Wages for Housework, 1970s

The year 1972 saw the founding
of the International Feminist
Collective, the organisation
that launched the international
campaign for Wages for
Housework (WFH). Wages
for Housework demanded
money from the State for the
unwaged work in the home and
in the community. A debate
ensued about whether caring
full-time was “work” or a “role”
— and whether it should be
compensated with a wage.
One of the co-founders of the
movement, theoretician and
activist Silvia Federici, starts
her essay “Wages against
Housework” with this telling
quote from Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975:

They say it is love. W e say it is
unwaged work.
They call it frigidity. We call it
absenteeism.
Every miscarriage is a work
accident.
Homosexuality and heterosexuality
are both working conditions…but
homosexuality is workers’ control
of production, not the end of work.
More smiles? More money.
Nothing will be so powerful in
destroying the healing virtues of
a smile.
Neuroses, suicides,
desexualization: occupational
diseases of the housewife.

Organization: City of Women; In
collaboration with: Squat Exercise Collective, Revolting Women Social Workers,
Azil Bookshop.
Supported by: EU Culture.