At 10:13 AM 9/23/97 -0400, Janice Dawley wrote:
>Eh? The only people who obtain sustenance at home are farmers or
>homesteaders. There are very few of those in the United States these days.
>And even they can only obtain SOME of the things they need in this way --
>for the rest they must trade, either via barter or the use of money.
> The archetypal 50s-style homeworker obtains all her sustenance from
>the wage earner of the household. In economic terms she is the dependent,
>and since she produces no food and cannot buy with her own money, she is in
>a position of diminished power in relation to the wage earner. In a fair
>number of cases, the woman ends up being, in effect, the prisoner of the
>wage earner. The pay-for-homemakers idea is an attempt to reduce or
>eliminate this disparity in power. I haven't given much thought to whether
>it would work or what the obstacles are, but I agree with Suzette that it
>would be a great theme for a science fiction novel. (Of course, there are a
>number of science fictional works which postulate a world or worlds
>entirely without money. But I wonder how we can get there from here.)
>
Well, I didn't use the term sustenance for a reason--there are different
means of subsistence, some of which, exactly, are barter (home child care,
baking, errand-running, etc.). There are other elements, such as the
raising of children (future providers of subsistence), and facilitating (to
use a nice term) the primary subsistence provider's existence. In any case,
the latter function can also be seen in terms of barter. Certainly if I
ever have children and get to stay at home to raise them during their early
years, I will be so extraordinarily grateful to not have to work that I'll
even do the windows. =) And I will expect my partner to provide my
sustenance for the most part: that will be my salary. Not to mention the
benefits I expect (perhaps idealistically and certainly egotistically) for
my children from having so much time with them.
In that sense, these homemakers are getting paid. Some of them may even
garden, and provide a little sustenance too.
I'm not sure the 50s model is appropriate anymore, definitely for the US,
probably for all of the first and second worlds, perhaps for most of the
third world as well (these countries have other problems, but not so much
the notion of the hostage-homemaker of a privileged economic class
[presumably female]). Indeed, the young couples who choose to have one
partner stay at home, in the present, are making deliberate privilege
choices: this is a status symbol, that they can afford to do this. People
who cannot find work are obviously in another category.
No?
Heather
=)
hmaclean@kent.edu
http://kent.edu/~hmaclean
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