Summary Of Wages Against Housework

The manifesto ‘Wages against Housework’ has been written by Silvia Federici, a feminist Marxist as a part of her campaign commencing in 1975, directed at unifying women and bringing out their demands into the streets. It calls out to women regardless of their marital status, age, sexuality, nationality etc. to join the movement aimed at rallying against the prevailing social conditions under which they exist in the capitalistic society to make them “more favourable for women and consequently more favourable to the unity of class”. The women have been devalued for a long time, the price of their love coming at the expense of endless housework, a work which no one even recognizes as work. In the words of Federici, “there is hardly any bride who
doesn’t feel cheated when at the end of the day she is the one doing dishes at the sink” and while “many women marry for money and security, the money or the security they receive is much less than the burdensome work they endure daily” without any appreciation or recognition. Thus the manifesto is likely to receive positive responses from the side of women, not because wages would improve their situation, though they are likely to make it better but because the struggle that will take place to get those wages would involve a deconstruction of female role as set by the capitalistic society.
The manifesto became quite popular as the movement grew and spread across US with different committees coming up such as Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians etc. Prescribing towards feminist ideology the manifesto displays how wages for “housework serves as a revolutionary perspective for initially the females, following the entire working class”. The manifesto clearly goes against the capitalistic intentions for making the work of women “burdensome and at the same time invisible.” According to Federici the role assigned to the women under a capitalistic society has been as servants to the working class where the only task of women is to make sure that the men are ready for work again the next day by being serviced “physically, emotionally and sexually” for free. To ask for wages would be to rebel against this very role followed by a break in “planned division of labour and social power within the working class, through which capital has been able to maintain its
power”.

The manifesto expresses the problems faced by women due to their unfavorable position in the social strata. Capitalism, according to the manifesto, has denied “housework a wage and transformed it into an act of love” i.e. hidden the value of work done by women and turned it into a mere obligation/condition of a successful marriage. Subsequently women are “trained to be docile, subservient, dependent” and at the same time derive pleasure out of doing so. Since housework is an unwaged work, it does not hold any value in the eyes of the society and is understood inferior to the waged jobs, for wages decide whether your work is needed or not. Making housework wage less not only makes the women do a whole lot of work for free but also gives the impression that it is no big deal, thus giving men the power to treat their wives however they want under the illusion that it is they alone who have been working hard all day. It is because the position of a housewife holds the least power if at all in the social contract that most woman refuse to identify themselves as one, however Federici argues that doing another job outside the house does not change the circumstances under which the women work. “We are all housewives because no matter where we are they can always count on more work from us, more fear on our side to put forward our demands, and less pressure on them for money, since hopefully our minds are directed elsewhere, to that man in our present or our future who will ‘take care of us.’” Thus the only way in which women would achieve liberation and a change in their social position according to Federici would be by attacking the “female role at it’s roots.”

The manifesto covers largely all the injustices faced by women and connects it to one solution that is wages for housework.
The demands for wages are “addressed to the state since the state, “the representative of collective capital,” is “the real ‘Man’ profiting from this work.” The big Man, the State, and the little man, the husband, are locked in collusion against the wife.” It is the power that resides within the social contract of exploitation between the workers and the capitalists’ that gives the workers the ability to act as agents. The mere fact that you are being exploited means that your work is needed by the society and you are doing the work not because you like it but because there is no other way in which you can exist. By connecting the female attribute to housework, the capital made the housework wage less, thus creating a role akin to slavery, where you slave in the kitchen and bedroom all day but no one sees it as work following the assumption that it is your duty as a woman. Thus demanding of wages for housework, according to the manifesto would mean recognition of housework performed by women as actual work which would subsequently make women a part of social contract and thus give them the power to improve their working conditions, which as of now are treated as mere targets for ridicule. As put in by Federici, it would “expose the fact that housework is already money for capital” and all the burdens shouldered by women throughout the years were not
because it was easier for them than anybody else but because they had no other choice. It would lead to a revolutionary demand of disillusioned male working class who believe that women should be grateful to them for giving them a chance to express themselves as women. Thus recognizing what women do is also work by the means of wages, would assume social justice be to bring about an equality in the sense that women can “work as well as men and do the same jobs.” This would result in getting rid of the degrading way in which the term female is used and thus ensure that the work done by women outside of their homes forms a part of actual work instead of just an extension of their household jobs. According to the manifesto, getting wages as opposed to the common idea would not mean that men would expect the women to work more just because they are paid but rather open their eyes to the housework as being actual work which would allow the women to spend only a limited time frame and energy in the housework which without wages would have no end. “It would allow women to refuse some of it and then all of it.” Men would be required to share the housework with women and identify them as actual human beings instead of slaves at their beck and call. This would help the women rediscover their identity dissociated from the ideals of a true woman and more along the path of reviving their love and sexuality which they have never known.