Care-Giving, Wages, 'Identity Politics' (was Re: jim o'connor on who cares about inequality?)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

jim o'connor wrote:
>Identity politics is a step backward to the
>degree that class politics gets repressed (for example, in Silicon Valley,
>when women workers demand company child care facilities because they are
>women and mothers, instead of demanding more wages because they are
>workers).

I doubt that there have been any women workers who didn't demand more wages
and better child care facilities/benefits _at the same time_.  I don't know
if Jim has any particular situation in mind; if so, I'd like documentation.

In any case, if some women have demanded company child care facilities as
'women and mothers,' well, that's simply because it has been, alas, women
and mothers who have shouldered the majority of private care-giving work
(which is _not_ limited to child care -- it includes taking care of the
sick, the aged, the disabled, etc., may I remind you).  If men had taken an
equal responsibility for care-giving, a demand for child care
benefits/facilities would not have come as one based upon the needs of
female gender.  Before criticizing 'identity politics,' you might attack
the gendering of care-giving work, both in the 'domestic' and 'public'
spheres.

Yoshie