Global Woman ... and some Thoughts on Work

Today, I went to the Melbourne City Library and borrowed
  Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy 
edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild

So far, it has been an absolutely excellent read. The book is a compilation of essays covering the issues of mass migration of women from poor countries to rich countries to fill in what Ehrenreich and Hochschild call the "care deficit"...




Care Deficit?

In summary, many of the 'gains' and 'successes' of materialist feminism in wealthy, "Western," industrialised countries have revolved around the 'rights' of women within public and paid professional spheres, in other words, in spheres typically more traditionally demarcated as 'male' (rights of citizenship, rights of property ownership, etc.). While this increase in access and opportunity has meant greater/increasing economic equality (in public spheres) for women citizens, this has not been correlated with as sharp an increase, particularly in late capitalist feminism dominated by bourgeois interests, in an incentive to prioritise and politicise the importance of domestic labour.

This means a lot of the roles historically fulfilled by women, in general and in particular, domestic & caretaker roles, are now being filled, in particular, by migrant women.

In the first essay of the book, "Love and Gold," Hoschschild says it best:

"Women who want to succeed in a professional or managerial job in the First World [sic]... face strong pressures at work. Most careers are still based on a well-known (male) pattern: doing professional work, competing with fellow professionals, getting credit for work, building a reputation, doing it while you are young, hoarding scarce time, and minimizing family work by finding someone else to do it. In the past, the professional was a man; the 'someone else' was his wife. The wife oversaw the family, itself a flexible, preindustrial institution concerned with human experiences the workplace excluded: birth, child rearing, sickness, death. Today, a growing 'care industry' has stepped into the traditional wife's role, creating a very real demand for migrant women.


But if First World [sic] middle-class women are building careers that are molded according to the old male model, by putting in long hours at demanding jobs, their nannies and other domestic workers suffer a greatly exaggerated version of the same thing. Two women working for pay is not a bad idea. But two working mothers giving their all to work is a good idea gone haywire. In the end, both First and Third World [sic] women are small players in a larger economic game whose rules they have not written."


Elsewhere, Ehrenreich and Hochschild mention that this gap has certainly not been narrowed by any significant increase in involvement (within the domestic sphere) of men. After all, there is a huge economic disincentive for individuals socialised within so-called "First World" settings to participate in labour that is not only financially uncompensated, but also socially undervalued. This may be experienced as especially 'disenfranchising' for men who have especially vested interests in holding on to the privilege of access to and association with paid, public, professional worlds. Men may experience both deeply internalised and socio-cultural pressures to dissociate from spheres of experience which have been historically feminised and constructed as belonging to women.

Hochschild writes:
"...when the unpaid work of raising a child became the paid work of child-care workers, its low market value revealed the abidingly low value of caring work generally -  and further lowered it...
Just as the marker price of primary produce keeps the Third World low in the community of nations, so the low market value of care keeps the status of the women who do it - and ultimately all women - low..."


One notable exception to this trend has been Norway:

"One excellent way to raise the value of care is to involve fathers in it. If men shared the care of family members worldwide, care would spread laterally instead of being passed down a social class ladder. In Norway, for example, all employed men are eligible for a year's paternity leave at 90 percent pay. Some 80 percent of Norwegian men now take over a month of paternal leave. In this way, Norway is a model to the world. For indeed it is men who have for the most part stepped aside from caring work, and it is with them that the 'care drain' truly begins."






Caring As My Political Act

I am reflecting on the fact that I have been participating, for the most part of my professional life, in the community sector, particularly for the GLBT community. As a man, I have not necessarily consciously thought of this as a particularly feminist or even pro-feminist act. Yet, clearly coming from my undergraduate academic background in gender studies, it was no surprise to me to learn that this industry is not only typically feminised (a workforce disproportionately composed of women), but historically undervalued and underpaid as well.

I am excited about recent developments in Australia, where several unions within the community sector, particularly the Australian Services Union (ASU) have fought for, and recently won, an Equal Pay increase of between 19% - 41% for all community sector workers, which is to be phased in over the next 8 years. This is a landmark Federal ruling, which makes a huge difference in rectifying the problem of the gender pay gap.

I believe that this will have positive implications for all of us. It will allow community sector workers not only to have more economic agency, but it also is a powerful cultural statement about the value of caring work in this country.

I believe this also means that we are far more likely to achieve the outcome of increased incentive to do part-time public work (either for those of us who have had 'too little' work, constructed as 'unemployed' or 'underemployed,' or for those of us who have 'too much' work, typically people with 'full time,' 40 - 50 hour-a-week jobs). Part-time work, with increased pay within carer/community-/social work sectors, is far more likely to be financially sustainable while one is also trying to run a household (with its domestic duties), whether alone or in a shared household.

Ideally, this would free women (and men) in these sectors to pursue other more personal and domestic aspirations (family, self-care, etc.), and not perpetuate the cycle of the 'care deficit' which has been part and parcel of the problem of global inequity...

Oh this white elephant of an unfinished, late-capitalist feminist project, of which the hiring of oft-exploited migrant workers has been but one symptom.