Re: AUT: Re: Why Women Do the Drudgework

[billbartlett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Bartlett)]

Harald wrote:

[...]
>                Historically there can be little doubt that wage-work
>        not being a permanent occupation for most women, also did affect
>        their collective ability and resolve to struggle for higher wages.
>        You don't have to go far back before wage-struggles among nurses
>        was something unheard of. Of course we are talking about a
>        power realation generalised throughout society, but one which
>        largely has been internalised by both parties in this relation.

Very good point, but putting aside your earlier remark that women may have
regarded giving up work upon marriage as a liberation, (I'm not touching
THAT!) this begs the question of WHY wage-work was not the life-time
occupation of women historically.

In attempting to answer this the first question we need to address is
whether life-time wage-work for both men and women was actually possible
prior to, say, the fifties and sixties. Its a bit before my time, but my
impression is that, for folks from my social order, wage-work was hard and
long and "reproducing labour" or "bringing up the kids" as it was more
commonly known in the vernacular, was bloody long and hard as well.

You see what I'm driving at of course, the old materialist dilemma that
social practices and the ideologies that arise to justify them must be
based on what is materially POSSIBLE in the circumstances.

And, as I say, material circumstances, objective conditions, may change
over time, but that does not mean that ideology and practice will
immediately catch up. It is natural to expect some lag between the
objective and the subjective.

Be patient Katha - my generation of men is probably a lost cause, we were
brought up with the notion that washing up and changing nappies was
'women's work" and changing us is like pulling teeth. The next generation
of males is another matter, they are already sneering at us, without no
trace of envy for these lost male "privileges".

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.





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