(Eco)Feminism: We must return to the domestic sphere

Fifty years ago Mariarosa Dalla Costa had shown the way: if a path of women-men equality (albeit in diversity) was to begin, one had to get to work on the issue of women's domestic exploitation, the basis on which the patriarchal system and, consequently, the capitalist system rests.

At the time, the issue of wages was central to the debates and struggles of the left, extreme and otherwise. It therefore seems quite logical that the key claim was that of a wage for "unpaid labor."

Considered a very peripheral issue in the struggles that the leaders, male, were trying to pursue, Dalla Costa was marginalized and with her the (scant) attention given to the issue.

In the 1990s, a well-known American ecofeminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether, in her book Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing, Harper-Collins (1994) resumed discussing the issue:

"It is men's lifestyles, more than women's, that must undergo the most profound changes. Men must overcome the individualistic illusion of autonomy, which has as its correlate a power exercised over others, starting with the women with whom they are in relationship.

As lovers, parents and co-workers, they must engage with women in the relationships essential to the sustenance of life: food production, clothing, cleaning, childcare from birth, cooking, waste management. Only when men are fully integrated into the culture of daily subsistence tasks can men and women begin to reshape economic, social and political life together."

She did not have much luck either, however, and the issue failed to gain traction even then.

In the meantime, the (eco)feminist movement lost strength and dispersed into a thousand rivulets. Now that, albeit amidst a thousand difficulties, it is trying to re-emerge, we argue that it is time to take up this issue again, which is central, much more so than all the other battles, including the one for climate justice, that flood the newspapers and TV talk shows.

Without putting the necessary rebalancing of the foundations of the system at the center, the dream of a better world has no chance of coming true. I am telling you this from someone who is a chartered surveyor, the son of a bricklayer, and who, with bricklayers in the town where I live, has spent and spends a lot of time there.

To straighten out the foundations of this lopsided (patriarchal-capitalist) house is to reopen the discussion of power asymmetries in the domestic sphere. In a nutshell: making males put more time into the tasks necessary to keep a couple/family afloat, so as to free up time for the female partner. 

Nowadays this issue of the domestic sphere, for those who can afford it, is solved by paying a maid (almost always female and very often from lower socio-economic backgrounds). This cannot be considered a structural solution. There can be no excuses such as: I (male) work all day and often on weekends, while my partner is at home; therefore, it makes sense for her to take care of the domestic tasks. No! No! And No!

Move toward an equal division of tasks (and time), so as to free up female time to do what is desired by the woman, without male meddling.

On this issue we have begun a reflection with a small group of expert(s) (females and males). The initial text will be in discussion with a small group of people, and then we will make it available to those who are interested.

I make my email available for contact: paologroppo60@gmail.com