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The '''International Wages for Housework Campaign''' was a global social movement founded in 1972 in [[Padua]], Italy. The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how [[Homemaking|housework]] and [[childcare]] are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid wage labor.<ref>{{cite web|last=James|first=Selma|title=Is Transformation Possible? They Say We Can't. We Must.|jstor=20838923|work=Off Our Backs|publisher=Off Our Backs. Inc|page=42}}</ref> The demands for the Wages for Housework formally called for economic compensation for domestic work but also used these demands to call attention to the affective labors of women, the reliance of capitalist economies on exploitative labor practices against women, and [[leisure]] inequality.<ref name="nplusonemag.com">[http://nplusonemag.com/more-smiles-more-money "More Smiles, More Money." N+1 Magazine. August 2013]</ref>
The '''International Wages for Housework Campaign''' was a global social movement founded in 1972 in [[Padua]], Italy. The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how [[Homemaking|housework]] and [[childcare]] are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid wage labor.<ref>{{cite web|last=James|first=Selma|title=Is Transformation Possible? They Say We Can't. We Must.|jstor=20838923|work=Off Our Backs|publisher=Off Our Backs. Inc|page=42}}</ref> The demands for the Wages for Housework formally called for economic compensation for domestic work but also used these demands to call attention to the affective labors of women, the reliance of capitalist economies on exploitative labor practices against women, and [[leisure]] inequality.<ref name="nplusonemag.com">[http://nplusonemag.com/more-smiles-more-money "More Smiles, More Money." N+1 Magazine. August 2013]</ref>


The International Wages for Housework Campaign grew out of the International Feminist Collective in [[Ital]]y, founded by [[Selma James]], [[Brigitte Galtier]], [[Mariarosa Dalla Costa]], and [[Silvia Federici]].<ref name="nplusonemag.com" /> The group published a [[autonomist Marxism]] autonomist journal, ''Matériaux pour l’intervention.'' Dalla Costa, one of the members of the group in Padua came from the intellectual movement ''[[operaismo]],'' which developed around factory strikes in [[Northern Italy]] in the 1970s. The Wages for Housework Campaign took the idea from ''operaismo'' of the wage as central to the struggle for worker control and rights of industry. ''Operaismo'' encouraged workers to act in their direct interests when it comes to demanding compensation for their labor and exploitation in the factory. The Wages for Housework campaign applied that to the [[social factory]], a conception of society whereby "the whole of society lives as a function of the factory and the factory extends its exclusive domination to the whole of society".<ref name="F&S">{{cite web|last1=Tronti|first1=Mario|title=Factory and Society|url=https://operaismoinenglish.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/factory-and-society/|website=Operaismo in English|accessdate=6 May 2017|date=1962}}</ref>
The International Wages for Housework Campaign grew out of the International Feminist Collective in [[Ital]]y, which was founded in 1972 by [[Selma James]], [[Brigitte Galtier]], [[Mariarosa Dalla Costa]], and [[Silvia Federici]], to promote political debate and action around the issue of housework.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpdallacosta1.htm|title=The door to the garden|last=www.generation-online.org|first=Mariarosa Dalla Costa + EE + AB|website=www.generation-online.org|access-date=2016-12-06}}</ref><ref><ref name="nplusonemag.com" /> The group published a [[autonomist Marxism]] autonomist journal, ''Matériaux pour l’intervention.'' Dalla Costa, one of the members of the group in Padua came from the intellectual movement ''[[operaismo]],'' which developed around factory strikes in [[Northern Italy]] in the 1970s. The Wages for Housework Campaign took the idea from ''operaismo'' of the wage as central to the struggle for worker control and rights of industry. ''Operaismo'' encouraged workers to act in their direct interests when it comes to demanding compensation for their labor and exploitation in the factory. The Wages for Housework campaign applied that to the [[social factory]], a conception of society whereby "the whole of society lives as a function of the factory and the factory extends its exclusive domination to the whole of society".<ref name="F&S">{{cite web|last1=Tronti|first1=Mario|title=Factory and Society|url=https://operaismoinenglish.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/factory-and-society/|website=Operaismo in English|accessdate=6 May 2017|date=1962}}</ref>


The campaign included aspects of student protest, [[feminism]], [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]], community workshops, and direct action protest. Several publications grew out of its ideas, which expanded on the claims of the original group and of more general topics in labor and exploitation. In Italy, ''Quaderni rossi,'' published by [[Raniero Panzieri]], and [[Mario Tronti]], dealt with a variety of topics relating to the class struggle.
The campaign included aspects of student protest, [[feminism]], [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]], community workshops, and direct action protest. Several publications grew out of its ideas, which expanded on the claims of the original group and of more general topics in labor and exploitation. In Italy, ''Quaderni rossi,'' published by [[Raniero Panzieri]], and [[Mario Tronti]], dealt with a variety of topics relating to the class struggle.

Revision as of 18:56, 3 September 2017

The International Wages for Housework Campaign was a global social movement founded in 1972 in Padua, Italy. The Campaign was formed to raise awareness of how housework and childcare are the base of all industrial work and to stake the claim that these unavoidable tasks should be compensated as paid wage labor.[1] The demands for the Wages for Housework formally called for economic compensation for domestic work but also used these demands to call attention to the affective labors of women, the reliance of capitalist economies on exploitative labor practices against women, and leisure inequality.[2]

The International Wages for Housework Campaign grew out of the International Feminist Collective in Italy, which was founded in 1972 by Selma James, Brigitte Galtier, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, and Silvia Federici, to promote political debate and action around the issue of housework.[3]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The campaign included aspects of student protest, feminism, civil rights, community workshops, and direct action protest. Several publications grew out of its ideas, which expanded on the claims of the original group and of more general topics in labor and exploitation. In Italy, Quaderni rossi, published by Raniero Panzieri, and Mario Tronti, dealt with a variety of topics relating to the class struggle.

Feminist arguments were also key in the Wages for Housework movement, and its members wrote widely on topics in affective labor. Some of the demands of the Wages for Housework groups also included women's right to work outside of the home, unemployment benefits for all women, and equal pay.

United States

In 1973, Federici helped start Wages for Housework groups in the US and in 1975, the Wages for Housework opened an office in Brooklyn, New York at 288 B. 8th St. The New York group was called the "Wages for Housework Committee."[4] Flyers handed out in support of the New York Wages for Housework Committee called for all women to join regardless of marital status, nationality, sexual orientation, number of children, or employment.[5] In 1975 Federici published Wages Against Housework, the book most commonly associated with the movement.[4]

Branches of the Wages for Housework Committee appeared in other cities across America. They were organized in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Tulsa, and Cleveland.[6] Along with these committees, other autonomous organizations that fall within the Wages for Housework campaign began to organize within the United States.[7] For example, in 1974 International Black Women for Wages for Housework was founded by Margaret Prescod and Wilmette Brown in New York City. Prescod also founded the Black Women for Wages for Housework in Los Angeles alongside Sidney Ross-Risden in 1980. The Black Women for Wages for Housework focused on not only unpaid housework for the average housewife, but specific issues of black and third world women. They called for reparations for "slavery, imperialism and neo-colonialism."[7][8][9][10]

Both San Francisco and Philadelphia were home to Wages Due Lesbians, an organization that was first created in Britain in 1975. Wages Due Lesbians called for wages for housework along with extra wages for lesbians for "the additional physical and emotional housework of surviving in a hostile and prejudiced society, recognized as work and paid for so all women have the economic power to afford sexual choices."[7][11] Wages Due Lesbians also worked alongside The Lesbian Mothers' National Defense Fund, founded in 1974 and based in Seattle, which aimed to help lesbian mothers who were a part of custody cases after coming out.[12][13]

San Francisco was also home to the U.S. PROStitutes Collective (US PROS). US PROS was created in 1982 to help decriminalize prostitution and also prevent men, women, and children from being forced into prostitution.[11] Likewise, Tulsa housed the No Bad Women, Just Bad Laws Coalitions. It was founded by Ruth Taylor Todasco in 1981 and also focused on the decriminalization of sex work.[14][15]

Social wage campaigns

Wages for Housework is part of more general social wage campaigns in the 1970s interested in late capitalism. These campaigns used analysis of Fordist compromises during the twentieth century to argue that family wages or social security payments had amounted to wages paid for housework in the advanced capitalist West.[16][17] A number of other autonomous organizations interested in compensation for domestic labor were formed in 1975: Black Women for Wages for Housework, Wages Due Lesbians, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) and some years later WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities).

Recent history

In recent years,[when?] the demands of the Wages for Housework Campaign have been applied to many more recent debates in the gendered aspects of labor including, reproductive rights, sex work, and demands for women in leadership roles in business.[2]

Silvia Federici and several others from the early campaign have continued to publish books and articles related to the demands of Wages for Housework including Fererici's 2012 book, Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle.

Publication

  • Louise Toupin. Le salaire au travail ménager. Chronique d'une lutte féministe internationale (1972-1977) Éditions du Remue-Ménage, 2014.
  • Silvia Federici. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. PM Press, 2012.
  • Cox, Nicole, and Silvia Federici. Counter-planning from the kitchen: wages for housework : a perspective on capital and the Left. New York: New York Wages for Housework Committee. 1976.
  • Dalla Costa, Mariarosa, and Selma James. The Power of women and the subversion of the community. Bristol: Falling Wall Press Ltd. 1975.
  • James, Selma, Nina Lopez, and Marcus Rediker. 2012. Sex, Race and Class-The Perspective of Winning a Selection of Writings 1952-2011. Chicago: PM Press. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=867353.

See also

References

  1. ^ James, Selma. "Is Transformation Possible? They Say We Can't. We Must". Off Our Backs. Off Our Backs. Inc. p. 42. JSTOR 20838923. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  2. ^ a b "More Smiles, More Money." N+1 Magazine. August 2013
  3. ^ www.generation-online.org, Mariarosa Dalla Costa + EE + AB. "The door to the garden". www.generation-online.org. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
  4. ^ a b Vishmidt, Marina (March 2013). "Permanent Reproductive Crisis: An Interview with Silvia Federici". Meta Mute. Mute.
  5. ^ "The Campaign for Wages for Housework" (PDF). bcrw.barnard.edu. Barnard Center for Research on Women. 1975. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  6. ^ Tait, Vanessa (2005). Poor Workers' Union: Rebuilding Labor from Below. Boston: South End Press. p. 38. ISBN 089608714X.
  7. ^ a b c "The International Wages for Housework Campaign" (PDF). Freedomarchives.org. The Freedom Archives. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
  8. ^ Hendrix, Kathleen (May 1987). "Waging the War Over Wages: Fight for Homemaker Pay has Seen Ups, Downs". latimes. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  9. ^ Love, Barbara (2006). Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. p. 368. ISBN 025203189X.
  10. ^ Hendrix, Kathleen (July 28, 1985). "Campaign Catches On: L.A. Pair Seek Wages for Women's Unpaid Work". Newspaper. Retrieved 22 October 2015 – via Los Angeles Times.
  11. ^ a b "US PROS Collective". US PROS Collective. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  12. ^ "The Lesbian Mothers National Defense Fund, the 1970s through 1990s". outhistory.org. Out History. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  13. ^ Myers, JoAnne (2009). The A to Z of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage. Plymouth: Scarecrow Press. pp. xxxvi. ISBN 0810863278.
  14. ^ Love, Barbara (2006). Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1965. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. p. 463. ISBN 025203189X.
  15. ^ Overs, Cheryl (2012). "'No Bad Women, Just Bad Laws': Three Decades of Sex Work Law Reform Advocacy" (PDF). HIV and the Law. Criminalize Hate Not HIV. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  16. ^ Himmelweit, Susan F; Mohun, Simon (1977). "Domestic labour and capital". Cambridge Journal of Economics. 1 (1). Oxford University Press: 15–31.
  17. ^ Zoë Fairbairns, "Wages For Housework", New Internationalist, issue 181, March 1988.

External links

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