Women’s Housework

Au tournant des années 1970, on assiste à l’émergence d’un renouveau féministe au Québec, marquée par la création du Front de libération des femmes du Québec en 1969. Une part du mouvement féministe envisage alors les activités domestiques non plus comme faisant partie d’une « nature féminine », mais comme un véritable travail. Cette démarche s’inscrit dans la recherche d’une oppression commune à toutes les femmes et dans l’idée d’une « communauté de situation ». Le travail ménager non rémunéré apparaît alors comme le « plus petit dénominateur commun » de la condition de toutes les femmes, et ce peu importe leur statut civil, leur classe sociale ou leur occupation. Durant les années 1970 et et 1980, plusieurs débats ont lieu quant à la reconnaissance de ce travail. Si certaines féministes défendent la revendication d’un salaire au travail ménager, plusieurs d’entre elles revendiquent plutôt une socialisation de ce travail par la mise en place de services collectifs (garderies populaires, cantines, etc.). D’autres féministes, enfin, demandent la mise en place de certaines réformes gouvernementales afin de réduire la précarité financière des mères et des ménagères. Dans la présente étude, nous proposons une analyse des discours sur le travail ménager, ainsi qu’un examen des différentes avenues de reconnaissance envisagées par les féministes québécoises. En analysant les publications de collectifs féministes, de groupes de femmes et d’organismes liés à la condition féminine, nous pouvons dès lors affirmer que le travail ménager a été un thème marquant pour le cheminement théorique et militant du mouvement des femmes. Bien qu’omniprésent dans les discours féministes des années 1970 et 1980, des collectifs plus radicaux aux associations féminines réformistes, il a été bien rapidement oublié dans les bilans et dans l’historiographie. Nous tenterons alors de mettre de l’avant les discours féministes sur la reconnaissance du travail ménager comme élément de continuité au sein du mouvement féministe.

A strong bias is observed in the popular sociological explanations toward those notions of human action which emphasize its rational nature, grounded on the assumption that any given action is an effect of aims, values or attitudes of an actor. Such a point of view corresponds well with simple social surveys but fails to explain and describe inconsistencies in our thinking and acting, as well as those human activities which rest heavily on the “practical consciousness”, anchored in habits and material environment. Although there are some sociological approaches suited to explain these everyday practices, e.g. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology or Bourdieu’s idea of sense of practice, they are hardly used in empirical sociology. Drawing on Swidler’s notion of culture as a tool-kit, Giza-Poleszczuk’s and Marody’s model of social bond changes and, above all, on Jean-Claude Kaufmann’s theory, the paper aims at overcoming this stalemate. Kaufmann’s idea of habits and their dialectical relation with reflexivity is an attempt to create not only a multifaceted sociological theory of action but also empirical tools and guidelines designed to investigate the mundane interactions which have been already tested in several Kaufmann’s studies. Drawing on these empirical examples (mainly studies concerning housework and intimate relationships) main Kaufmann’s theoretical assumptions are being described and discussed, as well as some aspects of their affinity and difference in relation to other sociological theories and research programs.

WORK AND LIFE IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL METROPOLIS. GENDER ALSO EXPLAINS. TRAVIDA PROJECT.

Abstract:
This paper has as its main focus the analysis of the effects of economic and social transformations of the last twenty years, in the living and working conditions of the people. Our approach sheds light on the changing conditions of employment, the intensification of the workload, the influences of geographical dispersion of the fragments of work and residence, and the impact on daily life, in the division of domestic labour, the balance (or not) in the division of labour between couples.
As a research ideal terrain we choose a 'technological district’ with a high concentration of jobs with high skills and salaries in information technology companies.
The results of the research shows as living and working conditions is an 'invasion of work into life', whose tendency is increased with the economic and organizational changes enterprises currently undertake.
Far from opening the possibilities dreamed for all people these transformations seem to commit increasingly the full-time life of the the persons concerned.
Keywords:
Work, life, gender, information society, entire labour production process, Total Social  Organization of labour.

"Written in an engaging and accessible manner by one of the leading scholars in his field, Environment and Social Theory, completed revised and updated with two new chapters, is an indispensable guide to the way in which the environment and social theory relate to one another.

This popular text outlines the complex interlinking of the environment, nature and social theory from ancient and pre-modern thinking to contemporary social theorizing. John Barry:


examines the ways major religions such as Judaeo-Christianity have and continue to conceptualize the environment

analyzes the way the non-human environment features in Western thinking from Marx and Darwin, to Freud and Horkheimer

explores the relationship between gender and the environment, postmodernism and risk society schools of thought, and the contemporary ideology of orthodox economic thinking in social theorising about the environment.
How humans value, use and think about the environment, is an increasingly central and important aspect of recent social theory. It has become clear that the present generation is faced with a series of unique environmental dilemmas, largely unprecedented in human history.

With summary points, illustrative examples, glossary and further reading sections this invaluable resource will benefit anyone with an interest in environmentalism, politics, sociology, geography, development studies and environmental and ecological economics.

"

Gender remains a key predictor of housework in modern society. However, previous studies have been relatively limited in their ability to adjudicate between possible mechanisms operating at the individual and social-interactional level that may cause this relationship. To address this gap, we employ a novel experimental design in which respondents view and evaluate photos of a relatively clean or messy room, which is ostensibly occupied by either a man or a woman. We find that men and women respondents do not differ in their perceptions of how messy a room is or how urgent it is to clean it up. In contrast, the gender of the room occupant has strong and significant effects on housework perceptions, moral judgments, perceived social consequences , and allocations of responsibility. Notably, when a relatively clean room is evaluated, female room occupants are held to higher standards of cleanliness, are believed to suffer more negative social consequences when they do not meet those standards, and are generally deemed more responsible for housework across a variety of work-family arrangements than their male counterparts. However, when a messy room is evaluated, gender effects are

Ma présentation a deux objectifs : d’abord, que toutes les personnes ici présentes ne disent plus jamais qu’il y a, d’un côté, les luttes qui concernent la chose économique, l’exploitation ou la redistribution - c’est-à-dire en fait la seule lutte anticapitaliste - et de l’autre, un gros paquet mou de mouvements sociaux que l’on qualifie souvent de « nouveaux », même s’ils durent depuis plus d’un siècle, et parfois même d’« identitaires ».

Dans ce gros paquet mou, on ramasse souvent la lutte féministe, LA lutte, comme s’il n’y en avait qu’une, comme si les féministes étaient toutes d’accord entre elles parce qu’elles ne sont pas assez intelligentes pour avoir pensé élaborer plusieurs théories qui s’entrechoquent et comme si elles n’avaient qu’une seule revendication : être reconnues pour leur différence. Mon objectif est donc de faire mousser, dans cette présentation, les féminismes qui parlent de l’exploitation des femmes, c’est-à-dire le féminisme marxiste et le féminisme radical matérialiste.

Puisque nous sommes dans un panel sur le néolibéralisme, mon deuxième objectif est d’aborder comment le néolibéralisme a restructuré ou recomposé la situation d’exploitation des femmes, notamment avec les mesures d’austérité, la mondialisation et les plans d’ajustement structurel. Cela permettra aussi de mettre à jour que certaines des avenues de luttes empruntées par le passé n’ont pas permis de remettre fondamentalement en question le rôle des femmes dans la société. Il faudra donc malheureusement se demander pourquoi et qu’est-ce qu’il faudrait faire maintenant, c’est-à-dire toujours la même question que nous nous posons d’un panel militant à l’autre.

Encore invisible, le travail des femmes? La question peut faire sourciller tant les féministes ont obtenu des gains sur ce front au cours des dernières décennies. Or, si les femmes ont massivement intégré le marché de l’emploi, le travail dit invisible, majoritairement effectué par celles-ci, n’a fait que croître et se complexifier. En plus du strict travail ménager, il se présente sous de multiples visages: la charge mentale de l’organisation familiale, le travail invisible d’intégration des femmes immigrantes, le travail des proches aidantes, celui des aides familiales venues d’ailleurs, des femmes autochtones et racisées, des étudiantes stagiaires, ou encore, des travailleuses du sexe.

Comment se décline l’enjeu du travail invisible dans différents milieux, et où en sont les revendications pour faire reconnaître ce travail et le sortir de l’ombre? Rassemblant des militantes féministes et des intellectuelles engagées sur ces questions, cet ouvrage collectif entend remettre le sujet du travail invisible à l’ordre du jour politique tout en proposant des pistes de réflexion et de mobilisation concrètes.

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Des textes de Stella Adjokê, Sandrine Belley, Sonia Ben Soltane, Annabelle Berthiaume, Jenn Clamen, Hélène Cornellier, Irène Demczuk, Myriam Dumont Robillard, Claudia Foisy, Monica Forrester, Elizabeth James, Elene Lam, Widia Larivière, Valérie Lefebvre-Faucher, Linda Li, Camille Robert, Annabelle Seery, Valérie Simard et Louise Toupin.

L’objectif de la présentation est notamment que les militants cessent de désigner le capitalisme comme LE sujet économique et de ranger «le reste» (le sexisme et le racisme) dans le grand fourre-tout des sujets non économiques. En effet, lorsqu’elles ont obtenu des droits égaux aux hommes, les féministes de la deuxième vague ont cherché à comprendre ce qui expliquait que leur subordination persiste. À l’encontre des féministes libérales et des socialistes traditionnels qui les enjoignaient à rejoindre le marché du travail pour s’émanciper, les ménagères, au tournant des années 70, ont fait le constat qu’en fait, elles travaillent déjà, mais qu’elles n’étaient simplement pas payées pour le faire. Aujourd’hui, la lutte contre le salaire au travail ménager menée à l’époque n’a pas abouti, mais la norme du double salaire à l’extérieur du foyer, elle, est bien enracinée dans les pays riches. Cette situation a mené, selon Sylvia Federici, à une «crise de la reproduction sociale» et, pour y répondre, on fait de plus en plus appel à des femmes immigrées expressément pour effectuer le travail domestique. Or, cette «mondialisation de l’amour maternel» vient instaurer une nouvelle stratification entre femmes et éroder la possibilité d’une lutte commune. De plus, dans les foyers qui n’emploient pas d’aide ménagère, ce sont encore les femmes qui effectuent la majorité du travail gratuit .
Comment allons-nous solutionner ce « problème de ménage » ? Dans cette présentation, je parlerai brièvement des différentes solutions explorées par les féministes des années 70 (salaire contre le travail ménager, socialisation et partage) ainsi que les limites de chacune.

The definition and descriptions of "house" and "house society" introduced by Claude Lévi-Strauss are not as straightforward and unproblematic as he might have believed, as subsequent scholarship has shown.  His failure to develop this model in any detailed case study left nagging questions unresolved.  Furthermore, his intention to utilize the house as a new social structural "type" alongside clan, lineage, and family reveals a notable flaw in his conception, for in his own discussions he eschews the simple classification of societies according to rules that arrange people into corporate descent groups, and the "house" is considered too variable a category to serve classification purposes.  Nevertheless, aspects of his notions of house and house societies have proven so intriguing as to tempt other ethnographers to develop and clarify them.  In the process, his definition of the house as an organizational institution found in some societies at a certain level of political-economic complexity has been increasingly abandoned, while the symbolic or fetishistic portions of his model have tended to be highlighted in studies that see in the house a new means for elucidating social group relations that may have universal applications.  These critiques and the subsequent reconceptualizing of the Lévi-Straussian house are reviewed in this chapter, but it concludes with a call to return to his original formulation (although not the static notion of a classificatory type).  Lévi-Strauss's definition and characterization emphasized the materiality, locality, and duration of the house along with the use of the "language of kinship and affinity" to bind its members and to perpetuate the estate from which their identity was derived.  In addition to focusing on kinship in terms of practice, discourse, and negotiation rather than as rules to be obeyed, and on the long-term outcomes of strategic decisions and actions rather than idealized characterizations of social groupings, Lévi-Strauss recognized in the house a societal configuration probably common in the past but now on the verge of extinction.  This distinction should not be lost; indeed, comparing the role of kinship past and present adds immeasurably to our understanding of social organization.

This article offers a feminist reading of home-baking. It explores the shifting ways in which baking has variously been bound up with a variety of normative values, such as familial 'togetherness', care, patriotism, thrift and display. This article draws on a range of historical examples, from the patriotic virtues of home-baking extolled via British wartime propaganda, and the 'wholesome, simple and economical' postwar Bero baking recipes, through to the renewed emphasis on display and baking as interwoven with new consumer cultures in the bestselling 1960s recipe book Cooking in Colour. This article goes on to explore contemporary representations of baking as 'fun' rather than as work. Drawing on the popular British television baking show The Great British Bake Off, this article considers how historical associations of baking with thrift, competition and 'betterment' are repackaged as cosy and nostalgic via a hyper-real reflection of the past. In keeping with neoliberal assumptions about the meritocratic and 'life-changing' potential of reality TV, this article argues that The Great British Bake Off offers viewers a 'high-consuming ideal'. This article examines how, via the medium of home-baking, the show reinforces both neoliberal myths of individuals as agents of their own successes and also normative assumptions of self-transformation via consumption and commercialization. This article concludes by arguing that The Great British Bake Off offers a version of baking that is both 'hyper-domestic' and a type of 'post-feminist homemaking', whereby feminist discourses of choice and equality are entangled with highly conventional modes of domesticity.

Manuals on how to be a good wife had been widely available in Ireland at the start of the twentieth century, but with the emergence of new technologies, the advice extended to newly married women and housewives began to change in the 1960s. The concept of being an ‘ideal wife’ became closely bound up with being a ‘modern wife’. This is best identified in the pages of women’s glossy magazines, which came to replace the traditional manual as a source for guidance. The message, driven by the advertisers, was clear: a ‘good wife’ was not just beautifully presented, but also used all the latest ‘modern’ devices. Her home – especially the kitchen – was an extension of her appearance and reputation. ‘Modern life’ and ‘modern wife’ became blended into the one ideal.

Theoretical approaches to housework do not reflect contemporary families and gender relations. We evaluate assumptions about gender and families in three dominant explanations and propose theoretical extensions. First, we suggest a work–family fit approach that examines housework and resources at a household level. Second, we propose the diverse capital perspective that extends earnings centered assessments of housework bargaining. Finally, a " doing genders " approach captures how gender shapes housework in nuanced ways. Our study does not focus on the more general issue of power in relationships , nor do we seek to dismantle existing theoretical perspectives or solve all shortcomings of the inherently couple-centered and cissexist heteronormative approach to families that primarily focuses on the United States. Rather, we provide some insight into how these theories can be expanded given the realities of diverse family arrangements, stalled gender revolutions, and shifts and fluidity in gender and sexual identities. The study of the division of housework has a long scholarly history as a key dimension of larger time demands, a site of bargaining power

We address the issue of men’s lagged adaptation to the ongoing revolution of women’s roles. This article proposes a multiple equilibrium approach and shows how modes of couple specialization cluster around qualitatively distinct logics. We identify a traditional, egalitarian, and ‘unstable’ equilibrium. Theory posits that stable equilibria rest on strong normative abidance, and yield more equitable outcomes. In contrast, unstable equilibria are likely to exhibit inequitable behaviour. The latter, we believe, are a transitional feature in the historical shift away from traditional gender roles. Our exploration is based on time-use data for three countries that represent different stages in the revolution of women’s roles: Britain, Denmark, and Spain. Our findings suggest that the consolidation of an egalitarian equilibrium, as is the case for Denmark, is associated with more homogeneity and gender equity in the division of labour. In Spain, the traditional equilibrium is still predominant. In Britain, the erosion of traditional specialization has not yet been met with a strong egalitarian alternative, as is manifested in the prevalence of ‘unstable equilibrium’ behaviour.

Within contemporary feminism, there are different discussions about the housework and its attribution to the economy as a monetary value. Each of these approaches has an different arguement about the women‘s unpaid work but they are all interested in one common element; the concept of patriarchy and its dialectical relationship between economy. The theories on patriarchy and its relations with capitalism are interested in creating an accurate perception for women to reconstruct the identites as a self-actualizing subject against the men and the whole economic system. The objects of various discussions are intersecting at the point of housework where public and private spaces are interlocked.

In this paper, it is asked how feminist economic theories might contribute to envisioning the issue of patriarchal relations and capitalism and subordination of women at home. By interviewing with four different households and women working at houses it is aimed to find a common language among the women and to explain the housework as a area where there are both struggle of ideologies and power.The relations in that sphere can convert themselves in everday life under the impact of economic and social relations. In that sense explanation of capitalism including what is a paid labour determines the men and women relationships at home. Patriarchal relations are demonstrated itself by depreciating the housework and its use value. It is a dialectical process that neither capitalism nor patriarchy has a superior condition.

Some recent scholarship has proposed analysing housework within ‘time’ and ‘space’ to better understand the persistent gender gap in the division of household labour. This article presents the findings of an exploratory study of housework over the lifecourse of marriage and migration in 17 transnational, middle-class, dual-career Indian couples, married for 10 to 30 years and living in the UK for nine to 24 years. By applying Morgan’s (2011) family practices approach (which includes themes of time and space and subthemes of the practical, symbolic and imaginary), the analysis revealed how the temporally and spatially changing (gendered) domestic practices of the sample were underpinned by decisions made by active agents and informed by, rather than just being a passive enactment of, normatively decreed roles, situated within a framework of ‘cooperative conflict’, as described by Amartya Sen. These findings have implications for how housework is both researched and theorised.

The outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but there has been little research into White British women who work as independent providers of cleaning services.

Work, Labour and Cleaning is a cross-cultural analysis based on new research into two particular social contexts, one in the UK and one in India. It argues that outsourced domestic cleaning can be undertaken either as work (using mental and manual skills) or as labour (usually defined as unskilled, 'natural' women’s work) depending on the social context and working conditions in which it occurs. The book challenges feminist dogma and popular myths about housework.

To speak of the skill involved in housework is not to diminish its difficulty. Similarly to talk of a wage is not to diminish the care it requires of the person who carries it out.

The activity of housekeeping is a spatial practice often described in ancient texts as the housewife's ability to know the location of every object needed to maintain family life within the house.

This book represents an important contribution to the current sociological literature on the gender division of labour. As Judith Treas writes in the introductory chapter, “studies of the division of household labour have only rarely addressed the broader context within which preferences are formed and housework arrangements are worked out” (p. 7). Remedying this omission is precisely the key motivation of this book, which consists of a collection of twelve chapters from leading international scholars in the field. Dividing the Domestic  suggests that scholars working on the gender division of work should avoid “monocausal explanations” and move on to a type of analytical framework that considers the complex intersection of cultural, normative, political, demographic, and socioeconomic factors.

Öz Kadınları toplumsal hayatta güçlendirmek, özellikle de istihdamda kadın erkek eşitliğinin sağlanması adına ülkeler ve kurumlar toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliğine dair hedefler koymaktadır. Türkiye'de de gerek kamu ve özel kurumlarda gerekse toplumsal hayatta cinsler arasındaki eşitliğin sağlanabilmesi yolunda çeşitli kurumlar hedefler koymakta, yapılar geliştirmekte, özellikle kadınların istihdam edilmesi ve işgücüne katılımlarının arttırılması için politikalar yapılmaktadır. Bu çalışma Türkiye'deki emek piyasasının cinsiyetli yapısından yola çıkarak kadın emeğinin görünüm biçimlerini tartışacak, politika yapıcılara yönelik çeşitli öneriler getirmeye çalışacaktır. Çalışma kapsamında ücretli emek ve ücretsiz emek arasındaki ilişkiye, kadın ve erkeklerin zaman kullanım biçimlerine, eğitimin emek piyasası üzerindeki etkisine ve cinsiyete dayalı iş bölümüne değinilecektir. Anahtar kelimeler: Kadın Emeği, İstihdam, İş Gücü.

In 1951 43 per cent of female employees in Britain were married.  This figure increased to 52 per cent by the end of the 1950s.  Throughout the decade increasing numbers of wives and mothers engaged in paid work yet the prevailing image of women in the 1950s, within the historiography and in the popular imagination, is that of the ‘perfect’ wife and mother.  This idealised concept of the housewife, who always put her husband and children first, has had a significant impact on historical and sociological understandings of women’s experiences of and attitudes towards work throughout these years.

The aim of this paper is to explore how traditional housewives’ associations, for example the Mothers’ Union, Women’s Institutes and the National Council of Women, viewed women’s work throughout the 1950s.  The term ‘work’ here refers to unpaid housework and childcare, paid work and in the case of prostitution, deviant work. What will be highlighted is the ability of these conventional women’s groups to adapt to the changing patterns of women’s work.  Aware that increasing numbers of women would take up paid work these organisations, representing hundreds of thousands of wives and mothers, accepted they had a duty to campaign to protect the rights of all women workers, in the home, in the workplace or on the streets.  The paper will therefore uncover the ways in which housewives’ associations negotiated the tensions between paid and unpaid work, respectable and ‘reprehensible’ occupations for women in the 1950s and endeavoured to make ‘women’s work’ a better experience for all.

This article discusses political implications of the fact that the technological development and consumption in socialism are nowadays shown as a failed project of the socialist production. This generates a view that the Yugoslav socialism was never a part of modernity. The paper also argues that, unlike in the case of non-mechanical hand washing, the washing machine as a new piece of technology enabled the participation of men in doing laundry for the first time because of the stereotypical relationship between men and technology. The article also discusses ambiguities in understanding, using and relocating the time saved by using a washing machine (which promised the reduction of time) used for housework.