From: "Karl Carlile" <joseph-AT-indigo.ie>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 11:56:50 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I:  Women and Domestic Labor


KARL: Hi Brad. I appreciate the interest you have shown in my 
posting.

BRAD:  While it is true that most domestic labor is still performed
by women (in the many forms such labor takes, i.e. cleaning services,
maids, married and unmarried women, etc.), your analysis seems
"outdated" in the sese that you imply domestic labor is still rooted
in the nuclear (patricarchal) family setup, and that this setup
constitutes the main structure in which women are currently oppressed
under capitalism. 

KARL: I don't claim that  the domestic production process is the
main form by which women are oppressed. What I do claim is that the
unique nature of the domestic labour process as entailing a form of
labour that is excluded from the capitalist socialisation process is
the specific basis for the genderised oppression of women under
capitalism.

This does not mean that the principal form of oppression of all
women takes place within the domestic labour process. Clearly  the
exploitation of working class women takes place principally within
the valorisation process. In other words there obtains a distinction
between the exploitation of women as workers and the oppression of
women in general. Furthermore women capitalists could hardly be said
to be oppressed through the domestic labour process since they, in
general, obviously hire individuals to do that work for them. In my
posting I was principally concerned with the oppression of women as
women not as workers. The latter falls under a distinctly different
rubric.

The point I make is that gender based oppression, the oppression of 
women as women, is grounded in the the unique character of the 
domestic process of labour as a process excluded from the capitalist 
socialisation process. 

BRAD:What this all eventually leads to, is whether or not women's (lesbian/gay)
opression  under patriarcal capitalism is mediated through the traditional
family structure anymore.  I suggest that as the tides turn, this oppression
is being replaced by a "public patriarchy" more immediately connected to the
class relations of capitalism, and that domestic labor is slowly leaving the
purview of "women's work only" (I say slowly because the opposite reality
still exists - oh...the contradictions of capitalism...).

KARL: Although there may be an ongoing modification in the
genderised character of domestic labour it is still essentially
genderised as womens' work especially among the working class across
the globe. As you may know modifcations do not necessarily mean a
change in the essence of a phenomenon.

At the end of the day it is working class women who principally
engage in the domestic acitivity of rearing children to be modern
wokers  ready for exploitaion within the valorisation proces. It is
working class women who tend to the domestic needs of workers
independently of the latter's role and gender. In this way they
assist in the deveopment of human beings into young workers and in
the maintenance of the current workers so that they are ready for
the next day's work. This is done outside the exchange process,
gratis, for the capitalist so that s/he is free to exploIt their
labour power within the vlaorisation process. If this is outdated
then the truth is.




                                      




                          Yours etc.,
                                     Karl   


     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---