>[I forwarded some of the collective's remarks to Barbara Ehrenreich;
>she responded with this letter to Yoshie.]
>
>Dear Yoshie,
>
>I never said housework is a moral issue for women only. In fact, my essay in
>Harpers goes after women for dropping the ball in the struggle to get men to
>do their share. But it was women - feminists of the left - who made housework
>a political issue in the 70s and, yes, I do, in some sense, address myself
>to them.
The mass feminist movement has disappeared, along with other mass social movements. This is tragic, but I think we ought not to make this defeat a question of "moral" failure. Housework is still a political issue, but a way to go doesn't seem to me to think of the increasing commercialization of domestic cleaning as a "moral loss" for American families or American feminists. Feminists, along with organized labor, should support unionization, taking a hint from the trend toward industrialization, instead of thinking that it's a shame to make use of cleaning services. The same goes for other kinds of domestic labor, such as care-giving.
>I do agree, however, that it would be interesting to know what Mr. Zoe Baird
>was earning while paying his household help near the minimum wage. But (1) I
>had no way of finding out, and (2) Zoe's $500,000 makes my point, or at least
>sounds like a lot to me.
To repeat, Zoe Baird isn't above criticism at all, but I just think that leaving her husband off the hook reinforces the idea that housework is women's work.
>Also, in my Harpers piece, I propose alternative employment for current
>housecleaners: publicly subsidized cleaning for people who really need to
>have it done. As they say in the housecleaning industry, you missed that spot.
I think public provision would be a wonderful idea, but our demand for it shouldn't include a means-testing clause. Means-testing tends to make any program poorly funded.
>What truly worries me about your letter though is the sneering remarks about
>"noblesse oblige." Do you include every form of charity, every contribution
>to a good cause, as "noblesse oblige"? What a handy rationale!
I think, from your past work, that you must be aware that the idea of charity & volunteering has been promoted to undercut the welfare state. Leave it up to neoliberals like Clinton & Blair to push for charity; our job is to counter their argument for privatization of social programs.
>If the wealth of the world is ever evenly distributed, or even just more
>evenly distributed, you and I, Yoshie, will no doubt end up with less of it
>than we now possess.
Perhaps you are making an assumption that, because I think of myself as a feminist, I must be well off??? I make between $760 and $2,280 per month (depending on the number of courses I get to teach), no health benefits, no pension plan, with giant credit card debts. I live in what is called an "efficiency." On the whole, negative net worth that gets more negative each day. If I ever get to live in a socialist world, I hope that my material circumstances will improve. :)
I think that many American feminists live under circumstances similar to mine; though some may be better or worse off than me, nearly all of us are working-class. Reading your article, however, I get the impression that the majority of feminists are rich enough to hire maids!
Yoshie