Many women who don’t identify as caregivers explain that they view themselves as simply fulfilling the role of a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a woman.
I found myself thinking back to these conversations while reading Silvia Federici’s 1974 essay, Wages Against Housework:
“Unfortunately, many women – particularly single women – are afraid of the perspective of wages for housework because they are afraid of identifying even for a second with the housewife. They know that this is the most powerless position in society and so they do not want to realize that they are housewives too. This is precisely their weakness, a weakness which is maintained and perpetuated through the lack of self-identification. We want and have to say that we are all housewives, we are all prostitutes and we are all gay, because until we recognize our slavery we cannot recognize our struggle against it, because as long as we think we are something better, something different than a housewife, we accept the logic of the master, which is a logic of division and for us the logic of slavery. We are all housewives because no matter where we are they can always count on more work from us, more fear on our side to put towards our demands, and less pressure on them for money, since hopefully our minds are directed elsewhere, to that man in our present and our future who will ‘take care of us.’
And we also delude ourselves that we can escape housework. But how many of us, in spite of working outside the house, have escaped it?”
Yesterday I got a notification from Facebook that sharing a story about a woman who doesn’t want to be the caregiver of her unfaithful husband goes against their terms of use. The algorithm knows the role of women and it doesn’t like it when we break step.
My stance on identity is controversial in the Toronto queer community, since I view much of identity as legal and logistical categories, rather than an expression of how I feel in my heart of hearts. The concept of ‘woman’ is both entirely arbitrary and very real. The label determines how I experience the world, as someone who’s been socialized as a woman and who is treated like a woman. I cannot bring myself to believe that anyone truly identifies as a man or a woman, since these are socially constructed categories with changing and contradictory meanings. How I feel in my soul is irrelevant, just like everything else when I fill out a form.
Which is perhaps why I also struggle to understand why people are so reluctant to check that ‘caregiver’ box on the form, even if I intellectually understand and respect the reasons I’ve been given. Regardless of how we feel, at discharge someone else is checking that box that there is a caregiver at home — you — without bothering to ask you how you identify or whether you’re consenting to this set of assigned responsibilities.
We’ve all seen the Rosalynn Carter quote:
“There are only four types of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, who are caregivers, who will be caregivers, and who will need caregivers.”
Perhaps it’s time to pick up Silvia Federici’s banner and acknowledge that in the eyes of lawmakers, bureaucrats, and medical professionals, all women are housewives and all housewives are caregivers. We’re always available to serve others, without consideration of our own needs or capabilities.
You can read the full Wages Against Housework essay on LibCom.
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