Today this might be referred to as ‘social reproduction theory.’

‘’Work’ and Housework’ by Lida Parce from Socialist Woman. Vol. 2 No. 15. August, 1908.

Haven’t you been told by sundry ‘womanly” women that their several husbands “would not allow them to ‘work’? Have you noticed with what a mien of pride, not to say positive hauteur, the announcement is made? And why not? Does it not permit you to perceive certain facts that are a just cause of bourgeois pride? In the first place the husband must be making enough money by himself to buy provisions for the house and clothing for the family. In the next place, the husband is such a fine and lordly creature that he positively allows or disallows her, according to his pleasure. This is a sex character, you know, and some women enjoy it. Then she is so meek and timid that she wouldn’t think of being responsible for her own conduct. This is also a sex character, and almost all men approve it. It appeals to them in a way they like. So she doesn’t “work.” But in a vast majority of cases she does the cooking and the dishwashing, the washing and ironing and scrubbing, the sweeping and dusting, the sewing and mending, and takes care of the babies, and while she rests she does a few other things. And her happiness in the fact that she “is not allowed to ‘work'” is only equaled by the satisfaction that her husband takes in being able to “support” her; helpless little thing that she is!

Now if the housework–not “work”–that she does were to be paid for at its market value, it would probably appear that the value of her services equals, if it does not exceed, the amount that the husband receives for his “real” work. That is, if the laundry were put out, and if the sewing were sent to a dress-maker, and the cleaning done by experts, the bills would foot up a very neat sum. But this timorous creature, who would rather see things through a sex glamor than to see them as they are, doesn’t think she “works” when she saves all these expenses.

But some of us don’t do that way. This is the way we do. “We keep a “girl” or a “maid,” according to where we live, and we have her do all these tasks and some more for good measure; but we don’t concede that she really “works,” because it costs us so little to get all the services performed in this way. It can’t be real work or we would have to pay more for it. And then our “maid” has the privilege of living in our home and that is worth a great deal. To be sure, she can’t sit in our parlor, nor use our piano, and if she were to sing it would be very funny, especially if she did it well. But, nevertheless, it is our home and it is very sacred, and she does have the privilege of its roof and its kitchen fire, and she ought not to expect much money on top of all this blessedness, for the little things she does. She is rather ungrateful anyway.

But here comes Alexander M. Wilson, head of the Chicago Tuberculosis İnstitute, and says that domestic service is the most unhealthful of all employments for women; at least the death rate from tuberculosis is higher among domestic servants than any other class of working women. And these are the causes he names for this disease: 1. Low wages, which prevents the workers getting proper nourishment. 2. Insanitary conditions in places of employment. 3. Exposure to dust. 4. Excessive physical exertion, which lowers the vitality. 5. Close confinement indoors. 6. Exposure to excessive heat. 7. Temptations to intemperance. 8. Long and irregular hours of labor.

Do these facts and figures apply equally to the women who do their own housework? Or is it only women who do other people’s housework who suffer from it physically? We are not informed. I wish we were. It might throw an interesting light on the problem of “work” vs. your-own-housework. Is it possible that women would be better off in the factory or the shop than they are when enjoying the “protection” of the home? How much better off is the woman who does her own housework than is she who is a domestic servant? As to the first count in this indictment against the employers of “domestic servants”: “Low wages, which prevent the worker getting the proper nourishment.” Of course, the point here is the nourishment, not the wages. Does the servant get less nourishing food than the woman who does her own housework?

We can hardly think so, but–O, unhappy thought! The report would seem to indicate that the house worker gets less nourishment than the factory girl or shop girl with her small pay. Are the surroundings of “the home” less sanitary than those of the factory? Is it possible that microbes can flourish in a sacred place? and that we–lovely woman–who go about doing good, and “radiating a gentle influence,” and uplifting the world and all that sort of thing, really subject our families and our friends when they come to see us to conditions that are more dangerous to life and health than the abhorred fac- tory or shop? How, O how, can germs withstand our “influence”? Would we, after all, live longer and be healthier if we “worked” than if we do housework? Is there more exposure to dust in the home than in the factory? Perish the thought!

And count 4 of the indictment seems to indicate that housework involves more “excessive physical exertion, which lowers vitality,” than does “work.” But, of course, it is not so important to have an easy time as it is to have “the protection of the home” which one has in housework, but does not always have in “work.” “Close confinement indoors.” “Exposure to excessive heat.” Do these kill more people while doing housework than while doing work? Then where- fore the arrogance of the dear lady whose husband “will not allow her to ‘work’? 7. “Temptations to intemperance.” Well. What with the dust and the microbes, and the excessive heat and the excessive exertion, and the insufficient food, and the complacent-or otherwise superiority of the persons she works for, it is no wonder that the housework person is tempted to intemperance. It must be an awful strain to keep from taking to drink. The wonder is that all “domestic servants” don’t die of this temptation, even if they never yield to it, before the tuberculosis has time to do its deadly work. As to the “long and irregular hours,” it will be conceded at once that the person who “works” has the better of it by long odds.

The fact is that housework needs to be masculinized, by which it will be transformed into just plain “work,” and the terms and conditions of it will be. And adjusted to business principles, this means socialized living. It means that our homes will be cared for by specialists in dust and microbes, with the machinery for doing justice to them, not by a pitiful jade-of-all-trades whose faculties are so scattered, and so beset, that she can do nothing in the best way.

The Socialist Woman was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko from 1907 with this aim: “The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women’s lives, from the Socialist standpoint”. In 1908, Conger-Kaneko and her husband Japanese socialist Kiichi Kaneko moved to Girard, Kansas home of Appeal to Reason, which would print Socialist Woman. In 1909 it was renamed The Progressive Woman, and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O’Hare, Alice Stone Blackwell, Eugene V. Debs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. A treat of the journal was the For Kiddies in Socialist Homes column by Elizabeth Vincent.The Progressive Woman lasted until 1916.

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/080800-socialistwoman-v2w15.pdf