Housework is not only part of patriarchal power structures within the family, but is also crucial for the capitalist production of surplus value. On the one hand, the family is a consumer, but it is also a producer of value for the capitalist economy. All unpaid work in the house and childcare is a source of income for the capitalist system.
Author: Zilka Spahić-Šiljak
We have just celebrated International Women’s Day and talked about the rights to work, equal pay and equal opportunity, and now we need to look at the other side of the coin, which is unpaid work at home. When the division of labor in the house is mentioned, men wave their hands and say that it is a woman’s job, or if they are a little more advanced, they say that they help them, while most do not want to talk about such trivial matters. Housework is not a serious topic for them. When it is mentioned to the believers that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did housework, that he cooked and washed his clothes, then they laugh and say that they cannot be perfect like the Prophet. Therefore, men and a large number of women do not want to talk about this topic, because they consider housework to be a woman’s duty and an unimportant topic.
However, if we analyze the power relations in a society, economic well-being, paid and unpaid work, we will quickly realize that the division of housework is very much a political issue and not a whim of some women who want to turn men into housewives and replace imposed gender roles.
Pat Mainardi wrote about the politics of the division of labor in the 1970s, when second-wave feminists questioned the status of women in the traditional family and the ways in which their resources and time were being wasted and not socially valued. When men began to do housework, they found it repetitive and dulling, and they offered open and passive resistance.
Is it necessary for a woman to get sick to understand that she doesn’t have to do everything alone?
In the 21st century, women in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans in general start talking about these topics only when they lose their health. Recently, at a gathering, I listened to a professor from Sarajevo who is preparing for spine surgery say: ” When I got sick, I realized that I shouldn’t have been a superwoman.” This teacher was both a mother and a father, because her husband is a war disabled soldier and a cleaner and educator of three sons, but also the first in her school with extracurricular activities and, of course, an excellent cook who knew how to make good burek and dates. After that, other women in the group started sharing similar stories about housework. They are educated, have careers, but after 45 years of life, they started to get sick and only then did they realize that they don’t have to be perfect in everything and that they don’t have to do everything by themselves in order for society to value them as good mothers, housewives and workers.
Is it necessary for a woman to get sick and realize that she doesn’t have to be a super woman who gets everything done, who cooks lunch every day, who keeps the house tidy, who is an excellent worker, an exemplary daughter and caregiver to her parents and also engaged in her community?
Is it necessary for her to realize only when she is bedridden with a twisted spine that her family can function without her, that they won’t go hungry and thirsty, that they know how to wash the dishes and clean the house, and fill the refrigerator?
Does her husband need to tell her how crazy she is for painting the house and moving all the furniture herself, when she thought she would save money and show that she could do the job well?
Is it necessary for my husband to tell her how she has neglected herself and that she looks like a grandmother while she tries to scrub everything by herself so as not to pay another woman and thus save for the household budget?
Is it necessary for the house to be as clean as a pharmacy without having time to go to a romantic dinner with your wife or go out with your friends?
Is it necessary to have the latest curtains on the windows and all the furniture and rugs in the same colors and not have time to go for a massage or some other relaxation treatment?
When she gets sick, is it necessary for the children to tell her that they have their own lives and responsibilities and that they cannot sit next to her and take care of her, while she could take care of them when they were growing up?
Is it necessary for relatives and friends to feel sorry for her and say, it’s a shame she was a good person to everyone, but she should have thought a little more about herself?
Is it necessary…
It is not necessary, but women are raised with high social expectations, to be super-women in everything, to achieve everything, that their house shines, that the children eat a cooked meal every day, that everything is washed, ironed and that everyone is dressed up and that they always have clean favorite jeans and hoodies, without knowing how to turn on the washing machine themselves.
Between social expectations and proof
How much is the woman, and how much is the social expectations? Why do women need to prove that they can do everything? Why do women in the media often emphasize that they arrive at everything, because it is important to have a good organization and then they arrive and make lunch before work and after work do homework with the children and welcome guests and clean the house and do all other family duties?
Given that social expectations are high and that women are valued and evaluated according to how successful they are as mothers, wives, housewives, caregivers, workers and how much they contribute to their community, then it is not surprising that a large number of women strive to live in accordance with such norms. Most people think it’s easier that way. They will be judged less if they have fulfilled the tasks that have been imposed on them. In this way, they will also prove their worth, because other things that women do are not taken into account if they have not proven themselves in the family. A woman can be successful in any career, but she is always socially legitimized through marriage and motherhood, which represents an indirect pressure to fulfill set expectations.
It all starts from the primary socialization in which female children are raised, that regardless of intellectual capacities and affinities, they must learn to cook, clean and take care of children and the elderly, because in patriarchal cultures this is considered a woman’s duty. Men sometimes help a little, but they are not at all socialized to accept that all housework and taking care of children is a joint responsibility. Women are taught that housework is an integral part of their married life, and men are taught that a woman will do it for them. By getting married, unwritten social norms are uncritically accepted as a given and very little questioned. If a woman agrees with a man that he will take over a part of the household chores, then she must be a manager who will constantly remind that this work needs to be done.
Since industrialization in the 19th century, women have started working in factories because they had to earn money for their families, and today, in the era of globalization and corporate capitalism, most also have to work because a single salary is not enough for the household budget. The costs and standard of living are higher, and employment ensures women’s economic independence and elevates them, as John Stuart Mill said long ago, from the position of servant to the position of partner. Paid work and employment have to some extent made women partners, but the problem is that there has been no division of labor and responsibilities in the home. Thus, women are doubly or tripled in burdens, which no one wants to talk about because it requires changes, and no one likes the implementation. Men do not want to talk about it because it requires their more active role in the division of labor in the family, and women avoid this topic because they will be declared feminists who allegedly want to dominate men, or they will receive comments that if they are having a hard time then they should go back home and be mothers and housewives.
Although the division of labor encroaches on given gender roles and expectations, it is also a political issue, because women are conditioned by socialization and social norms to do jobs that are not paid and valued. In this way, women spend their time and health on jobs for which they will not receive a salary, nor will they have health and social insurance, or a pension. A woman consciously puts herself at a disadvantage compared to a man because she is expected to do work for others, and others do not want to do the same work for her. It is therefore about the same policy of exploitation and exploitation of slaves whose labor and time were exploited by the slave owners. Although women are not formally slaves, these policies continue the exploitation of women and explain to her that it is her duty to do all the household chores for her family. That’s how it’s always been, that’s the tradition, that’s the customs, and then there are interpretations in the faith that it’s a great sevap (good deed) for which a woman will be rewarded by God. Men do not grab for that kind of reward, because they want to acquire sevapa in another, easier way.
Resistance to division of labor
Although today men help women more than before, this ratio is still unfair. In developed Western countries, women do 60 percent of housework and men do 40 percent, while in the Balkans and other similar cultures, women do 80-90 percent of housework. Why do men resist the division of labor and why do women agree to it? The aforementioned author Mainardi analyzed how men show resistance and what it actually means, and here it is adapted to the Bosnian context.
1. I don’t mind doing housework, but I don’t know how to do it well. It is best for each of us to do what we know best. THAT MEANS: I don’t know how to wash dishes, clean the toilet or cook, but that’s why I know how to chop wood (even though I live in an apartment with central heating), change a light bulb, take a car to wash or move heavy cabinets in the house (I do this once a year). They are boring jobs and somehow not for men’s hands, so you better do them if you want them done right.
2. I don’t mind doing housework, but you have to show me how to do it.
THAT MEANS: I will ask you so many questions every time that you will get sick of it and you will say that you will do it. Even though I know how to wash and sort the dishes, every time I will ask which cloth should be used, in which cabinet the plates go, and in which glasses and cups. And if you happen to sit and read while I’m washing the dishes, I’ll drive you crazy with questions and spill water all over the sink so that you yourself will ask me not to do it again.
3. I don’t mind doing housework, but I will do it when we have time and not when you ask me to. THAT MEANS: I will procrastinate so much with washing the dishes and laundry, I will talk normally, I will do it now or as soon as the game is over, that you will get annoyed and end up doing it yourself. With passive resistance, I force you to stop bothering me, because I don’t really want to do it.
4. I hate these jobs more than you do, and they don’t seem to bother you as much as I do. THAT MEANS: housework is humiliating for a person of my intellectual level and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I was created for deep-minded work, to think, to contemplate, so this type of work interferes with my intellectual work. For someone like you, it’s not a problem, because you’re used to it.
5. Housework is so trivial that it’s not worth talking about. THAT MEANS: it’s even more trivial to do them. It’s not for a person like me because I deal with important life topics and work and you don’t, so you do the housework and don’t talk about it all the time, you tire me out.
6. In the animal world, the wolf is at the top of the hierarchy, even though it is not the strongest animal . He is the most intelligent. THAT MEANS: I have a historical, traditional, anthropological, biological and psychological justification to be at the top of the hierarchy. I am the head of the house, the pillar of the family, the breadwinner (although my wife also works and we support the family together). You cannot ask a wolf to be equal with other animals and a man to humiliate himself by doing these jobs.
7. The movement for the liberation of women is not actually a political movement . THAT MEANS: This revolution of equality has hit close to home, and I’m interested in seeing how I’m threatened when you make me do housework, and I’m not interested in seeing how I exploit you while you do all the housework for me and the family. That is why I will thwart your every attempt to declare the division of household chores and the struggle for equality a political struggle, because it endangers me and my position in the family.
Housework is not only part of patriarchal power structures within the family, but is also crucial for the capitalist production of surplus value. On the one hand, the family is a consumer, but it is also a producer of value for the capitalist economy. All unpaid work in the house and childcare represent a source of income for the capitalist system. When housework is viewed in this way, the material and political oppression of women is better understood. Proposals that have been discussed for years are moving in the direction of two strategies: the first is to make housework paid, and the second is to establish state institutions of kindergartens, cleaning, laundry and cooking services so that this part of the burden is taken over by the state.
Neither of these two strategies was implemented, although there were attempts in socially regulated countries to provide kindergartens for children, which were not free. For a successful and happy partner life, it is important that chores are shared so that women do not feel the pressure of having to do everything alone. In 2016, the Pew Research Center (PEW Research Center) conducted a survey among American married couples and 63 percent of men and 56 percent of women indicated that the key to a successful and happy marriage is the division of household chores. I’m not sure what the results would be in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it would be worth researching and finding out what makes a happy marriage and why women only realize when they get sick that they don’t need and don’t have to do all the housework.
