Reasons why I think the 'WagesForHousework' moment is flawed

If there were a lot of the things I had to say in regards to the question, Should women be paid for household work? I would. But I don’t have much to add to this debate.

I will tell you why.

Growing up if someone outright asked me, would you consider giving away your pocket money to your mother for A) waking up early in the morning to prepare breakfast of my choice B) taking me to the school and somehow completing all the household chores on her own in my absence C) tutoring me and other ‘trivial’ things that I was too busy noticing at that time. I would have laughed at your face. Simply because she is richer than me. Heck, I have seen the enormous bundle of cash she stored in her little cabinet.

Now that I am in my university, the ‘neoteric’ idea of women being paid for the household chores that they have been conditioned to do since their birth still seems problematic to me.

While the idea in itself is noble and further highlights the unpaid work done by women, it still manages to be unapologetically ignorant.

How will you monetise the work done by homemakers? If done correctly, who will give them their salaries? And most importantly, will it help women resolve the gender disparity and social roles imposed on them? Questions like these still linger in my mind.

Not many arguments came close to a conclusive answer.

Krishna Tirath, Ex Women and Child Development minister, once considered the idea of homemakers being quantified and remunerated by their spouses. This, however, doesn’t sit well with me. The implication of men paying for the household work done by the women suggests that the man is financially and socially superior to women in a family. Also, it won’t help a family elevate their household income in any way.

There are no sides to be taken in this argument. The question here is more intriguing than the answer itself. Whether to be or not to be is a moral dilemma. Silvia Federici, one of the founders of the ‘wages for housework’ movement wrote: “To ask for wages for housework will by itself undermine the expectations society has of us since these expectations – the essence of our socialisation – are all functional to our wageless condition in the home.”

In the hindsight, ex-parliamentarian and Italian lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno proposed that women be paid a salary to curb domestic violence. Her argument suggests that most women continue to stay in an abusive relationship as they have no way out, making them financially dependent on their spouse/partner. The idea is paying for women to have a better stand in society and shedding light on the strenuous work done by homemakers. However, the said proposal mentioned that the remunerations must be paid by the state or the partner, a direct contradiction to words written by Federici.

To think about it, the good ole discussion of women being paid for housework isn’t new. Countless debates and series of campaigns yielded no results because they were looking for a ‘this or that’ answer.

The women of India don’t have time for an elitist discussion. She has to wake up early in the morning and complete all the housework right before her husband arrives. She doesn’t even have a say in this discussion because she is not an earning member. Though the struggle she goes through is real, the work she does is real, it is often discounted as her duty.

And that statement irks me.

The real problem lies in the mindset of people. It’s not the duty of a woman to do laundry or cook food. Equal division of labour between all members of the family is the only way to go. It shouldn’t be a choice. It should be an obligation for each member of the society to do their laundry and cook their food and then maybe we can end this discussion.

And to answer this question once and for all, my mother is a rich man. She doesn’t need my money or my father’s. She just needs a hand or two to help her manage the household.

Lastly, as Piotr Kropotkin said,

“To emancipate woman is not only to open the gates of the university, the law courts, or the parliaments to her, for the "emancipated" woman will always throw her domestic toil on to another woman. To emancipate a woman is to free her from the brutalizing toil of kitchen and washhouse; it is to organize your household in such a way as to enable her to rear her children, if she be so minded, while still retaining sufficient leisure to take her share of social life. It will come. As we have said, things are already improving. Only let us fully understand that a revolution, intoxicated with the beautiful words, Liberty, Equality, Solidarity, would not be a revolution if it maintained slavery at home. Half humanity subjected to the slavery of the hearth would still have to rebel against the other half.”

― Piotr Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread

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