Thursday, January 31, 2019

Unbundling women's work

 #SDG5 

In addition to paid labour in the workplace, it is customary for women to be burdened with a large amount of unpaid labour in many of these categories:

Pregnancy and childbirth
Physical childcare - bathing, feeding, cuddling and so on
Earliest childhood education - before schooling
Nutrition and catering services / Food and beverage handling
Bed-and-breakfast (hospitality) management for family and guests
Home care and facilities management

Personal grooming and fashion duties
Laundry, grooming, and related duties for spouse, children, others 
Public relations officer and relationship manager to teachers, extended family, and friends
Public appearance duties

Partnership towards external projects or goals
Counseling for spouse
Companionship for spouse
Entertainment and leisure

Emotional labour and relationship maintenance
Physical wellness and personal care
Bedmatics and sexytime work 

Nursing and healthcare services
Primary parent and child-handler for about twenty years
Shopper, Driver, Nanny, miscellaneous
Chief Operating Officer position in some busy homes, with or without a Chief Executive Officer 


Not every woman will attempt to do all of these things, and most women could find better things to do instead.  Some men could find fresh opportunities in so-called women's work.
 
I can see many of these jobs being unbundled into expert industries and fields:  catering services, life-counseling, spa services, co-living and managed housing, personal shoppers, health, entertainment, childcare, elder-care, concierge, cleaning, fashion, and so on.       

Some people, male and female, may be better off specializing in one or two or maybe three areas at most, and not try to be "superwoman" who is poorly compensated, and society may find itself better for it. 
Some people may relish the combined role, the traditional 'wife and mother' role.  For those who do it, male or female they may be, and still manage to do it all very well, I hope they can be very well compensated.
The current situation is that many women do their best with this combined homemaker role and are not well compensated for it at all, then they combine this with doing their best in an external job role, and there they are also less well compensated for their work than men doing the same work.

We say we appreciate women as individuals and citizens, or women as wives and mothers, or women as friends and lovers, or women as leaders and workers, but as a society we cheat them and leave them tired AND broke.   

There is nothing romantic about female poverty.  It's time to change. 

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13 comments:

t said...

Since posting this hours ago, I've already edited the list of tasks (by splitting a Counseling and Companionship item into two, and adding a Partnership item.) Now it occurs to me that this list could go up to many dozen items just by paying attention to hidden work and subdividing. For example, grooming for many women is a nontrivial job and can be subdivided say into facial health and integrity, facial cosmetics, natural hair care, hair treatments including adornments, extensions, weaving, braiding, ... items for muscle tone maintenance, physical fitness, skincare, clothing selection, style management, accessories expertise, hands and nails, education about grooming, research around beauty, ranking and competition in beauty, competition in fashion, uniqueness, expression, theatricality, conservativeness, cultural fit, ethnic fit, recycling and sustainability of grooming practices, travel wardrobes, travel beauty regimens, trendishness, power-dressing, matching-dressing, neatness, cleanliness, handling, maintenance, mystique, innovation, motherly style, inspiring style, womanly style, androgynous style, consistency, predictability, cosmetic surgery, ... all these items just for Grooming and Fashion. Hundreds of job-types then, would replace today's stereotypical "women's work."

t said...

Notes, not only are women less well compensated for doing the same work outside the home-work they may do, but
also,
and this is very revealing,
When women flock to a male-dominated field, perhaps in search of better conditions, the prestige and pay of that profession drop e.g. watch what happens in politics, to medical doctors, already, and to scientific research professions, where more women are joining.
When men enter a female-dominated field, the opposite happens e.g. computer programming, nursing.
Read this good New York Times article on the phenomenon.


Also, on Partnerships for external goals, when a couple set out to be president for example and the husband becomes president while the wife gets insults and gets to dress up and shut up in public; when a couple does work together and the man of course gets the credit - the author more important than the editor/muse, the music video director more important than the video vixen, the public face more important than the strategist/manager, all contortions are possible just to make sure the man gets the prizes that the woman has worked for.
As an extreme example of this, a woman carries a biological extension for many months, delivers baby, and immediately we stamp the man's name on this woman's baby as the child's surname, which may or may not include the woman's name.

ladi said...

Unarguably true.... that notion needs to be thwarted, changed or erased.

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t said...

Thanks but "no, thanks." Loan scams like identity theft scams use this same formula.

t said...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/08/as-working-women-we-have-been-short-changed-its-not-our-problem-alone-to-fix

t said...

https://www.bellanaija.com/2019/03/mudrakat-alabi-macfoy-childcare/

t said...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/women-biggest-problems-international-womens-day-225698

Anne-Marie Slaughter says:
caregivers, for children, parents, spouses, siblings or extended family members—have two full-time jobs, while trying to compete with men who have one. And over half of us are the primary breadwinners in our households. The standard response is to persuade men to “help” more. But we need a sea-change, one that can happen only with a normative revolution around the value of care. We must come to see care work—the work of investing in others through physical care, teaching, coaching, mentoring, connecting, advising and navigating—as work that is every bit as hard, important and rewarding as the more individualist work that focuses us on investing in ourselves. We must value care monetarily, by paying far more for it through government and private investment, and socially, by raising the prestige of caregiving at home and care careers (which are among the fastest growing job categories and relatively automation proof). In other words, we must come to see traditional “women’s work” as truly equal to traditional “men’s work.”

t said...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/denisebrodey/2019/01/10/the-job-most-americans-dont-know-about-but-is-crucial-to-the-success-of-people-with-disabilities/

t said...

"We pay an enormous price, individually and collectively, when valuable unpaid work is neglected or not done because we are forced into full-time paid work to “earn a living”. When the bulk of our time and energy is consumed by compulsory paid employment, our families and communities are deprived of the benefits that could otherwise be gained through our art, our care, and our service. We often end up too busy, distracted, and exhausted to develop our talents and gifts outside the context of employment. We are deprived of leisure and rest. We are deprived of the joy of offering our work to those who need it without regard to their ability to pay. We are even told, directly and indirectly, that if we don’t or can’t serve capitalism we become expendable – that our lives have little or no value aside from our ability to be productive on employers’ terms." in 'Earning a Living' and the Dilemma of Unpaid Work , part of the Anticareerist Blog

t said...

Watch this: Cheerleaders work HARD and make money for their sports, while they are themselves cheated of pay #FairPay #PayWomen #PayYourMama

t said...

this is good: not gig workers, but employees

t said...

Here is a FUN amateur video that illustrates hidden work in caring for young children...A guy spends a whole day with his three youngin's, it's funny :)

Previously on UpNaira

 

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