Federici suggests in Wages against Housework that housework was imposed on women, something considered as ‘innate’ to their nature rather than being recognised as work, and describes how women have been trained to conform to this life, a “natural attribute of [women’s] female physique and personality [...women are] trained to be docile, subservient, dependant” (16-7). She goes on to explain, “And we also delude ourselves that we can escape housework. But how many of us, in spite of working outside the home, have escaped” (22). How have gender roles and attitudes to the politics of housewifery shifted and evolved since the 1970’s? Do you think women are still trained to be “docile, subservient [and] dependant”? To what extent?
Federici deems the works of Marx are limited as the significance of unpaid reproductive labour by women is not acknowledged, and that wage gives “an impression of a fair deal” (16).Federici argues in Wages against Housework that the struggle for the wage for reproductive labour is less for the wage itself, and more for the change in the politics of social expectations and relations possible if a wage is attained. She argues that capital “has gotten a hell of a lot of work almost for free” (17). Whilst it is evident there has been inequality with reproductive labour and its divisions between the sexes, how much of reproductive labour, (e.g.: housework) should be considered as ‘work’ as opposed to personal responsibility (albeit traditionally with distorted emphasis on women), as there is no direct contribution to capital? Is there an alternative way to change social expectations other than a demand for wage? Federici argues, “From now on we want money for each moment of it, so that we can refuse some of it and eventually all of it.” (20). How realistically attainable is this claim?
Federici goes on to explore the politics of commons in her essay Feminism and the Politics of the Common in an Era of Primitive Accumulation. She claims that commons have been “put at the service of privatization”, one example being turning rain forests into ecological reserves “under the guise of protecting biodiversity and conserving ‘global commons’” (140). To what extent do you think ‘the common’ has been successfully privatised in modern advanced capitalism, and how detrimental is this to the economy and class structure?
On pages 142-148, Fedirici explores the common with a feminist lens. How does she suggest we overcome this “oblivion” in a reconstruction of the common (145), and how convincing do you think her suggestions are? Are there any limitations or factors she has not considered with her argument?
Federici argues in Precarious Labour: a Feminist Viewpoint that despite the perception of precarious labour (production of information and ideas as opposed to physical commodities) as producing new opportunities and liberties for westerners in advanced modern capitalism, there is still immense exploitation present in the rise of immaterial labour. She explains, “There is a continuum between the computer worker and the worker in the Congo who digs coltan with his hands trying to seek out a living after being expropriated, pauperized, by repeated rounds of structural adjustment and repeated theft of his community’s land and natural sources.” (24). Federici argues that as the computer worker gets more, the Congo labourer is being exploited more – that with development in capitalism, there must be under-development in another part. How far do you agree with this notion? Are there any examples of development that does not result in underdevelopment in another part?