5 ms·

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

by door5 8y ago

monochromatic 8y ago
Seems pretty just. Who would be paying for the domestic work, anyway?
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. So we can identify a problem. The society (of the 1960’s and before in particular) required women’s work, but women were not compensated for their work. Given how critical that work is for society, it does strike me as a real problem. A secondary question is what to do about it, which I believe you are asking. That is much more complicated. We have identified a problem, but perhaps have not identified a solution. However the lack of a solution does not mean it is fair to ignore the problem. I bet feminists have suggested lots of solutions to this, but it’s telling that you and I (I expect) are both ignorant of them. However, I do think this expectation of necessary unpaid work is unfair. Can anyone comment on proposed solutions to this in the feminist literature? Thanks!
  - westiseast 8y ago
    I’m a stay at home dad and have been for the last 5 years. My wife works for herself, spending anywhere from 10-14 hours a day working pretty much 6-7 days a week (she loves her job and gets paid well to do it). Personally I don’t see it as an unfair bargain. I work hard at home, it can be stressful and tiring sometimes, but my wife takes on all the stress of providing income. I get ‘compensated’ pretty well - we have a good income and I live a great life. I personally think that home-makers who complain that they aren’t ‘compensated’ for their work are being churlish. That’s great when it’s working well. I suspect there’s a couple of problems - (1) often the home-maker goes back to work, but the home-duties don’t get redistributed accordingly. The home maker is forever saddled with that burden, limiting their career options. (2) In a divorce, the man is often left with a good income, through a valid, ongoing career, while the stay-at-home mom is left with an empty CV, the ongoing burden of the kids, and an allowance decided by the courts. Sure, men might have the burden of a new alimony/child payments ‘tax’, but otherwise they’re now free to do whatever they want. The woman isn’t. (vast generalization of course)
    - door5 8y ago
      Those are two great examples -- one thing I'd like to add is that the audience of Hackernews is pretty upper-middle class (as are the anecdotes in this thread), these issues are compounded greatly when it comes to poor or working class women, who may feel completely trapped in a bad marriage economically, or may be struggling as single working mothers.
      - westiseast 8y ago
        Absolutely - it’s probably a common feature of stay-at-home dads in the 21st century that it’s a good deal. There’s going to be a much larger percentage of stay-at-home mums who have awful ‘deals’.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. The woman is effectively doing the work for the man (or for herself). She doesn't do the work for nothing, she does it in exchange for a roof over her head and food on the table, and medical insurance coverage and an address in a good school district for her kids etc. etc. If the non-monetary compensation is less than she can earn by formally working as a cook or a maid (or a retail clerk or a biology professor) then she can do that instead. But if it's not, she's still not working for nothing.
    - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
      She is not working for pay. Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. So while I agree with your literal words that she does get some benefit and that she could try to find a job, I cannot help but read in to your words as suggesting the situation is fair. And that I completely disagree with.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > She is not working for pay. If the transaction was formalized so that she was receiving a salary and then paying the same total amount for rent, food, insurance, etc., what difference would that make in practice? > Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. You are referring to the job market in the early 20th century. This is obviously no longer the case, given that a majority of working-aged women do in fact now work for money. The argument you would have to make now is that homemaker is a specialized profession that doesn't translate into another profession. Leaving aside whether that's even true (it's easy to prove you know how to cook and there are such jobs in many diners etc.), how is it different than many ordinary professions? If you have ten years experience as a calligrapher when you decide it isn't for you, you can't just instantly jump onto the middle of the career ladder as a mechanical engineer. Nor is someone who prefers to be a homemaker tied to a specific person. There are many other men (and women) willing to enter into the same kind of arrangement.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dabbledash 8y ago
If the woman’s domestic labor enables the man to work overtime and she enjoys a legal right to half his earnings, I guess it works out. But when people are not pooling resources as family units (for whatever reasons) it does seem like women are the ones left holding the bag.
Antimachides 8y ago
You act like it's 1820 still and there's still domestic work to be done. The washer and dryer do the work, the dishwasher does at least half the work, the water is already gathered and available to pipe, dinner comes in trays, fat doesn't need to be made into soap, butter doesn't need churning, clothes don't need sewing, etc. etc. The life of a house wife is easy. Take the kids to school, pop a xanax, binge on daytime TV for 8 hours or whatever, pick the kids up, make them a quick dinner, go back to TV or help with a little homework, repeat with miscellaneous responsibilities sprinkled in. Any "job" you can do in your pajamas, well, you've just got to wonder you know? Funny that when a man can get an extra day off from all the overtime mommy's "tough" job can become his luxury: a day with his kids.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't foment gender war or any other kind of flamewar on HN. You've done this before, unfortunately. If you do it again we're going to ban you. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended, by posting civilly and substantively, or not at all.
nearbuy 8y ago
If you're talking about singles, then no, not really. You do domestic work for yourself. Men still have to do cleaning and maintenance at home, or pay someone else to do it, or live with the fallout. If you're talking about couples who share an account, it doesn't really make a difference. The couple ends up with the same amount of money and domestic care whether one spouse does more or if they share responsibilities equally, as long as the total work hours at work and at home are the same. If you're talking about a couple where the husband works and the wife stays home and the husband fully controls all the finances, then yes, that's pretty unfair.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Quite often, the wife mostly controls the finances. Women have exercised power over domestic budgets even in quite patriarchal societies. My wife works and has control over the finances, even though we make about equal amounts. I save more for retirement than she does. I also do more of the housework. (Except this week.)
- rubidium 8y ago
  You snuck an assumption in that last point: “and the husband fully controls all the finances”. Why?
  - nearbuy 8y ago
    It's not an assumption, it's a hypothetical. If a couple did this, I'd consider it unfair. I imagine that sort of arrangement was a lot more common in the 50's than today.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      In my experience, the traditional wife has a lot of say in the family's finances. Audio enthusiasts have talked for many decades, sometimes with dread, about "The Wife Acceptance Factor."
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gohbgl 8y ago
It's not like the man uses the overtime money to buy a new Porsche for himself and a new dust mop for his wife. Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores. It's just how many couples choose to organize things.
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  > Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores Clearly you haven't been following the issue that closely if you think this. Of course woman have been forced to do household chores - up until this past century, they've had no other options.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
First we should fill things out a little bit: Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men and women are paid for overtime, neither men nor women are paid for domestic work. Whether women benefit from domestic labor or not, it's not something that would ever be reflected in wages. Wages are what people earn outside the home. It's an open question whether women are net beneficiaries of the informal transfers that characterize the domestic arrangement. It's worth considering that during many eras almost all labor was unpaid. In prior eras, most people's labor was devoted almost entirely to domestic affairs: people made their own shoes, houses, food, &c. It was all "domestic labor". It doesn't mean nobody benefitted from it!
black-tea 8y ago
Who would pay the woman for her domestic work? The man? I suppose he could buy her food, shelter, even gifts. Now there's a thought...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

by door5 8y ago

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

monochromatic 8y ago

Seems pretty just. Who would be paying for the domestic work, anyway?

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. So we can identify a problem. The society (of the 1960’s and before in particular) required women’s work, but women were not compensated for their work. Given how critical that work is for society, it does strike me as a real problem. A secondary question is what to do about it, which I believe you are asking. That is much more complicated. We have identified a problem, but perhaps have not identified a solution. However the lack of a solution does not mean it is fair to ignore the problem. I bet feminists have suggested lots of solutions to this, but it’s telling that you and I (I expect) are both ignorant of them. However, I do think this expectation of necessary unpaid work is unfair. Can anyone comment on proposed solutions to this in the feminist literature? Thanks!
- westiseast 8y ago
  I’m a stay at home dad and have been for the last 5 years. My wife works for herself, spending anywhere from 10-14 hours a day working pretty much 6-7 days a week (she loves her job and gets paid well to do it). Personally I don’t see it as an unfair bargain. I work hard at home, it can be stressful and tiring sometimes, but my wife takes on all the stress of providing income. I get ‘compensated’ pretty well - we have a good income and I live a great life. I personally think that home-makers who complain that they aren’t ‘compensated’ for their work are being churlish. That’s great when it’s working well. I suspect there’s a couple of problems - (1) often the home-maker goes back to work, but the home-duties don’t get redistributed accordingly. The home maker is forever saddled with that burden, limiting their career options. (2) In a divorce, the man is often left with a good income, through a valid, ongoing career, while the stay-at-home mom is left with an empty CV, the ongoing burden of the kids, and an allowance decided by the courts. Sure, men might have the burden of a new alimony/child payments ‘tax’, but otherwise they’re now free to do whatever they want. The woman isn’t. (vast generalization of course)
  - door5 8y ago
    Those are two great examples -- one thing I'd like to add is that the audience of Hackernews is pretty upper-middle class (as are the anecdotes in this thread), these issues are compounded greatly when it comes to poor or working class women, who may feel completely trapped in a bad marriage economically, or may be struggling as single working mothers.
    - westiseast 8y ago
      Absolutely - it’s probably a common feature of stay-at-home dads in the 21st century that it’s a good deal. There’s going to be a much larger percentage of stay-at-home mums who have awful ‘deals’.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. The woman is effectively doing the work for the man (or for herself). She doesn't do the work for nothing, she does it in exchange for a roof over her head and food on the table, and medical insurance coverage and an address in a good school district for her kids etc. etc. If the non-monetary compensation is less than she can earn by formally working as a cook or a maid (or a retail clerk or a biology professor) then she can do that instead. But if it's not, she's still not working for nothing.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    She is not working for pay. Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. So while I agree with your literal words that she does get some benefit and that she could try to find a job, I cannot help but read in to your words as suggesting the situation is fair. And that I completely disagree with.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > She is not working for pay. If the transaction was formalized so that she was receiving a salary and then paying the same total amount for rent, food, insurance, etc., what difference would that make in practice? > Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. You are referring to the job market in the early 20th century. This is obviously no longer the case, given that a majority of working-aged women do in fact now work for money. The argument you would have to make now is that homemaker is a specialized profession that doesn't translate into another profession. Leaving aside whether that's even true (it's easy to prove you know how to cook and there are such jobs in many diners etc.), how is it different than many ordinary professions? If you have ten years experience as a calligrapher when you decide it isn't for you, you can't just instantly jump onto the middle of the career ladder as a mechanical engineer. Nor is someone who prefers to be a homemaker tied to a specific person. There are many other men (and women) willing to enter into the same kind of arrangement.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dabbledash 8y ago

If the woman’s domestic labor enables the man to work overtime and she enjoys a legal right to half his earnings, I guess it works out. But when people are not pooling resources as family units (for whatever reasons) it does seem like women are the ones left holding the bag.

Antimachides 8y ago

You act like it's 1820 still and there's still domestic work to be done. The washer and dryer do the work, the dishwasher does at least half the work, the water is already gathered and available to pipe, dinner comes in trays, fat doesn't need to be made into soap, butter doesn't need churning, clothes don't need sewing, etc. etc. The life of a house wife is easy. Take the kids to school, pop a xanax, binge on daytime TV for 8 hours or whatever, pick the kids up, make them a quick dinner, go back to TV or help with a little homework, repeat with miscellaneous responsibilities sprinkled in. Any "job" you can do in your pajamas, well, you've just got to wonder you know? Funny that when a man can get an extra day off from all the overtime mommy's "tough" job can become his luxury: a day with his kids.

dang 8y ago
Please don't foment gender war or any other kind of flamewar on HN. You've done this before, unfortunately. If you do it again we're going to ban you. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site as intended, by posting civilly and substantively, or not at all.

nearbuy 8y ago

If you're talking about singles, then no, not really. You do domestic work for yourself. Men still have to do cleaning and maintenance at home, or pay someone else to do it, or live with the fallout. If you're talking about couples who share an account, it doesn't really make a difference. The couple ends up with the same amount of money and domestic care whether one spouse does more or if they share responsibilities equally, as long as the total work hours at work and at home are the same. If you're talking about a couple where the husband works and the wife stays home and the husband fully controls all the finances, then yes, that's pretty unfair.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 8y ago
Quite often, the wife mostly controls the finances. Women have exercised power over domestic budgets even in quite patriarchal societies. My wife works and has control over the finances, even though we make about equal amounts. I save more for retirement than she does. I also do more of the housework. (Except this week.)
rubidium 8y ago
You snuck an assumption in that last point: “and the husband fully controls all the finances”. Why?
- nearbuy 8y ago
  It's not an assumption, it's a hypothetical. If a couple did this, I'd consider it unfair. I imagine that sort of arrangement was a lot more common in the 50's than today.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    In my experience, the traditional wife has a lot of say in the family's finances. Audio enthusiasts have talked for many decades, sometimes with dread, about "The Wife Acceptance Factor."

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

gohbgl 8y ago

It's not like the man uses the overtime money to buy a new Porsche for himself and a new dust mop for his wife. Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores. It's just how many couples choose to organize things.

tomnipotent 8y ago
> Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores Clearly you haven't been following the issue that closely if you think this. Of course woman have been forced to do household chores - up until this past century, they've had no other options.

solidsnack9000 8y ago

First we should fill things out a little bit: Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men and women are paid for overtime, neither men nor women are paid for domestic work. Whether women benefit from domestic labor or not, it's not something that would ever be reflected in wages. Wages are what people earn outside the home. It's an open question whether women are net beneficiaries of the informal transfers that characterize the domestic arrangement. It's worth considering that during many eras almost all labor was unpaid. In prior eras, most people's labor was devoted almost entirely to domestic affairs: people made their own shoes, houses, food, &c. It was all "domestic labor". It doesn't mean nobody benefitted from it!

black-tea 8y ago

Who would pay the woman for her domestic work? The man? I suppose he could buy her food, shelter, even gifts. Now there's a thought...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]