The first thing to know about the international Wages for Housework campaign that began in the 1970s is that you shouldn’t take the name at face value. This wasn't some single-issue movement committed to putting pennies in pockets of frazzled, overworked housewives. Wages were just one of six demands contained in the 1972 pamphlet Women, the Unions and Work, Or… What Is Not To Be Done; others ranged from full bodily autonomy to the right to work less. These were radical demands rooted in a revolutionary feminist reframing of work itself, an analysis of how capitalism needs the unpaid labour of women to survive.
These were the ideological seeds of Wages for Housework. They snowballed throughout the 1970s into a broad, intersectional and international network of organisations fighting for the rights of lesbians, sex workers and Black women. These feminists marched for equal pay, for free childcare, for birth control and on-demand abortion. They fought the criminalisation of sex work, discrimination against lesbians, and the stereotyping of Black mothers claiming welfare – the so-called “welfare queens” derided by US media.
There were bumps along the road, like interpersonal squabbles, documented instances of racism, and widespread confusion over what the movement should be fighting for. But especially as the movement spread beyond borders, Wages for Housework became a global phenomenon rooted, first and foremost, in an ethos of solidarity. We should learn from it.
