On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, George Elgin, Suzette Haden Elgin wrote:
> it. I think we badly need science fiction portraying alternate US societies
> in which a woman's labor in her own household (or a man's, for that matter,
> in those cases where it is a man who does the "homemaking") has to get
> minimum wage just like any other labor, and the money that changes hands
> must be counted into national statistics like any other money, must count
> toward Social Security, and all the rest. That would let us explore the
> question of whether following that policy would -- as has been proposed --
> mean the collapse of Western civilization.
The time I can think of this coming up in science fiction (although in a
far future setting) was in one of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat
Books (not sure which one, I'm at work right now, and books are home).
The planetary society in question pretty much valued all work, whether at
home or outside as having a tangible value associated with it. A stay at
home spouse making dinner for the outside worker, the worker at the
factory, the child doing their chores all recieved "money" for their work.
In the story, paying your spouse for cooking dinner didn't imply a lack or
love or any sort of thing like that, but rather it was simply a
transaction for services rendered. Overall, the society was regarded as a
prosperous one, I recall.
Was it U. Chicago where this sort of research was going on? I seem to
recall one of their Nobel Prize winners working on the question of family
and economic values, but it's a fuzzy memory.
Jill Gillham jilkey@grfn.org http://members.aol.com/~ferndock2
\|/ \|/ D=|[[] "All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
=0: + =0: = \O/ Until I find the Holy Grail."
/|\ /|\ |*| -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson [Go WINGS!]
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