Reproductive labor

Reproductive labor work often associated with care giving and domestic roles including cleaning, cooking, child care, and the paid domestic labor force.[1] The term has taken on a role in feminist discourse and philosophy as a way of calling to attention to how women in particular are assigned to the domestic sphere where the labor is reproductive and thus uncompensated and unrecognized in a capitalist system. These theories have evolved as a parallel of histories focusing on the entrance of women into the labor force in the 1970s, providing an intersectionalist approach that recognizes that women have been a part of the labor force since before their incorporation into mainstream industry if we consider reproductive labor.[2]

Definitions

The division between productive and unproductive labour is stressed by some Marxist feminists including Margaret Benston and Peggy Morton.[3] These theories specify that while productive labor results in goods or services that have monetary value in the capitalist system and are thus compensated by the producers in the form of a paid wage, reproductive labor is associated with the private sphere and involves anything that people have to do for themselves that is not for the purposes of receiving a wage (i.e. cleaning, cooking, having children). These interpretations argue that while both forms of labor are necessary, people have different access to these forms of labor based on certain aspects of their identity.

These theories argue that both public and private institutions exploit the labor of women as an inexpensive method of supporting a work force. For the producers, this means higher profits. For the nuclear family, the power dynamic dictates that domestic work is exclusively to be completed by the woman of the household thus liberating the rest of the members from their own necessary reproductive labor. Marxist feminists argue that the exclusion of women from productive labor leads to male control in both private and public domains.[3][4]

The concept of reproductive labor as it relates to cleaning, cooking, child care, and the paid domestic labor force has been written about and discussed in writing and history prior to the term being codified. This includes works like Virginia Woolf's essay, "A Room of One's Own discussing

Wages for housework

Main article: Wages for housework

Focusing on exclusion from productive labor as the most important source of female oppression, some Marxist feminists devoted their activism to fighting for the inclusion of domestic work within the waged capitalist economy. The idea of creating compensated reproductive labor was present in the writings of socialists such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898) who argued that women's oppression stemmed from being forced into the private sphere.[5] Gilman proposed that conditions for women would improve when their work was located, recognized, and valued in the public sphere.[6]

Perhaps the most influential of the efforts to compensate reproductive labor was the International Wages for Housework Campaign, an organization launched in Italy in 1972 by members of the International Feminist Collective. Many of these women, including Selma James,[7] Mariarosa Dalla Costa,[8] Brigitte Galtier, and Silvia Federici[9] published a range of sources to promote their message in academic and public domains. Despite the efforts beginning with a relatively small group of women in Italy, The Wages for Housework Campaign was successful in mobilizing on an international level. A Wages for Housework group was founded in Brooklyn, New York with the help of Federici.[9] As Heidi Hartmann acknowledges (1981), the efforts of these movements, though ultimately unsuccessful, generated important discourse regarding the value of housework and its relation to the economy.[4]

Universal Basic Income has been proposed as a solution.[10]

Reproductive labor and Feminist Economics

Another solution proposed by Marxist feminists is to liberate women from their forced connection to reproductive labor. In her critique of traditional Marxist feminist movements such as the Wages for Housework Campaign, Heidi Hartmann (1981) argues that these efforts "take as their question the relationship of women to the economic system, rather than that of women to men, apparently assuming the latter will be explained in their discussion of the former."[4] Hartmann (1981) believes that traditional discourse has ignored the importance of women's oppression as women, and instead focused on women's oppression as members of the capitalist system. Similarly, Gayle Rubin, who has written on a range of subjects including sadomasochism, prostitution, pornography, and lesbian literature as well as anthropological studies and histories of sexual subcultures, first rose to prominence through her 1975 essay ''"The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex"'', in which she coins the phrase "sex/gender system" and criticizes Marxism for what she claims is its incomplete analysis of sexism under capitalism, without dismissing or dismantling Marxist fundamentals in the process.

More recently, many Marxist feminists have shifted their focus to the ways in which women are now potentially in worse conditions after gaining access to productive labor. Nancy Folbre (1994) proposes that feminist movements begin to focus on women's subordinate status to men both in the reproductive (private) sphere, as well as in the workplace (public sphere).[11] In an interview in 2013, Silvia Federici urges feminist movements to consider the fact that many women are now forced into productive and reproductive labor, resulting in a "double day".[12] Federici (2013) argues that the emancipation of women still cannot occur until they are free from their burdens of unwaged labor, which she proposes will involve institutional changes such as closing the wage gap and implementing child care programs in the workplace. Federici's (2013) suggestions are echoed in an similar interview with Selma James (2012) and these issues have been touched on in recent presidential elections.[7][13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Vicki Smith (16 May 2013). Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia. SAGE Publications. pp. 1213–. ISBN 978-1-5063-2093-9.
  2. ↑ Duffy, Mignon. "Doing the Dirty Work : Gender, Race, and Reproductive Labor in Historical Perspective" (PDF). Gender & Society 3 (21): 313-336.
  3. 1 2 Lise Vogel (7 June 2013). Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Toward a Unitary Theory. BRILL. pp. 17–. ISBN 90-04-24895-1.
  4. 1 2 3 Hartmann, H. (1981) The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union. Feminist Theory Reader, 187-199.
  5. ↑ Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1898). Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Small, Maynard,.
  6. ↑ Ferguson, A. & Hennessy, R. (2010). Feminist Perspectives on Class and Work. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  7. 1 2 Gardiner, B. (2012). A Life in Writing. Interview with Selma James.
  8. ↑ Dalla Costa, M. & James, S. (1972). The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community
  9. 1 2 Cox, N. & Federici, S. (1975).Counter-Planning from the Kitchen: Wages for Housework a Perspective on Capital and the Left.
  10. ↑ Shulevitz, Judith (2016-01-08). "It’s Payback Time for Women". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  11. ↑ Folbre, N. 1994. Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint.
  12. ↑ Vishmid, M.(2013). Permanent Reproductive Crisis: An Interview with Silvia Federici
  13. ↑ Mullin, Amy (2005). Reconceiving pregnancy and childcare: ethics, experience, and reproductive labor. Cambridge University Press.

External links

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