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UNPAID WORK, CHILDCARE AND CAPITALISM
By Jane Bouey, Vancouver
(This article is from the April 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
THERE ARE MANY important issues raised in Cynthia L'Hirondelle's thought provoking two-part article on unpaid domestic labour (People's Voice, March 1-15 and March 16-31). Due to lack of space, I will focus on only a few on behalf of the Women's Commission of the Communist Party.
One phrase in particular compels me to respond. In critiquing feminist demands, Cynthia describes daycare as "warehousing children so parents can do jobs that exploit other people or the environment."
Communists have long struggled for universal, accessible, quality childcare - and its realization has been one of the greatest achievements in socialist countries. We fight for childcare, not simply as a solution to individual needs, but because it is in fact a revolutionary demand.
As pointed out by Engels' Origin of the Family, and the works of other progressive anthropologists, women have not always been solely responsible for domestic work. Before the rise of capitalism, women did take on tasks that meshed well with the need to nurse etc., but had a variety of responsibilities, including agricultural. The raising of children was more a communal responsibility, not that of a single family unit. This is still true in some societies.
As Joanne Naiman in How Society Works states, Engels argued that "the development of gender inequality was linked to the conversion of domestic labour from a formerly social act, done in the context of the whole community, into activities performed in the privatized domain of the family. This process both lowered women's status and gave men control over women in the patriarchal family structure. In this context, the end of inequality for women is not based primarily on the sharing of domestic tasks by men and women in the household, but rather the return of many of these tasks into the public economy."
A universal, accessible, quality, childcare system returns the domestic task of childrearing into the public economy. It provides a safe and nurturing environment for children to be educated. It allows women to enter the workforce, breaking down patriarchal patterns.
While it is true that women are still primarily responsible for the unpaid work inside the home, the rationale that women must stay home to care for their children is shattered if childcare is provided.
Without childcare, capitalists profit from generations of new workers being cared for and raised very cheaply. They profit from millions of women in the reserve pool of labour, from women getting lower wages, and from the resulting lower social wages.
Capitalists have gained from cuts to childcare and healthcare that force large numbers of women to care for children and other family members in the home.
The call for some sort of guaranteed income, or people being paid to stay home, is interesting. But the question arises: in what context would this take place? Communists oppose attempts by the right-wing to force women back into the homes, or to claim that household work is "women's work." Because we believe in equality, we say that men should take responsibility for work in their households. More important, we believe this is a social issue.
For decades, our party has fought for universal, accessible, quality daycare. We have fought for women's right to be in the workforce at equal pay, and in a full range of jobs. Our party has fought against unemployment, and for a living wage for all.
We fight for a socialist Canada, where people who choose to stay home to care for their family would not be penalized financially. A Canada where childcare and healthcare would be so accessible, and decent jobs so available, and sexism so rare that no woman would be forced for economic reasons or social pressures to be solely responsible for work in the home.
I want to personally thank Cynthia for raising these issues. She is correct that too often, unpaid domestic work is not examined seriously by Marxists. The Women's Commission looks forward to continuing to build upon, and learning from, the analysis done since the time of Engels, by both Marxists and non-Marxists.
(RedFem Report is a column by members of the Central Women's Commission of the Communist Party of Canada.)
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