The Importance Of Paid Domestic Work

Even after falling pregnant, Ruth would not even dare to miss a day away from work,

Payment doesn't bring happiness to one's life. Although women are advocating for payment for the services they offer by doing house chores, pay does not necessarily give them self-satisfaction. The writer has documented an experience of a

Social reproduction refers to the continuous intergenerational physically and emotionally exhausting household labour that is needed to maintain life (Trotz, lecture, Jan 13, 2016). This kind of labour though is considered to be a woman’s duty. Since an economic activity happens where there is a market, social reproduction is not considered as one as it doesn’t have a visible market. Even though, it doesn’t have market value, domestic work greatly contribute to the economy (Waring, 2013). Since this work is done in homes and by women who are usually marginalized, it remains invisible and thus not considered for pay. This kind of work depends on the traditional division of labour in which women are seen as housewives while men, breadwinners. Thus, the gendering of social reproduction is a result of “doing gender,” where women’s abilities to be mothers are naturalized (Coltrane, 1989); in other words, women are made to fit into the simplistic “domestic = family = heterosexual woman = care and love” equation (Manalansan & Martin, 2008, p.2), while any man who does the caring work in a family is feminized and considered a lesser man (Coltrane, 1989).Thus, a woman’s femininity depends on her motherhood while a man’s masculinity depends on “not doing mother’s work” (Coltrane, 1989, p.473).

However, “all work makes an economic contribution, but the unpaid work activities related to the home have been marginalized in economic rendering of production” According to Riane Eisler (2007:16 as cited in Lindsey, 2011, pg. 277). Meaning that for human survival, and human development to be successful women’s work needs to be valued, while women are taking on the responsibilities of caregivers to others; as well as their own. In addition to the many task these women provide such as their contribution to their household chores, managing the household income, childbearing; and caring for the elderly; these jobs are all considered unpaid work to which these women will never receive any form of income for the work they provided. In the United States alone more than 40, 000 dollars annually would be paid out yearly, if these women were being paid for services rendered in those areas; such as cooking, cleaning, ironing, care givers; and financial advisor. Meaning, “at the global level, if the unpaid work of women were added to the world’s economy, it would expand by one-third, but on the positive side, the economic reality of women’s unpaid productive work is gaining public and government attention (Lindsey, 200. Pg.

Dating back throughout history woman were often considered to be too soft or docile to work. In the early 1800’s, as well as the 1950’s, it was thought that woman should not only be pure in heart, mind and body, but that they should be submissive to their husbands and not work outside the home, this was known as the Cult of Domesticity (Keister & Southgate, Inequality: a contemporary approach to race, class and gender, 2012, p. 228).

In the next chapters, the struggles of women and children are outlined. The jobs for women of the early 1800’s consisted of sewing, washing, cleaning, cooking, and reproducing the next generation of laborers. In , a rise in domestic service also ensued within black or white, free and enslaved women. These women were hired as servants, nannies, and maids. Children also began working as well. Orphans were often used as domestic servants and teen apprentices. The Female Association Charity School taught destitute girls who were raised on streets to read, write, cipher, sew. They were also trained to be domestic servants and then hired in the future. Women were paid much less than men, because it was thought that they were dependent of their husbands; it was unheard of to have “female breadwinners”. Factory accidents, crime, abandonment, and abuse from husbands left women desperate to support children. The wages that seamstresses had in early 17th century Baltimore was not a living wage. It was not substantial enough to support themselves or their children. So in 1833, women held strike and refused to work only worked if employers paid them wages equal that of to men. The results of the protest was not what was hoped. Women were actually paid less after the strike, but the

On occasion it is essential that both parents in a home take on multiple jobs at minimum wage to take care of their family’s needs. This has an affect on the lives of this unit in a financial and emotional way. When the support systems of both parents are working to survive, the children in the home do without the emotional security. Surprising and offending the most about the low-wage workplace was the extent to which one is required to surrender one’s basic civil rights and-what boils down to the same thing-self-respect. (Ehrenreich 115).

In this paper, I will explain how the article “The Lady and the Tramp (II): Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice” by Gwendolyn Mink relates to the thematic focus of working women and the Marxist and socialist branch of feminism. In Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Rosemarie Tong explains that Marxist and socialist feminists understand women’s oppression as a labor issue. Women’s work is not viewed as a productive contribution to society. One of the ways Marxist and socialist feminists sought to improve women’s oppression was through the wages-for-housework campaign of the 1970s, which fought for work done in the domestic sphere to be paid and respected by society. In this same vein, Mink’s article can be viewed as a continuation of sorts of the wages-for-housework campaign. Mink suggests that poor single mothers have the right for their work to be recognized by society and supported economically like the Marxist and socialist feminist in the 1970s.

The economic contribution of domestic workers goes unnoticed in the modern political economy because, domestic work is not recognized as a “real” job, plus most of these workers get pay by cash or just a personal check. I will have to say that domestic worker is one of the most hard and humiliating jobs because these domestic workers put up with a lot, first of all they don’t have any rights, they can get terminated whenever their employers want, and the horrible pay they received. It’s something that we put out of sight because we are so focus on ourselves that we forget how bad others have

A group of four women who felt like the country needed to change the way women were treated took action and started the National Organization for Women. While many women still worked, they were paid less than their male counterparts. Many employers didn’t view women’s pay as necessary for the family, they saw it as extra money the family could use. ‘Marriage Bar’ was used by many employers, where many married women could not work certain occupations. Even though many still worked and kept their jobs, they were paid very little and not treated equally.

Women’s unpaid labor in maintains a systems of oppression in many ways. In Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee’s Women’s Voices Feminist Visions unpaid labor done by many women is, “undervalued as women’s formal productive paid labor in the workforce is prioritized” (Shaw & Lee, 2015, 471). Shaw and Lee are saying that women work at home is devalued because it is viewed as informal and as work that is done out of love or is natural work. Since the work being done is viewed as natural work, it further reinforces gender stereotypes by stating that women are supposed to do the household work which is deemed more as feminine. This thought process follows patriarchal thinking, where women are expected to do the

This part of reading talks about two key terms, maternalism and personalism. The maternalism refers to the one-way emotional relationship between employers and employees. The personalism refers to the interconnection of emotion between employers and employees. Most of the employers don’t want to be too close with housecleaner, but need to involve more with nannies. The reason is that nannies are the bonds between them and their children. It is true from my own experience. My family used to hire housecleaner to clean home once a week. I remember the conversation between my mother and the housecleaner was mostly about the cleaning work and nothing else. It’s just unnecessary to talk much. However, hiring a nanny is totally different. I had a

Socialization is a main cause that has influenced unequal distribution of unpaid work within a household. Throughout the chapters of Stanfoods book, it is mentioned numerous times that the majority of unpaid work including, household chores, care for young children or elderly family members (Stanford, …. p.119), is completed by women. Statistics Canada has provided statistics on unpaid work, “men reported spending on average 8.3 hours on unpaid domestic

Surprisingly to the majority, the nanny jobs may be a notably tightened one. If an individual is interested in nannying as a career as a result of the notion that it chiefly consists of buzzing lullabies to babies to send them off to never-never land, then they'll be enlightened once the truth sets in. Not everybody will be a nanny. It's physically and showing emotion tightened, and as we tend to are liable for young lives, mistakes merely should not happen. Babies learning to crawl will tumble down steps, toddles will reach for and grasp a cup of hot occasional.

Conventionally, females played a very insignificant role in the paid work force of a society as many times they were expected to be home taking care of their family. Their roles at home can often include grocery shopping, meeting all the needs of her children and husband. As time moved on, our society became more accepted of sharing housework between the couples, but even so, the traditionally more feminine housework such as cooking, caring for sick children, and shopping for the entire family are mostly done by the females of the house. It is argued in a research journal Work and Occupations (Witkowski & Leicht, 1995) that in an average North American family, females take on roughly three-quarters of the housework. Even though we are in a democratic society, parenting roles in the household are assigned based on gender rather than in a democratic fashion (Winslow-Bowe, 2009). Because of the many responsibilities and obligations that are associated with the female gender, their career paths are eventually affected for the worse. According to Statistics Canada (2001), for every dollar a man earns, a single woman earns 93 cents and a married woman earns 69 cents. These statistics