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From: uunet!mailrus!sharkey!hela!iti.org!dhw@ncar.ucar.EDU ("David H. West")
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Wages for Housework (was Re: Society's view)
Message-ID: <1990Nov26.041422.18180@iti.org>
Date: 26 Nov 90 17:47:43 GMT
References: <658245246@lear.cs.duke.edu> <m0iYaAR-0000ieC@lsuc.lsuc.on.ca> <90Nov16.231745est.1712@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
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In article <90Nov16.231745est.1712@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> smd@lsuc.on.ca (Sean Doran) writes:
>Our society does not value work done in the home. [...]
>Their labour is unpaid, though it contributes to society [...]

 (see below)

>Essentially, work done in the home is slavery [...]

The essential element in slavery is compulsion; this factor seems
to be missing in the case of housework.

>I suggest that [...] either the government or
>the other partner pay normal wages to the spouse working in the home.
>When any labour is done, it should be paid  [..]

That would certainly help the house-spouse pay her/his share of the
rent...  but wait! right now they don't pay their share of the rent!
Could it be that you have overlooked this invisible transfer of value
to them?  :-)

Another point to remember is that "the spouse working in the home" is
as such the employee not of the other spouse, but of both jointly, so
that if the househusband (for example) is paid (the commercial rate
of) $N for doing the laundry, $N/2 of this should come out of his own
pocket, because he receives half of the benefit - half of the laundry
is his own.  In other words, housekeeping should be paid at half the
commercial rate.

I don't think I've ever seen these issues explicitly addressed by
advocates of wages-for-housework.

It is certainly a tenable position that "the spouse working in the
home" would be better off if ALL interspousal transactions were
monetarized,  but can you imagine trying to do it?

-David West        dhw@iti.org