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From: dst@dst.boltz.cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: paying homemakers?
Message-ID: <9101050919.AB05413@rutgers.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 06:58:52 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu

Sean suggests that society should directly pay homemakers for the work
they do.  I won't bore you with all the obvious economic reasons this
is a terrible idea.  I just want to raise one point: quality control.

I'm a scientist.  Just because I like being a scientist doesn't mean
I'm *entitled* to get paid to be one.  Before they fund my research
proposals, sponsors demand to know, first, my qualifications for the
job (degrees, publication record, etc.)  Second, they want to know
exactly what I plan to do with the money, and these plans are subject
to peer review.  If the reviewers don't like the way I do research,
then I don't get the money.  If *nobody* liked the way I did research,
I'd have to find some other kind of job.  This kind of basic quality
control applies to every "job" in the normal (not socialist feminist
newspeak) sense of "job".

So, Sean, if you want society to pay people for the work they do as
homemakers, then I think we need to institute some quality controls up
front.  Let's see: how about requiring government-paid homemakers to
hold at least a bachelor's degree in some relevant field (home
economics, nursing, etc.) Also, before allowing them to raise children
they should have at least 24 credits of child psychology and
development courses, with no grade lower than a B-.  Homemakers will
have to undergo periodic medical and psychiatric evaluations, and
those who hold unpopular political or religious views (like white
supremacists, or Christian Scientists who would deny their children
medical care in favor of faith healing) will be ineligible for
government funding.

Also, since these people are supposedly working for *society*, society
should have a say in how much work it desires done.  If we decide we
don't want to increase our population quite so rapidly, we might just
require our homemakers to stop having children for a few years, or
perhaps limit them to 2 children each.  Like any other government
contractor, a homemaker who violates any of the terms of his/her
contract could be barred from receiving further funds, and possibly
sued for return of monies already spent.

Sounds like a lovely little police state, doesn't it?

-- Dave Touretzky, contended homemaker for a large green parrot,
   and it's none of the government's business, thank you.
   (But my *job* is Research Computer Scientist.)