Women's Work

Unpaid Work 2

What you want, baby, I got. What you need, you know I got it.

All I askin' is for a little respect when you come home, baby.

When you come home, respect (Respect, Aretha Franklin).

These words, sung by Aretha Franklin were taken from her 1967 hit Respect. The irony of these lyrics is that Aretha demands appreciation from her male partner and yet throughout the entire song she situates herself in her traditional sphere- the home. Although Aretha’s intentions were honourable her attempts to gain respect would prove to be unsuccessful seeing that the social conditions in which she was living saw nothing wrong with confining women to the home. Basically, social conditions must allow for change to take place. Equality amongst the sexes will only be gained by an evolutionary process which will enable society to adjust and adapt slowly to sex role changes. Revolutionary attempts will prove to be unproductive given that the pace is too fast to facilitate an alteration of societal values. Such evolutionary steps have begun to take form. Census data highlighted within “Making Mothers Count: The Fiscal Value of Nurturing” by Kristin Maschka, and attained survey data in Tanja Van Der Lippe’s “Outsourcing of Domestic Tasks and Time-Saving Effects” will show that some evolutionary progress has been made, but great feats have not yet been reached. Therefore, it will be shown, with reference to the articles, that unpaid female domestic labour leaves them vulnerable to fluctuating shifts in the economy, that domestic labour remains a domain infiltrated with female representation, and that current economic conditions have required the necessary outsourcing of domestic duties.

Unpaid Work 3

The unpaid work of females within the household leaves many vulnerable to economic strife. “Making Mothers Count: The Fiscal Value of Nurturing” by Kristin Maschka and Tanja Van Der Lippe’s “Outsourcing of Domestic Tasks and Time-Saving Effects”...