what is meant by invisibilisation of women's labour
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Can we consider household work — cooking, cleaning, fetching water over long distances, caring for children, the sick and the elderly — or what is called as unpaid care work performed by women/girls as an optional service? And, which could be forsaken at will, without having an alternative in place?
Can we have women’s liberation without questioning the fundamental division of labour that drives patriarchy—women primarily burdened with unpaid care work, and confined to the home and the hearth, the private sphere?
Can we break the public/private binary by women competing in a man’s world as a man, by following the rules set by men, in a world made for men?And can we break the man-woman binary not by making it irrelevant, but by simply bringing a few women on board to the male side of the division of labour?
The threat is that in the guise of breaking the public/private binary, the resistance against a male-dominated world is co-opted, by women being offered a slice of the pie. In this process, what is problematic is not women losing ‘feminine’ traits of long hair, or the female body participating in a ‘masculine’ sport (for these are constructed binaries), but the erasure of female labour, and contribution to sustaining human life.
Not accounted for
This labour is looked down upon in the world, and is not part of national accounting or Gross Domestic Product. But ironically, it is what sustains the economy. In material terms, women’s unpaid care work is huge. It is estimated that women perform 75% of the world’s unpaid care work. In India, women perform 10 to 12 times the unpaid care work of men. Even in the West, women’s share is much higher. A paper by Ferrant, Pesando and Nowacka put the unpaid care work at 63% of the Indian GDP, and 40% of the Swedish one.
It is because women cannot give up unpaid care work that their access to paid work is severely limited, which in turn leads to a vicious cycle. Even when they find paid work, it is mostly low-paid, precarious or temporary work. Paid work also does not liberate women for often they are now saddled with both paid and unpaid work, leading to what is called as “double burden”. But it is well-established that women’s employment outside the home is absolutely crucial to women’s well-being.
Women’s labour keeps the planet alive, for women perform not just unpaid care work, but also subsistence production of goods. And largely unknown to the world, women perform agriculture work. In the developing world, women constitute nearly half of the agricultural labour force, and 60% in Asia and Africa. Despite this, women own less than 20% of the agricultural land of the world. Women and girls also constitute 60% of the world’s chronically hungry.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that if women farmers had the same resources as men, it would have led to 150 million fewer hungry people. Thus, the elimination of hunger and malnutrition are crucially dependent on women. As scholars such as Amartya Sen have shown, the empowerment of women is the key to improving human development for the whole society.
Women need to access all arenas, including sport. Participating in sport, especially in gender iniquitous societies, can be liberating for women. Further, it overturns established gender norms, particularly when women enter hitherto male-dominated sports. But it is also not a straightforward story of women’s liberation.
Can we have women’s liberation without questioning the fundamental division of labour that drives patriarchy—women primarily burdened with unpaid care work, and confined to the home and the hearth, the private sphere?
Can we break the public/private binary by women competing in a man’s world as a man, by following the rules set by men, in a world made for men?And can we break the man-woman binary not by making it irrelevant, but by simply bringing a few women on board to the male side of the division of labour?
The threat is that in the guise of breaking the public/private binary, the resistance against a male-dominated world is co-opted, by women being offered a slice of the pie. In this process, what is problematic is not women losing ‘feminine’ traits of long hair, or the female body participating in a ‘masculine’ sport (for these are constructed binaries), but the erasure of female labour, and contribution to sustaining human life.
Not accounted for
This labour is looked down upon in the world, and is not part of national accounting or Gross Domestic Product. But ironically, it is what sustains the economy. In material terms, women’s unpaid care work is huge. It is estimated that women perform 75% of the world’s unpaid care work. In India, women perform 10 to 12 times the unpaid care work of men. Even in the West, women’s share is much higher. A paper by Ferrant, Pesando and Nowacka put the unpaid care work at 63% of the Indian GDP, and 40% of the Swedish one.
It is because women cannot give up unpaid care work that their access to paid work is severely limited, which in turn leads to a vicious cycle. Even when they find paid work, it is mostly low-paid, precarious or temporary work. Paid work also does not liberate women for often they are now saddled with both paid and unpaid work, leading to what is called as “double burden”. But it is well-established that women’s employment outside the home is absolutely crucial to women’s well-being.
Women’s labour keeps the planet alive, for women perform not just unpaid care work, but also subsistence production of goods. And largely unknown to the world, women perform agriculture work. In the developing world, women constitute nearly half of the agricultural labour force, and 60% in Asia and Africa. Despite this, women own less than 20% of the agricultural land of the world. Women and girls also constitute 60% of the world’s chronically hungry.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that if women farmers had the same resources as men, it would have led to 150 million fewer hungry people. Thus, the elimination of hunger and malnutrition are crucially dependent on women. As scholars such as Amartya Sen have shown, the empowerment of women is the key to improving human development for the whole society.
Women need to access all arenas, including sport. Participating in sport, especially in gender iniquitous societies, can be liberating for women. Further, it overturns established gender norms, particularly when women enter hitherto male-dominated sports. But it is also not a straightforward story of women’s liberation.
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In my piece on the Men’s Rights Movement I mentioned that a sexist society demands that women agonise and justify themselves over wanting to “have it all” (i.e. a career and a family), but never asks men to make that choice. Or even to consider that wanting children and a job at the same time, and assuming that one’s family and work life will be arranged to meet that desire, might be a privilege
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