Posted on 07/31/2018 11:56:56 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Eugene Lang College (NYC) is offering a course this Fall predicated on the belief that women should be paid for housework, emotional labor, and other forms of “invisible labor.”
Taught by author Macushla Robinson, the “Love and Currency” course is based off the 1975 Silvia Federici essay “Wages Against Housework,” a landmark manifesto that urges women to demand cash compensation from husbands for all household work.
“Wages for housework is only the beginning,” Federici wrote during an era when nearly 40 percent of women didn’t work outside the home, adding that husbands “have to pay us…not one wage, but many wages, because we have been forced into many jobs at once.”
Though the essay is commonly taught in women’s studies courses, this appears to be the first class that takes Federici’s original arguments and extends them into the type of intersectional analysis that is now de rigueur in women’s studies departments.
“Many forms of labor, which are often not recognized as labor, fall along lines of gender, race, and class,” the course description notes, stressing that “unrecognized, invisible, poorly remunerated, and unremunerated labor keeps our society afloat.”
“Whether changing nappies and washing an endless build of up dishes, caring for elderly and infirm family members...or bearing up under everyday sexual harassment, constricting gender norms, and systemic racism, invisible labor is exhausting,” it adds.
While Robinson was not immediately available for an interview on the new class, many of her previous essays on the subject argue that the lack of payment for women’s housework is linked to other problems, namely capitalism and exploitation.
In a recent essay, for example, Robinson suggests that women today are faring worse than their predecessors, since many women not only perform unpaid labor in the home, but also have a day-job while their kids are at school.
Women, Robinson writes, “end up performing double the labour: that for which they are compensated, and the affective, invisible labour for which they are not.”
“The capitalist system has appropriated womens’ labour to support the exploitation of a male waged workforce, including in the romanticised cultural sector,” Robinson asserts. “As women have been culturally constructed as closer to nature, and biologically more capable of love than men, their ‘labours of love’ have often been framed as a natural resource. Despite the efforts of many feminists to invert the hierarchy of values that maligns both women and nature, women remain sidelined by this logic.”
“It is difficult to propose a clear path forward. It demands that we override centuries of cultural training,” she concludes. “In many ways the change has to be made by the women (myself included) whom Steyerl identifies as ‘self-exploiting.’ This change is not easy, but it is necessary.”
First of all, no man could AFFORD me; I do what I do for him out of LOVE. Secondly, my current 'Farm Wife Gig' (sans any kids!) is the best thing ever, EVER!
Right now I'm canning Salsa and FReeping while Beau is out in the hot sun, Consulting at a Construction Site.
Life Is Good. :)
What’s the going ‘Labor Wage’ when you’re, ‘In Labor?’
Asking for a friend...
I’d think it would take more than one semester to absorb the fullness of this concept.
sex?
that's what sex is for, isn't it?
Let’s consider this! The hubby can write off the expense from his taxes, then the wife can claim earned income tax credits. Oh, and any household expenses related to the labor (cleaners, vacuum machine and bags, washer and dryer) become business expenses. Wife can show a loss on her “job” and write that off taxes, too.
I’m sure it must be extra for hazardous duty.
I don’t have time to read the whole nonsense, but wouldn’t this put women back in the position of receiving ‘allowances’ from husbands? What if they are lousy housekeepers and poor cooks - does that affect wages? Do they get merit raises if they ‘excel’ and who determines that? Do they organize labor unions, go on strike, take husbands to court?
A Liberal Arts College just doing damage to everyday Families wherever it can! *SPIT*
I grew up with this Feminism cr@p. It IS a bunch of cr@p.
We were designed, male and female, to take on certain rolls and to procreate to glorify God. It ain’t that hard to understand.
Liberals Ruin Everything. EVERYTHING.
Oh, Man! The Unions have been taking a BEATING over the past few years - don’t give them any new ideas, LOL!
It is called sweat equity. It goes hand-in-hand with brown bag lunches, store brand food, used cars, and dollar cost averaging, making and extra house payment (or two) per year... staying out of credit card debt, paying your bills on time, not having children out of wedlock, finishing high school or a GED, and not getting entangled with the criminal justice system. Going to work everyday & putting in in honest days work. Pursuing advanced educational opportunities... budgeting your pay and sticking to your budget... if one or the other spouse disagrees with the ethic, perhaps they should rethink the commitment.
LOL. Who, precisely, is supposed to pay the “wages” for housework? And if its your working spouse, does that mean that you no longer have joint finances with your husband? And does your spouse have to issue a W-9 to you and then you get taxed on your “housework wages”? Or is this just yet another ploy for a government handout to people who don’t work in the workforce?
Applying that logic, and I use the term loosely, shouldn’t a wife then pay for her room and board? And other economic benefits?
I suspect that if a lot of these women who go through this course start spieling their thoughts on this to their boyfriends, the boyfriends will run far away and then the women will have nothing to worry about, since they will live alone and be self-supporting.
Are there women who do housework? you mean, like washing the dishes and cooking? WHERE ARE THEY?
If this is to happen, then you have to deduct room and board from their “salary.”
Listen up. Marriage is a cooperative arrangement between a MAN and a WOMAN. It arose to HELP the woman, not to enslave her!
Furthermore, men are discriminated against in college admissions and jobs. Yet the man is the one who pays, always.
Is Macushla Robinson not currently paying her illegal alien housekeeper? Shame on her.
All you had to do was say "no" ya' big dummy, and stay single. Did anybody twist your arm?
It's called a Joint Bank Account.
If they're serious about calling it "wages," then wait until the government taxes it and takes out FICA and SSDI.
-PJ
Diana, Your attitude is refreshing.
Do they really want husbands conducting performance reviews for their wives? Is this the direction these freaks want to go? I guess they have come a long way since the days when women should be the bread winners, equal to all men, and men should be breast feeding for them.
At it’s core, this is another shot at destroying the family, the foundation of a civil society. Whose going to pay the husband for mowing the lawn, trimming the bushes, cleaning the trash can, changing the oil in the cars, repairing the house, cleaning the gutters, etc. Should men no longer be expected to contribute to housework, else the wives Union show up and picket?
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