Dissent Magazine - Spring 2004

This is an interesting review of Ehrenreich and Hochschild's new book, Global Woman : Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. It's in Dissent Magazine - Spring 2004, and here's a tid-bit: "In the wake of women's departure for paid work, an insufficient number of volunteers have taken up the unpaid domestic tasks that require personal attention to either things (cleaning the house, doing the laundry, preparing meals) or people (looking after those who cannot look after themselves-children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly). In particular, fathers and husbands have not shouldered their share of the burden. The result is, in Hochschild's phrase, a gaping 'care deficit.' "

I like it much better than this piece by Caitlin Flanagan, the much-discussed "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement." For one thing, as you can see above, Bronstein (unlike Flanagan) recognizes that men have a role to play in the disempowerment of women. And in house-cleaning and other "care work." But I'm a little worried that Bronstein seems to think the way to solve the problem of the exploitation of third world women is simply for first world men to do more housework and other care-giving. Because if the problem is that first world men and women are both out in the workplace, in the cash economy, then work that was formerly done for free by someone who was not involved in the cash economy (usually wives) is not suddenly going to be done for free by people who are involved in the cash economy. Unless I'm missing something.

In my house, we both do whatever cooking, cleaning, and care-giving needs to be done. We've paid for child care both in and out of our home, but we've never hired a full-time in-house caregiver, nor have we hired housecleaners. And it shows. When only one of us was working full time, the other picked up most of the care-giving slack. Now that both kids are in school we can actually both work in the cash economy and get by without exploiting anyone else to do our cleaning for us. (Except, ok, our kids on occasion.) But we are extremely rare in that our participation in the cash economy is not tied to a 9-to-5 (or, more often, 8-to-5) office or other place of business, so we can do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. I don't quite see how the average couples Bronstein is talking about are going to get all the care-giving done without paying for it, if both adults are working in the cash economy.

I don't think "serfdom saved the women's movement" because I don't think dual-income professionals are necessarily feminists. And I do think many men are not involved enough in the caregiving activities of their homes. I am aware that my situation is unusual, and that I've been extremely fortunate. (Well, I did choose him, after all.) I'm just afraid Bronstein's solution--involve the men--is just as limited as she says Hochschild and Ehrenreich's solution--treat third world women better--is. We need to do both, and more. What we really need is some kind of wholesale economic change, as advocated by Ann Crittenden among others, that can somehow account for and recognize caregiving as productive labor. Not, as Bronstein says, in order to "quantify" it and make it part of the cash economy, necessarily, but in order to change the way that economy does business.

Yeah, I know, pie in the sky. But we can always hope.