Larvatus Prodeo

Anna’s recent post alerted me to Linda Hirshman’s work, which it seems, after I’ve done a bit of digging around, takes its starting point from Betty Friedan. At least according to Emily Bazelon, writing in Slate:

The former trial lawyer Linda Hirshman dedicates her new book, Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, to the memory of Betty Friedan. Feminism has failed in its transformative mission, Hirshman argues, because it hasn’t insisted that women work. “Bounding home is not good for women and it’s not good for society,” she writes. And she says that if Friedan were alive, “the real radical” of the women’s movement would agree.

I think there’s a false dichotomy here, and it has to do with what’s designated as “work”. As Anna said in her post, there are all sorts of conundrums about whether or not women’s work in child rearing and in the home is considered as such. These debates are important. But I wonder whether we’re not still tied up too much with work as a value in and of itself. A lot of the historical debates over women’s contribution was over the definition of this word - and its assimilation to paid work in the labour market - largely a male domain until quite recently - and therefore whether women’s (largely invisible) support of men in their working lives ought also to be recognised as such. What I’d like to see - and perhaps this is a tad utopian - is a blurring of the boundaries - and a decommodification of labour. Let’s go back to Grandfather Marx in his more humanist moods and recognise labour as work upon the world - as purposive activity that transforms things. Perhaps we need to think in more Millsian terms (ironically with a nod to Marx) and celebrate activity that leads to self-actualisation - but here’s where we depart from John Stuart Mill - through our communal transformation of the world and our relational activity. If you think in these terms, isn’t raising a child a contribution - and the beginning of an enduring bond - and perhaps as meaningful as an insertion of oneself into a bureaucratic hierarchy, if not more? Is there any actualisation of self without community? Could this be the feminine or feminist contribution to re-imagining work as meaningful and other-directed activity rather than just making a buck or having to get up at 7.30 to get the 8.30 bus?