didn’t think to give working mothers and fathers some leeway when it came to work…before he became a father. Hopefully he can set the example that CEOs should be more understanding of their employees who are trying to balance family and work life.

In relation to balancing family and work life, I think that this youtube video is interesting to think about. This young 5 year old girl already knows what she wants in life...she wants to have a job before she gets married! The video has become very popular and I think it's hilarious, but it's also important to think about the deeper message. It's totally possible that this girl is saying that "she wants a job before she gets married" because her parents have told her to be funny. But, it's also possible that she has been raised in a family that values personal success over romantic relationships. If so, this could be a reflection that children today are being taught that jobs are more important than family life.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u2JuWroTn4