Housewives should go on strike

Posted in Gender Relations, Labor Movements, Marriage, Mothers, Relationships by

I found this interesting article today:
Stay-at-home mother’s work worth $138,095 a year
Although women’s work is often undervalued. This article drives home the point how vital women’s contributions are.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.

One of the struggles that many housewives face is the perception that their husbands have of their work. For instance, there are many cases where women experience berating husbands who believe they do nothing all day while the husbands go out toil in the dog eat dog world. I guess they need to consider the many jobs that housewives juggle:

The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother’s work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist…

I am not saying that men don’t perform jobs at home. They do: investor, yardwork, handymen, car repair, sometimes babysitter, driver, financial and business consultant (always giving out advice on finances and how to run a better house), psychologist (listening to his wife complain), taste tester (somebody’s got to eat the food). There should be a study to show how much both sides contribute to a household. What about immeasurable things? Maybe couples would better appreciate each other.

6 thoughts on “Housewives should go on strike”

  1. If only leaders in our communities would start to address this issue. There is a very small group of feminists advocating stipends for housewives in the US similar to what is being done in some European countries. In the European countries though, the stipend is more of a subsidy for having a child.

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  2. Salaam Margari,

    One of the problems is the idea that housework is natural for women. Typically we think of work as a creative, dynamic, physical or intellectual activity that forces a person “out” of their typical realm of comfort. (Those of us who know stay at home-moms or homeschoolers know that taking care of a household and/or children demands all of the above)

    In many ways, when you say that this is what a woman is naturally suppossed to do then you are saying that a woman is not really “working”. I would like to see people who take care of children given more money. (Day-care and child-care providers are horribly underpaid).

    As far as women who stay home, I think that our understanding of the public/private complicates our ability to believe that what one does in his/her own home for one’s “own” family should be rewarded monetarily.

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  3. most husbands that are married to sisters that i know still view any contribution, minimal or otherwise, that they grudgingly make to the housework as “helping” the wife with her responsbilities instead of viewing housework as a shared responsiblity.
    being a stay-at-home mom is the most challenging, yet most rewarding, “job” that i have ever had.

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  5. Pingback: Women’s Unpaid Work « Just Another Angry Black Muslim Woman?

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