If you read the comment that Astarte posted to my last post, then this will make sense. If not, go do that, and then read this.
Fundamentally, I think Astarte has some of this right. Most people who choose to be homemakers do it because they love it. However, saying that most people hate their jobs, and so the two things can't compare isn't right. Some people don't hate their jobs, but love them. Does that make it not a job?
And furthermore, when Astarte asks me if I would apply the things people hate about their jobs to my mother, I would answer yes. Yes, the hours sucked, the pay was inadequate, the job was too big for one person, the budget could be tricky, and sometimes the boss was just a little too demanding. And if you think there's not a boss in homemaking, you're missing something. If the kids aren't the boss, then the partner is, and if the partner isn't, then society is. And often, the three exchange the boss position during the longs hours of homemaking, so it's not just one boss but many. Do I think women at home deal with traditional job issues? Hell yes.
What makes it not a job, then? A salary? Well, women who work at day care centers care for children. But I guess since they get paid for caring for children, then it's a job. And what about women who operate day care centers out of their homes? They care for their children, and maybe two or three others, and that's a job. Why, because they're being paid? That's hard to argue, isn't it? That women who get paid for caring for children and/or care only for children other than their own have a job, but women who don't get paid and only care for their own children don't have a job? And we pay cleaning women, don't we? Women clean hotel rooms and other people's houses, and yes, they hate the job. It's a terrible job, but it's a job, and it pays bills. But if you clean your own home, it's not a job. Even though you probably still hate it, since you're not getting paid, it's not a job. So clean your own home, care for your kids, not a job, but leave the house and get paid for doing the same things: job.
If women didn't do these jobs in their home, whether or not they have another job (and many women do have both jobs--the home and the workplace (for instance, my dad's business partner did both jobs for many years)--then they'd be paying someone else to do them. Or nagging at their partners to help them do these jobs. They have to get done, these things. The kids somehow have to be fed, and they have to have clean clothes, and the house can't be a mess, and...the list goes on. No matter who does these things, they constitute a job. A salary doesn't make something a job.
And I do think that it is demeaning to women to demand that they admit that what they're doing in the home isn't "real" work, that's it's not a real job. Men have been asking women to admit that for years, and feminism is about asking them to stop, asking them to value the things they do, whether it be in a home, in a school, in a hospital, in a factory, etc. Not calling it a job instantly forces an inequality upon any woman who does the job of keeping a home, and children. That's the inequality we should be fighting against, and that's why acknowledging homemaking as a job is important.
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