🏠👩‍👧‍👦💸💰 The women who demanded wages for housework - Witness History, BBC World Service

🤖 AI Summary

🏠 Housework is the only labor without retirement, recognition, or pay [00:01].
✊ The International Feminist Collective formed in 1972 to demand government salaries for domestic tasks [00:26].
💰 A man’s single salary effectively purchases the labor of two workers by keeping the woman in the home [01:06].
🛑 Women wield power by withdrawing domestic labor and refusing to reproduce the next generation of workers [01:03].
📢 Protests throughout the 1970s used flyers and banners to mobilize thousands of women across Italy [02:11].
🏥 Women who work outside the home often perform the same nursing and cooking tasks for low wages elsewhere [02:30].
💻 Modern remote work further blurs the boundary between professional and domestic obligations [02:58].

✅ This movement correctly identified that unpaid domestic labor is the invisible engine of the global economy.
📈 Data from the Oxfam International report titled Time to Care shows that unpaid care work by women contributes at least 10.8 trillion dollars annually to the world economy.
🏗️ Modern feminist economics supports the idea that the traditional wage system is built upon a foundation of free labor provided in the home.
⚖️ Exploring the concept of Time Poverty can help reveal how the lack of wages for housework limits women’s participation in public and political life.

🙋 A: The movement sought government recognition of domestic labor as essential economic activity that deserves financial compensation [00:17].

📍 A: Four activists founded the group in Padua, Italy, in 1972 to coordinate global action [00:26].

💪 A: They argued that by striking, women could halt the reproduction and maintenance of the entire workforce [01:03].

🧹 Wages Against Housework by Silvia Federici explains why domestic labor is the pillar of capitalist production.
♂️💰♀️🚩 Patriarchy of the Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism by Silvia Federici analyzes how the male wage was designed to subordinate women’s domestic work.

🏢 The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir argues that domesticity is a trap that prevents women from achieving true transcendence and autonomy.
👔 The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan focuses on the psychological dissatisfaction of housewives and encourages seeking fulfillment through professional careers.

🧼 The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the mental toll of domestic confinement and the lack of agency within the home.
🕰️ Labors of Love by Madeleine Bunting examines the emotional and physical cost of care work in modern society beyond just the financial aspect.