[IMC-bristol] Wages for Housework debate in Guardian -- Selma James & Melissa Benn

[Global Women's Strike]

HOME TRUTHS FOR FEMINISTS

How should the work women do as mothers be rewarded?
Selma James and Melissa Benn argue about carers and careers

THE GUARDIAN, Sat February 21, 2004
Full version of exchange that appeared on The Guardian website.
Text IN CAPITALS are points cut from the printed version.

Hi Selma,

You were probably as surprised as I was to see that Michael Howard's new
model Tories are floating the idea, borrowed from Finland, that mothers
should be paid to stay at home when their children are young. THAT IS, IF WE
CONSIDER £150 A MONTH, WITH AN EXTRA £50 PER CHILD, A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT IN
TODAY'S WORLD.

Thinking back to the 1980s when Wages for Housework campaigned so militantly
for just such a proposal, and was opposed just as passionately by virtually
all feminists, including my younger self, I just wondered whether you feel:
victory at last? Or do you have just a few sneaking worries that the right
has taken up your ideological cudgels? We await the fine print of these
proposals, but could this just be top up fees for Worcester Woman or
whatever we call her these days?

Curious to hear your views,
Melissa

Dear Melissa,

No, I'm not surprised that the Tories are thinking of paying women.
Politicians of both right and left (whatever that means now) are
opportunistic, and women in all kinds of jobs have made clear they're
exhausted and still underpaid. They're demanding the right to have a life,
including with their children, rather than a daily marathon. Wages - for
housework, caring work, women's unwaged work generally - are definitely on
the agenda.

You're right: in 1972 when we began, most feminists did oppose women getting
wages for unwaged work. But working-class women who were unlikely to
identify as feminists never did. We were told that to be liberated, a woman
had to "go to work": why couldn't a woman be more like a man, or at least
his equal? Many working-class women were already struggling with a low-paid
jobs on top of caring work, which hadn't liberated them one inch. We argued
that this caring work, which produced all the workers of the world, had to
be recognised: measured, valued and paid for.

Many feminists pointed to Margaret Thatcher as a role model, and this role
model pushed single mothers off benefits and "into work". Socialist
feminists who hated Thatcher were keen to tell us that women's consciousness
would be raised at the magical "point of production". Labour used this to
push SINGLE MOTHERS OFF BENEFITS and "into work". We argued: why can't a man
be more like a woman? About time we had this discussion again,
Selma

Dear Selma,

The debate has moved on quite a bit since those early feminist discussions,
in lots of interesting ways. Motherhood, not surprisingly, remains central
to feminist thinking but the whole debate about work and power is much more
sophisticated than it was. Modern feminists, many like myself who have had
children, recognise that the parent-child bond is an immensely deep, complex
and important one that relies on closeness, especially, but by no means
exclusively, in those early years. Any policy that recognises the value of
caring must be an advance.

But if we're not careful, socio-biology will tell us very quickly that we're
hard-wired for caring and men for earning, AND NOW THAT NICE MICHAEL HOWARD
WANTS TO PAY US FOR OUR TROUBLE IN REARING THE NEXT GENERATIONS' CITIZENS.
This, as I remember, was the major worry about Wages for Housework all those
years ago, and for me, it remains. Forget Margaret Thatcher. Modern
feminists have insisted, rightly I think, on the importance of mothers
remaining part of the work world with their hard-earned talents to
contribute, their desire to matter undiminished.

Yet it's proved much bloody harder than it should, partly because something
has not shifted in the world of work. YOU COULD SAY MEN ARE INTRANSIGENT,
AND ARE STILL NOT PULLING THEIR WEIGHT AT HOME BUT TO TAKE A MORE CHARITABLE
VIEW, the structures of work have not changed to allow both parents to care
and work, and yet to remain recognisably human.
Isn't this a key question for our times?
Melissa

Dear Melissa,

AS I REMEMBER, MOTHERHOOD BECAME A FEMINIST CONCERN AS YOUNG FEMINISTS HAD
CHILDREN THEMSELVES. BUT NOW, IT'S TRUE, MANY FEMINIST MOTHERS ARE
RETHINKING THEIR PRIORITIES. MANY ARE AWARE THAT WE ENDANGER OUR CHILDREN'S
HEALTH AND OUR OWN IF WE DON'T BREASTFEED (THAT PRECIOUS PIECE OF
SOCIO-BIOLOGY) FOR AT LEAST SIX MONTHS. AND THAT LEAVING OUR INFANTS PUTS
THEIR EMOTIONS AND OURS UNDER SEVERE AND MAYBE LASTING STRAIN.

I don't dig this work life-balance talk. What's so enriching about working
in call centres? THE ONLY OTHER CHOICE: TO SCRIMP ON BENEFITS OR DEPEND ON A
MAN, WITH NO MONEY OF YOUR OWN - A MAJOR SOURCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,
INCLUDING RAPE IN MARRIAGE. I DON'T THINK MOST JOBS MEN DO ARE MORE
IMPORTANT THAN RAISING CHILDREN. NOR DO I THINK WOMEN SHOULD BE
INSTITUTIONALISED AS CARERS OR MEN DEPRIVED OF THEIR KIDS. TIME FOR A
CHANGE!

IN NORWAY AND FINLAND PARENTS USE THE MONEY FROM GOVERNMENTS TO PAY OTHERS
OR DO THE CARING THEMSELVES. THIS GIVES WOMEN BARGAINING POWER, TO ACCEPT OR
REJECT WHAT EMPLOYERS OFFER IN WAGES AND CONDITIONS. POWER AT HOME TOO: MEN
EITHER SHARE THE WORK OR MOVE ON. FOR LESBIAN WOMEN, AND IN FACT ALL WOMEN,
THE MONEY MAKES IT EASIER TO BE SEXUALLY INDEPENDENT AND BE MOTHERS TOO.
So why glorify work outside the home. How many women are professionals? How
many men? Most of us go out, get exploited, grab the dosh and run.
DOESN'T BALANCE BEGIN WITH ALL OF US WORKING LESS?
Selma

Dear Selma,

IN MANY WAYS, YOU ARE AND I SHARE THE SAME GUT POLITICS; IF FEMINISM IS ONLY
ABOUT THE BANKERS AND THE BROADCASTERS, NOT THE CARERS AND THE CLEANERS,
FORGET IT.

But I just don't think that old crude divide - beloved of some earlier
feminists - between a few career babes and the mass of toiling women holds
true anymore. Work-life balance may sound like a ghastly new shampoo, but a
lot of modern mothers, and a few dads, mix an interesting enough job - which
they may, in part, enjoy just because it gets them out of the home and
family, for a while - with spending time with their children.

So how can government policy help them do more of that? Yes, extra money AT
THE POINT OF CARE WILL INCREASE WOMEN'S BARGAINING POWER. But it might just
mean more dosh for consumer durables for your average middle England family,
WHICH ALREADY HAS A HIGH EARNING SPOUSE, and lower benefits for poorer women
OR SINGLE PARENTS. Call me cynical, but I suspect that's the real Tory
agenda here.

So, yes, by all means, let's increase carers' payments, as long as men are
entitled to the money as well. But I'd still like to see more public child
care, not 12-hour a day baby farms but something more flexible and modern
along the lines of the government's long planned Children's Centres. THEY'D
BE GOOD FOR COMMUNITIES TOO.
Oh, and while I'm in personal manifesto mood, don't forget the long term.
All forms of caring should earn proper pension credits. The scandal of
female pensioner poverty, usually the price of a lifetime of caring for
others, has gone on long enough.
Melissa

Dear Melissa,
Going to work to "get out of the home and family" - can we accept living
like this? Why deny that caring for people is the very stuff of life? Basic
to relationships. Basic to human survival. Yet treated as worthless. WOMEN
GIVE THEIR ALL, BUT IT'S NOT MUTUAL AND IT'S NOT PAID.

Class divides are strong as ever, I'm afraid. WHAT'S CHANGED IS THAT OUR
THINKING IS FINALLY INTERNATIONAL. Women grow 80% of food consumed in Africa
and over 60% in Asia, yet are officially "economically inactive". DESPITE
SLOGGING ALL DAY EVERY DAY, NO WORK RECORD AND NO WAGE. Any wonder that we
women are 70% of the world's poor?

Women in Venezuela point the way. They won Article 88 in their constitution
which "recognises work at home as an economic activity that creates added
value AND PRODUCES SOCIAL WELFARE AND WEALTH. Housewives are entitled to
social security". This includes the pension you propose FOR WOMEN AND MEN
CARERS. BUT MUST WE WAIT TILL WE'RE OLD? IT'S NOT AS THOUGH THERE'S NO
MONEY. LOOK AT THE $1TRILLION IN ANNUAL MILITARY BUDGETS.

As for women wasting carers' wages on "consumer durables", it's theirs, and
they can do what they damn well please with it. Men do. But EXPERIENCE TELLS
US THEY'LL FEED THEIR CHILDREN, EDUCATE THEM, AND TAKE THEIR INDEPENDENCE.
Selma

Dear Selma,
I'M COMPLETELY WITH YOU OVER THE CRIMINAL WASTE OF WAR AND THE DISGRACEFUL
FACT THAT MILLIONS OF THE WORLDS' WOMEN ARE DESIGNATED AS "ECONOMICALLY
INACTIVE". AND NO - LET'S NOT WAIT UNTIL WE'RE OLD. I'D ALSO LIKE TO SEE FAR
BETTER WAGES FOR MANY OF THE JOBS THAT WOMEN DO, OFTEN AN EXTENSION OF THE
CARING ROLE. I STILL CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY A LAWYER CAN CHARGE UP TO SEVERAL
HUNDRED AN HOUR FOR HIS - OR HER - SERVICES AND A CARE ASSISTANT SHOULD
CONSIDER HERSELF LUCKY TO GET £6.50.
But I feel we're in real danger here of forgetting one of feminism's
historic achievements: the recognition of women's need to do more than take
care of the home and husband. Remember the "problem that had no name": Betty
Friedan's description, over 40 years ago now, of the depressed housewife?
Feminism didn't demand the right for women to go out and be a wage slave.
Capitalism has distorted that message. But it did put the crucial idea of
fulfilment on the agenda.
Is it so very terrible to want - to need - time away from scuddy sinks and
sticky fingers and REPETITIVE ROUTINES? MEN HAVE WALKED AWAY FROM THESE
RELENTLESS DEMANDS FOR DECADES, AND THINGS ARE ONLY SLOWLY CHANGING.

So I still insist on women's right to create meaning out of their lives
beyond the hugely important job of caring. LOOKING AFTER OTHERS CAN'T BE THE
ONLY VALUE BY WHICH WE SHAPE OUR LIVES: THAT WAY LIES THE POTENTIAL FOR
EXPLOITATION.
And I don't think it's just a class thing, a professional woman's thing. I
think it's a human thing.
Melissa

Dear Melissa,
I'm afraid feminism has to take responsibility for urging women to get
exploited in our own right! Housewives (and sex workers) were not sisters
but obstacles to liberation. FOR YEARS MY FIGHTS WITH FEMINISM CENTRED ON
ITS DISMISSAL OF THE WORK WOMEN SPEND OUR LIVES DOING: FOR CHILDREN,
RELATIVES WITH DISABILITIES, NEIGHBOURS, ON THE LAND, IN COURTS OF JUSTICE
DEFENDING SONS (WHOM WE HAD SPENT YEARS CLEANING HOSPITAL FLOORS TO FEED)
FROM RACIST POLICE ... OFTEN FROM ISLINGTON OR HAMPSTEAD HOMES WITH DAILY
CLEANERS, THEY SAID IT COULD ALL BE DONE IN A COUPLE OF HOURS!

Friedan's "problem" not only had no name; it wasn't "work". (LIKE NEW LABOUR
WITH OVER 100 WOMEN MPS CALLING SINGLE MOTHERS 'WORKLESS".) If women got
wages for it, would we be institutionalised at home? Not in Norway or
Finland. Let's have a little respect for what women will do with power.
VALIDATING CARING WORK - WHICH WE BEGAN TO DO IN 1985 IN NAIROBI AND 1995 IN
BEIJING, WHEN WE GOT THE UN TO AGREE THAT IT SHOULD BE MEASURED AND VALUED -
IS THE FIRST STEP TO RADICALLY CHANGING THE WHOLE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND THE
ECONOMY.  Money would make it easier for all women, including lesbian women,
to be sexually independent and be mothers, too.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED. WOMEN NOW DON'T WANT TO BE INSTITUTIONALISED IN WAGED
WORK OR ANYWHERE. THEY WANT THEIR CHILDREN TO BE MORE THAN "THE JOB AT
HOME". As caring work is recognised, we win leverage, not just for careers
for a few, but to create what Venezuelan women call "a caring economy, an
economy at the service of human beings rather than human beings at the
service of the economy".  Why not use the $1 trillion in military budgets to
do that?

Men in Britain have the longest working week in Europe. This is no basis for
fathers' liberation. We've got to stop glorifying the work men do and invite
them to take part in caring for other life. If we're not segregated,
demeaned, discriminated and impoverished by it, as is true with women now,
it's the most civilising work of all.
Selma

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