Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TaylorAlexander | Hacker News Reader

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TaylorAlexander

One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work.

So we can identify a problem. The society (of the 1960’s and before in particular) required women’s work, but women were not compensated for their work. Given how critical that work is for society, it does strike me as a real problem.

A secondary question is what to do about it, which I believe you are asking. That is much more complicated. We have identified a problem, but perhaps have not identified a solution. However the lack of a solution does not mean it is fair to ignore the problem.

I bet feminists have suggested lots of solutions to this, but it’s telling that you and I (I expect) are both ignorant of them.

However, I do think this expectation of necessary unpaid work is unfair. Can anyone comment on proposed solutions to this in the feminist literature? Thanks!

I’m a stay at home dad and have been for the last 5 years. My wife works for herself, spending anywhere from 10-14 hours a day working pretty much 6-7 days a week (she loves her job and gets paid well to do it).

Personally I don’t see it as an unfair bargain. I work hard at home, it can be stressful and tiring sometimes, but my wife takes on all the stress of providing income. I get ‘compensated’ pretty well - we have a good income and I live a great life. I personally think that home-makers who complain that they aren’t ‘compensated’ for their work are being churlish.

That’s great when it’s working well.

I suspect there’s a couple of problems -

(1) often the home-maker goes back to work, but the home-duties don’t get redistributed accordingly. The home maker is forever saddled with that burden, limiting their career options.

(2) In a divorce, the man is often left with a good income, through a valid, ongoing career, while the stay-at-home mom is left with an empty CV, the ongoing burden of the kids, and an allowance decided by the courts. Sure, men might have the burden of a new alimony/child payments ‘tax’, but otherwise they’re now free to do whatever they want. The woman isn’t.

(vast generalization of course)

Those are two great examples -- one thing I'd like to add is that the audience of Hackernews is pretty upper-middle class (as are the anecdotes in this thread), these issues are compounded greatly when it comes to poor or working class women, who may feel completely trapped in a bad marriage economically, or may be struggling as single working mothers.

Absolutely - it’s probably a common feature of stay-at-home dads in the 21st century that it’s a good deal. There’s going to be a much larger percentage of stay-at-home mums who have awful ‘deals’.

> One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work.

The woman is effectively doing the work for the man (or for herself). She doesn't do the work for nothing, she does it in exchange for a roof over her head and food on the table, and medical insurance coverage and an address in a good school district for her kids etc. etc.

If the non-monetary compensation is less than she can earn by formally working as a cook or a maid (or a retail clerk or a biology professor) then she can do that instead. But if it's not, she's still not working for nothing.

She is not working for pay. Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. So while I agree with your literal words that she does get some benefit and that she could try to find a job, I cannot help but read in to your words as suggesting the situation is fair. And that I completely disagree with.

> She is not working for pay.

If the transaction was formalized so that she was receiving a salary and then paying the same total amount for rent, food, insurance, etc., what difference would that make in practice?

> Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women.

You are referring to the job market in the early 20th century. This is obviously no longer the case, given that a majority of working-aged women do in fact now work for money.

The argument you would have to make now is that homemaker is a specialized profession that doesn't translate into another profession. Leaving aside whether that's even true (it's easy to prove you know how to cook and there are such jobs in many diners etc.), how is it different than many ordinary professions? If you have ten years experience as a calligrapher when you decide it isn't for you, you can't just instantly jump onto the middle of the career ladder as a mechanical engineer.

Nor is someone who prefers to be a homemaker tied to a specific person. There are many other men (and women) willing to enter into the same kind of arrangement.

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