Home and Work

References for Theme: Home and Work

The Home (1903)
(p.82) All industry began at home. All industry was begun by women.Where the patient and laborious squaw once carried on her back the slaughtered game for her own family, now wind and steam and lightning distribute our provisions around the world. Where she once erected a rude shelter of boughs or hides for her own family, now mason and carpenter, steel and iron worker, joiner, lather, plasterer, glazier, plumber, locksmith, painter, and decorator combine to house the world. Where she chewed and scrape the hides, wove bark and grasses, made garments, made baskets, made pottery, made all that was made for...
The Home: Its Work and Influence (1910)
(p.86) Why was woman the first worker? Because she is a mother. All living animals are under the law of, first, self-preservation, and, second, race-preservation. But the second really comes first; the most imperative forces in nature compel the individual to sacrifice to the race. This law finds its best expression in what we call "the maternal sacrifice." Motherhood means giving. There is no limit to this urgency. The mother gives all she has to the young, including life. In many low organisms the sacrifice is instantaneous and complete—the mother dies in giving birth to the young—just lays her eggs and...
The Home: Its Work and Influence (2002)

"Marx, Housework, and Alienation" (1993)
(p.122) For Marx, there is a crucial distinction that must be made between the concept of alienation and the related (but not identical) concepts of domination and oppression. Although all forms of alienation involve oppression or domination, it is not the case that all forms of domination or oppression involve alienation. One can be dominated and oppressed without being alienated. But if one is alienated, one is certainly dominated and oppressed. Thus, to say that the family, housework, and child care can be free of alienation is not to say that there cannot at the same time be domination or oppression...
"Marx, Housework, and Alienation" (1993)
(p.127) Difficult as they may be, cleaning and washing can still be satisfying. Sewing, quilting, cooking, decorating, and building can be not only satisfying but also creative and can develop one’s powers and capacities. Child care can also be emotionally rewarding. The point is that difficulty, repetition, and even drudgery by themselves do not produce alienation; they do not even produce oppression. Something else is required to produce alienation or oppression. The most unalienated work, the most satisfying work, can involve certain aspects that are simply dull, repetitious drudgery. Even artistic work, the production of films, or scholarship can all involve...
"Marx, Housework, and Alienation" (1993)