Wages for Housework is an engaging and personable history of the WFH movement, following the stories of some of the key figures. Callaci doesn't shy away from some of the complexities of the campaign, not least translating the theory into something more concrete.

It was interesting to read about how this international movement intersected with feminist, civil rights and anti-capitalist activism around the world. It's thoroughly-researched and thoughtfully presented, academic in its approach while being very readable - although if you don't have an interest in Marxist Feminist ideology you might this might not be for you.

I’ll start by saying that this book is clearly incredibly well researched and in reading you can tell it was a real labour of love for the author. Sadly, this book was not what I was personally expecting so I ended up DNFing around 30% after finding myself having a hard time feeling motivated to pick it back up.

I enjoyed the introduction and first few sections and amongst the information I was familiar with I definitely learnt a few new things. I personally found the sheer density of the historical detail incredibly difficult to push through and remain focussed on. Yes, this is a book by a historian so that is the point, it just sadly wasn't for me. If you are a reader who enjoys detailed historical accounts and are interested in this topic then I am confident you will love it!

I truly hope Emily Callaci finds her audience once this book is out in the world because it seems like it could be an essential text on the topic for many years to come.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-arc. All opinions are my own.

I want to preface this by saying it is very clear how much work and research Callaci put into this book, and for that I cannot fault her. My struggle with this book came with the sheer volume of information that was thrown at the reader. While I initially loved this book, especially the first few chapters on Selma James, I eventually found myself struggling to pick it up. There was so many facts and figures and quotes that it felt like a textbook at certain points, and I simply couldn’t finish it. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right headspace for it, as it does seem like a very interesting book covering a topic I hadn’t heard about before.

In this book, Emily Callaci tells the story of the Wages for Housework movement, which came about in the 1970s. She structures the book around 5 of the women who were most instrumental in the movement's founding: Silvia Federici, Selma James, Wilmette Brown, Maria Dalla Costa, and Margaret Prescod. Each of these women came to the movement from different ideological positions, classes, ethnicities, and lifestyles. Some of them became friends. For others, the differences in opinion became too great. Inevitably, some ended up being disillusioned. Nonetheless, aspects of this movement remain to this day, albeit under different names.

The author came to this topic when she herself was struggling to balance her career as a professor with the demands of motherhood after her first child was born. She had the duties of both jobs plus housework, putting in 18-hour workdays. But she'd grown up at a time when the message to women was that their value should be measured by their career path and not by the work they did in the home. Callaci realized that to have a career, she must have childcare and that to pay for childcare, she must have a job that pays well enough for her to afford it. At the same time, she knows that the work she does is more respected and comes with higher pay than that of a child care worker. This led to her realization that, "motherhood had changed my relationship to capitalism" (p xii) because, "motherhood, the work I knew I could never refuse, made me vulnerable to exploitation." (p xii) She points out that Wages for Housework was a political movement that critiqued both women's oppression and capitalism.

Unsurprisingly, there were opposing views about whether wages for housework was a good idea. Some people didn't like the idea that well-off housewives would be getting paid for being housewives. The response to that was to emphasize that it was wages for housework, not wages for housewives. In reality, very few of the members were housewives. Another criticism, which to me carries more weight, was the question of whether or not women really wanted the government to have so much control over women's lives--if they were paying the wage, women would potentially have to answer for their activities and could not refuse to do the work. Given the increasing surveillance women are subject to in many places today, this seems like a valid concern. On the other hand, those who were on board with the movement argued that in a capitalist system, workers are the most important commodity and women giving birth to and raising new generations of workers are contributing to society and should be paid for their labor.

It's a fascinating argument and Callaci does a fine job of not only telling the story of the movement--the good, the bad, and the ugly--but also some of the stories about these women's lives. It's a great way to structure the book because we don't get a dry academic discussion on a theoretical level. The ideas and theories are there, but illustrated in an engaging way through the women themselves. There was much food for thought contained in this book and if you're at all interested in feminism (particularly Marxist feminism), women's history, women's activism, and/or oral history, then I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. I loved it.

If you have little knowledge about the movements about care and housework, particularly those in feminism, you will highly likely adore this book as I did.
Unpaid domestic work is one of humanity’s biggest sins. It was great to learn about how the movement started, evolved and what it suggested.
The interviews and the research were equally interesting and thought-provoking in our world that values production and profits over care.

I loved this book! It was a beauty exploration of the ways in which we work and earn our living and support our lives. Beautiful and profound read.