Unproductive, inactive, unoccupied?

“Kathy, a young, middle class housewife, spends her days preparing food, setting the table, serving meals, clearing food and dishes from the table, washing dishes. Ironing, keeping an eye on and playing with the children, kissing the children, disciplining the children, taking the children to daycare, or to school, disposing of garbage, dusting, gathering clothes for the washing, doing the laundry, going to the gas station and the supermarket, repairing household items, making beds, paying bills, sewing or mending or knitting, talking to door to door salespeople, cutting the grass, weeding, answering the telephone, vacuuming, sweeping and washing the floors, shovelling snow, cleaning the bathroom, kitchen and putting the children to bed. Kathy has to face the fact that she spends her time in a totally unproductive manner. She, too, is economically inactive, and economists record her as unoccupied.”


~Marilyn Waring~

Who's Counting?

Women do a lot of unpaid work in this society. Women also do most of the lower wage work. The economy does not recognize this work to really any great degree at all.

The truth is that most work that brings in a dollar value happens because there are predominantly women who are behind the scenes caring for children, doing housework, caring for elderly relatives, cooking, etc, etc. But rarely is a dollar value attributed to this. It's often considered "leisure" time, it's unrecorded, it's considered non-productive.

Marilyn Waring exposes this lack of balance. She is a Feminist Economist. We watched this video in class. Very eye opening!

She suggests that instead of recording dollars, perhaps we should record how time is used. When she charted that, it really shows how men's days are much shorter than women's days when it comes to time use.

If you have ever felt like all the hard work that you do has little or no value as a mom, because no one attaches a dollar value to it, you may want to watch this!