Unpaid reproductive labor

[Questionable]

Is unpaid reproductive labor still relevant in a modern context?

I got into a debate over this and upon doing some research, I discovered that over 50% of US households no longer have the stay-at-home wife model, and instead new marital configurations such as same-sex couples or divorced parents or even single-parents are popular. There's also the ascension of women into the workforce.

What do you comrades think?

[Stril]

I would say so.

Even though less that 50 % of US households have the stay-at-home wife model, 40 or even 30 % are significant numbers as well. There are also other countries where there is an even greater number of stay-at-homes.
Without knowing, I would presume for exampe that the wives of aluminum workers in Qatar stays at home, and thus their unpaid labour affect the cost of aluminum.

And unpaid reproductive labour is there, even if one has got paid work on the side. The house still needs cleaning, food cooking and clothes washing. The workers can be paid for paying for those services, but that would mean a larger expense for the capitalist, and thus he would rather that they did it themselves.
The reproduction is needed, and as it is cheaper that the workers do it unpaid, it will go unpaid, on expense of the workers, and especially the female workers, due to gender roles and economy, free time and energy.

[Quail]

Is unpaid reproductive labor still relevant in a modern context?

I got into a debate over this and upon doing some research, I discovered that over 50% of US households no longer have the stay-at-home wife model, and instead new marital configurations such as same-sex couples or divorced parents or even single-parents are popular. There's also the ascension of women into the workforce.

What do you comrades think?
Even though many women go to work instead of staying at home, they're still much more likely to do a larger proportion of the housework and child-rearing than their partners. Also, single parents might be working or unemployed, but they're still doing unpaid reproductive labour because they're raising a child by themselves.

[Luís Henrique]

Is unpaid reproductive labor still relevant in a modern context?

I got into a debate over this and upon doing some research, I discovered that over 50% of US households no longer have the stay-at-home wife model, and instead new marital configurations such as same-sex couples or divorced parents or even single-parents are popular. There's also the ascension of women into the workforce.

What do you comrades think?

That 100 - 50 = 50. So if over 50% of US households no longer follow the stay-at-home wife mode, it follows that almost 50% of the US households do still follow it.

And that "new marital configurations" often hide the exploitation of women at home - the fact that they are no longer stay-at-home wives doesn't mean that the brunt of domestic labour no longer falls upon them. About single-parents, they are overwhelmingly female.

Luís Henrique

[Green Girl]

Is unpaid reproductive labor still relevant in a modern context?

I got into a debate over this and upon doing some research, I discovered that over 50% of US households no longer have the stay-at-home wife model, and instead new marital configurations such as same-sex couples or divorced parents or even single-parents are popular. There's also the ascension of women into the workforce.

What do you comrades think?

First I want to say there is one very important reason more women work, a family NOW has to have two workers. For most families one entire paycheck goes for the house payment, the other for utilities, necessities and luxuries. Back in the 1960's one paycheck from one worker could do that. It all has to do with wages in the USA not keeping up with inflation. Prices keep going up and workers have to fight like hell to get any raise at all. In addition the minimum wage would now be $10.45 instead of $7.75 if it had kept up with inflation.

There was a movement awhile back for PAID maternity leave, it seems every country except the United States has it. Before the Family Leave Act which requires employers to give UNPAID maternity leave, women were often fired when they needed time off to have a baby.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Reproductive labor is absolutely necessary for any sort of social system, whether capitalist or not. There has definitely been a commodification of reproductive labor -- think of the rise in low-wage domestic work. But, at least in the US, that is limited primarily to the wealthy. Since there has not been a total socialization of reproductive labor anywhere, most families still rely on unpaid reproductive labor, which usually falls on the matriarch of the family, if one exists.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I recently read some pretty decent radical feminist critiques of "wages for housework".
For starters, it hardly goes to the root of the problem (ha), insofar as it doesn't address the patriarchal structuring of society more broadly. On the contrary, it serves to further integrate women within capital, to create "the home" as another direct object of exchange (and, consequently, intensify the alienation of women within it). On the contrary, the project of freeing women from patriarchal exploitation in the context of capitalism requires confronting capitalism from a standpoint of its historical inextricability from patriarchy. No communism without the liberation of women, no liberation of women without communism.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

I recently read some pretty decent radical feminist critiques of "wages for housework".
For starters, it hardly goes to the root of the problem (ha), insofar as it doesn't address the patriarchal structuring of society more broadly. On the contrary, it serves to further integrate women within capital, to create "the home" as another direct object of exchange (and, consequently, intensify the alienation of women within it). On the contrary, the project of freeing women from patriarchal exploitation in the context of capitalism requires confronting capitalism from a standpoint of its historical inextricability from patriarchy. No communism without the liberation of women, no liberation of women without communism.
Definitely. Patriarchy is, in part, dependent upon the privileging of surplus-creating labor (i.e. wage labor) over reproductive labor. Creating genuine equality will require the dismantling of the boundary between the two.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I recently read some pretty decent radical feminist critiques of "wages for housework".
For starters, it hardly goes to the root of the problem (ha), insofar as it doesn't address the patriarchal structuring of society more broadly. On the contrary, it serves to further integrate women within capital, to create "the home" as another direct object of exchange (and, consequently, intensify the alienation of women within it). On the contrary, the project of freeing women from patriarchal exploitation in the context of capitalism requires confronting capitalism from a standpoint of its historical inextricability from patriarchy. No communism without the liberation of women, no liberation of women without communism.

Still in the daily, this is a major issue and unpaid housework and chilr rearing saves the system tons of money for social spending - it's privitized social reproduction.

So I think the alternative to paid wages for homemakers (to be neutral on it, but it would still be mostly mothers) which might allow the system to exploit anexieties and pit workers against homemakers or single parent families against 2-parent houses etc, is by fighting for social alternatives to domestic work at home - childcare, better healthcare, etc. This wouldn't get rid of all the problems and wouldn't get rid of sexism by itself, but it could help create a more class-based movement that unites anti-sexist concerns with a class struggle. It would also expose the sides of the debate more: those who want workers to have easier lives and those who think that it's "moral" to make women stay at home and work for free.

[BOZG]

I recently read some pretty decent radical feminist critiques of "wages for housework".
For starters, it hardly goes to the root of the problem (ha), insofar as it doesn't address the patriarchal structuring of society more broadly. On the contrary, it serves to further integrate women within capital, to create "the home" as another direct object of exchange (and, consequently, intensify the alienation of women within it). On the contrary, the project of freeing women from patriarchal exploitation in the context of capitalism requires confronting capitalism from a standpoint of its historical inextricability from patriarchy. No communism without the liberation of women, no liberation of women without communism.

Have you a link for it?

Trotsky touched on this issue on occasion but from the angle of the need to break the old attitudes that existed in the Russian family and to take women out of the home through the provision of communal kitchens, restaurants, day cares, laundries etc which would do the bulk of housework.