[quote=Blogstar]I tried the monetarization idea on very hard. For example the making of my kids
Halloween suit and taking him out to a party until 9 while my wonderful, but exhausted from her weeks work , wife went home to care for and catch up with the other two boys and relax. She also did not monetarize the time she spent with blogstar jr’s 1&2 which is a big help for both of us.
My conclusion it that FOR ME, monetarization CHEAPENS everything that has to do with the personal growth , emotional and physical support for my family.
If I started charging my wife for lovemaking I think the best parts would disappear and that would really be hard to live with.
And if by chance, I get kicked to the curb in a vulnerable state of unemployment I can deal with that, my future is not in dire jeopardy .[/quote]
Again, it’s not about what you do personally, nor is it about one job (wage earner vs unpaid labor) being more important than the other. The relative values would be different for every family, and it would fluctuate over time even within those individual families.
The point I’m trying to make is that we value different kinds of labor based on a patriarchal system of values where the value of caregiving and other types of “women’s work” have been intentionally undervalued because of the imbalance of power (and the desire of those in power to keep it that way).
If we had to imagine an economic system that was not market based, but based on the value of one’s contributions to society, things would look very different. Wall Street financiers and other middlemen would be paid very little, while people doing hard labor, nurses, doctors, caregivers, teachers, and scientists would be some of the wealthiest people. Without “women’s work” (childbearing, child rearing, cleaning, shopping, meal preparation, etc.) nobody would be here today; we would all be extinct. And even if one were to suggest that scientists, doctors, etc. were the most important people in the world (which I would largely agree with), it is usually women who give birth to them, raise them, develop their character, and educate them — at least through childhood. Is this really worth nothing to society?
This is what I’m talking about:
“A revaluation of women’s work will thoroughly challenge the present conventions. If women’s work is accurately reflected in national statistics, it will shatter the myth that men are the main breadwinners of the world. Areas where women in most of the world are presently treated as economic non-entities – property rights, terms of divorce settlements, collateral requirements for bank credit – will be completely changed. It will provide information about women’s contributions to society, which will establish their entitlement to human, legal, welfare, economic, civil and social rights. Valuing unwaged work will raise the value of all work, including waged work. And will, according to the Beijing Platform for Action,”…contribute to a better sharing of responsibilities” between the genders.
The case for counting unwaged work was bolstered by the release of the 1995 U.N. Human Development Report. It estimated that unwaged and underwaged work is worth $16 trillion internationally. Over two-thirds of this, or $11 trillion, is the non-monetized, invisible contribution of women. The report clearly linked the devaluation of women’s work to women’s poverty and lowered status in all regions of the world.”
This is the kind of feminism that I can relate to; not BG’s kind of feminism that insists that we all conform to the patriarchal system that will always leave women in a more vulnerable position.
