Care for the carers or they won't care for you
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| Anni Albers's loom |
Yes.
Yes. Lysistrata. Cinderella. Wages for Housework, Italy, 1972. Studs Terkel.
Work done in the home is work. Cooking, cleaning, making, mending. Labour.
Labour should be remunerated. Fairly.
It takes skill to clean and care. It can be itemised, shown as a workload document. This work is not invisible. It exists and can be quantified. It is invisibilised, feminised, certainly. But it is not women's work for all that.
I needed a doctorate to raise children. I needed a doctorate to ward off the shit that is flung at women once they become mothers (or indeed if they don't become mothers). Shit is just flung at women, and they are expected to suck it up, clean it off, say nothing, be pretty, and be flung on the heap when they're done. Fuck that.
Pay carers, or you'll end up paying the price. Pay carers or they won't care for you. The goodness of the heart still needs feeding, and food costs money.
The single task of any government is to care for the carers, the workers, those who labour. Everybody labours. Everything starts and ends in care. That's it. There isn't another task facing government. The pandemic only strips that truth bare, strips away all the shit we try to cover it up with. The loudmouths braying for this that and the other. Care is silent, exacting, patient, demanding work. True work. Pay for it.
#universalincome
Work done in the home is work. Cooking, cleaning, making, mending. Labour.
Labour should be remunerated. Fairly.
It takes skill to clean and care. It can be itemised, shown as a workload document. This work is not invisible. It exists and can be quantified. It is invisibilised, feminised, certainly. But it is not women's work for all that.
I needed a doctorate to raise children. I needed a doctorate to ward off the shit that is flung at women once they become mothers (or indeed if they don't become mothers). Shit is just flung at women, and they are expected to suck it up, clean it off, say nothing, be pretty, and be flung on the heap when they're done. Fuck that.
Pay carers, or you'll end up paying the price. Pay carers or they won't care for you. The goodness of the heart still needs feeding, and food costs money.
The single task of any government is to care for the carers, the workers, those who labour. Everybody labours. Everything starts and ends in care. That's it. There isn't another task facing government. The pandemic only strips that truth bare, strips away all the shit we try to cover it up with. The loudmouths braying for this that and the other. Care is silent, exacting, patient, demanding work. True work. Pay for it.
#universalincome
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