Offer some tentative analysis and suggestions as to the effects of neo-liberalism on contemporary reproductive labour in the home.

Relates to materialist feminist and post colonial reading of the home. Materialist feminist critique of traditional and current Marxist theory about precarity and labour. Post colonial anyalsis of the ‘gains’ of women in the north. My point of departure is the contemporary home and that the possibility of new political alliances and modes of reproduction relies – to understand this space we need to consider

– the redress to Law – to rights
– commodification of reproductive labour
– employment laws that relate to labour in the home
– migration / immigration policies that effect workers in the home

What do I mean by neo-liberalism / neo-liberal globalisation
– I understand the neo-liberal project to be about extending market systems and logics into every sphere of life
– I want to understand how that logic has impacted on the home and the labours that occur within it

Location: Home / Households/ Private Sphere / Non-public
Two Global cities: London and New York
Subjects: Members of households

How useful is it to still view the organisation of home through heterosexual nuclear families structures.
Wife, Husband, Children
The staff / paid workers in the home / workers who do the traditional work of women
– nanny, cleaner, domestic workers, au pairs, sex workers
– childcare, housework, sex

Effects of women’s re entry into the waged labour market – movement in and out of the waged labour market
Value of the wage – what does a wage bring – independence from men / male wage, maternity leave – but no paternity leave, full time vs part time wages
Demands of the 1970’s Wages for Housework

What has changed since the 1970’s – are we still demanding wages for housework. Of in a fucked up way have we ‘won’ the demand. The relevance silence from the feminist movement. What feminist movement. What happened to the fight? What are the topics now. Certainly not questions about our lives – now feminism is about violence and saving other women

Global chains of care – global north suffering from care deficit
Generations of knowledge of care and how to raise children disappearing – lost. The Rise of the Parent as a figure. Of parenthood. In previous organisations forms – women were always around children. As a child, before marriage, looking after children who were not biologically yours.

What is labour – definition ‘purposeful human activity’
Productive / Non-productive for capital – Marxist distinction – in relation to creating value / surplus value. The production of labour power. The mystification of the private sphere. The understanding of the arrival of labour power on the market. The trick of capitalist organisation. We have been forced to pay and work for our own reproduction – from birth, childcare, education, health.

The invisible hands of the market –

What is the work of reproduction
Who is the work of reproduction?

Historical organisation of reproductive work in the home

Significant events / shifts –

20th C
Interwar 1920 – 1930’s – Depression / Crisis
Second World War – late 1930’s – 1945
Postwar – 1945 – 1960’s
1960 – 1970’s – womens liberation movt
1980 / 1990 / 2000 – neo-liberal globalisation

19th C – industrial revolution
18th C – shifting from feudalism to capitalism