In my personal life, my preferred solution to household chores pending socialist revolution is to do as little as possible, maintaining minimum standards of sanitation. :-> I'd rather spend my free time on political activism, reading, and movie-going (three passions of my life) than doing a Martha Stewart Living. My partner in activism and all things besides Mark D. Stansbery (a white, male, Presbyterian who goes to to church every Sunday, with what I like to call "a sweet spot" in his midsection), with whom I have lived for the last seven years and half, finds my preferred solution unsatisfactory -- so he does them all, shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, religiously recycling, and so on. The other day, Mark went fishing, caught walleye, and made tempura of it. What does he ask for in return? I occasionally attend a ball game with him, where I eat ballpark hotdogs and read newspapers while he's watching the game.
So, all cozy and quiet on the "domestic labor" front as far as our child-free household is concerned, aside from my partner's perennial complaint: I, a packrat and print fetishist, don't let him throw away -- not without a fight! -- old magazines, newspapers, and other products on which words are printed.
Are other feminists, unable to find men like my partner or to re-train them to be like him, turning to household servants of color, and, by doing so, "killing families, feeding racism," as Barbara Ehrenreich suggests? I rather doubt it. The majority of feminists are working-class women, and they are hardly paid well enough to make a comfortable living, much less hire nannies and cleaners for everyday services. A minority of feminists who can afford and do hire them belong to the class and social stratum who have and will always do so, regardless of their political persuasion (be it feminism, socialism, or whatever). Moreover, many individuals -- be they men or women, feminists or non-feminists -- live as singles, sometimes with young children and other persons in need of care; and for them, a fair and equal sharing of household chores and care-giving labor isn't an option, as long as they go without partners (by choice or necessity) and have to earn wages, do household chores, and/or take care of their young and adult dependents on their own.
I do not doubt that the service sector, of which sale of services that may have been provided by women's unpaid labor at home in the past constitutes a minor part, has expanded in the recent decades, but the expansion has more to do with the current stage of capital accumulation over which isolated consumption choices of individual feminists -- say, to purchase or not to purchase cleaning services -- have no major influence:
***** BLS RELEASES 2000-2010 EMPLOYMENT PROJECTIONS Technical Information: (202) 691-5700 USDL 01-443 Media Contact: (202) 691-5902 For release: 10A.M. EST Monday, December 3, 2001 Internet: http://www.bls.gov/emp
BLS RELEASES 2000-2010 EMPLOYMENT PROJECTIONS
Industry Employment
* The service-producing sector will continue to be the dominant employment generator in the economy, adding 20.5 million jobs by 2010. Within the goods-producing sector, construction and durable manufacturing will contribute relatively modest employment gains.
* As employment in the service-producing sector increases by 19 percent, manufacturing employment is expected to increase by only 3 percent over the 2000-2010 period. Manufacturing will return to its 1990 employment level of 19.1 million, but its share of total jobs is expected to decline from 13 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2010.
* Health services, business services, social services, and engineering, management, and related services are expected to account for almost one of every two nonfarm wage and salary jobs added to the economy during the 2000-2010 period. These sectors account for a large share of the fastest-growing industries. (See table 3a.)
Occupational employment
* Professional and related occupations and service occupations are projected to increase the fastest and to add the most jobs -- 7.0 million and 5.1 million, respectively. These two groups -- on opposite ends of the educational attainment and earnings spectrum -- are expected to provide more than half of total job growth over the 2000-2010 period. (See table 2.)
* Transportation and material moving occupations are projected to grow 15 percent, about the same as the average for all occupations
* Office and administrative support occupations are projected to grow more slowly than average, reflecting long-term trends in office automation. Production occupations should grow much more slowly than average because of advances in manufacturing technology. . . .
<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.nr0.htm> *****
The expansion of personal services also has to do with the aging of the population, increases in singles and single parents, and contraction of families (e.g., smaller numbers of children, consequently the absence of older siblings taking care of younger ones), as well as with increases in women's labor participation.
What should be the feminist political agenda in this social and economic context?
Feminist demands should include:
* universal health care * socialization of "household labor," especially public provisions of care-giving services (child care, care of the old, care of the dying, etc. which constitute the main part of "household labor" today) * rights of the disabled, disability benefits, and social programs for assisted living (as the majority of us will find ourselves disabled, for a short or long term, at some points in our lives, often with no one who can take care of us) * organization of the unorganized (most service-sector jobs of the sort that Ehrenreich writes about are non-union jobs), with organized labor devoting resources that they deserve to the task of organizing the unorganized and using innovative strategies and tactics to achieve this goal, linking up with other social movements * immigrant workers' rights (many service-sector workers of the sort that Ehrenreich writes about are immigrants of color), coupled with emphasis on opposition to the war on crimes * shorter work hours * more vacations in general and paid care-giver leaves in particular -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>