Our country prides on its progressiveness, yet again America is far behind many European countries that have better educational systems, health care programs, and greater support systems for predominately female occupations. Reading Ann Critenden, Megan Pinand, Pat Mainardi, and Barbara Enhrenreich's articles, we confront the ideas that we have heard over and over again. While Ehrenreich's article "Maid to Order" express society's under recognition of household duties, like cooking and cleaning (also including motherhood), Critenden, Pinand, and Mainardi all provide reasons why domestic duties holds little value in our society. Even though domestic duties is one of the most vital societal functions, society--both men and women--have deemed it invaluable. Mainardi's "The Politics of Housework" illustrates all the reasons/excuses men have used to justify household chores as strictly a woman's obligation and responsibility--in this sense household duties is bunked down a level of importance and prestige. Critenden and Pinand both state the disadvantages women receive when becoming a mother; the continuous struggle between family and career provides little to no incentive for women to value motherhood or household chores, well at least not in a capitalistic society that thrives through competition. America, our society, have yet to give women and men any incentive or reason to value domestic work.
The idea that because of the feminist movement women's equality have been achieved and society can move on now is a phrase we hear very often, but we know that this statement is not to the slightest degree true. While the women's movement run on the platform of equality for all women, it has come to my notice that some women do not benefit from the women's movement and are unfortunately left out of this liberation of women. Throughout our readings we have seen how black women, poor women, and lesbian/bisexual women's rights were ignored, and now from this week's readings, we see how mothers and household workers are left out from benefiting--yet again some women are left behind. The opening scenario of Ehrenreich's article depict the household women are on her knees cleaning the floor. Such image, to me, represent the relationship and hierarchy within a the job world--usually men are in the highly respected jobs and women are baring the unwanted, less paid, and less respected jobs. What is extremely interesting about this article is how the household duties have been continuously debunked in its value as it goes through three stages: gender, class, race. First, women are the ones responsible for household duties. Then, the upper and middle class women are sparred from doing these chores as maid services, cleaners, and etc arise. Lastly, women of color then ends up barring the burnt of the stick, as they pick up the work upper and middle white class women does not want to do. How can the women's movement continue to leave different subgroups of women out from benefiting? Easy, its called agenda and privileged.
To talk further about the notion of privilege in relation to jobs, I want to mention some of the jobs society don't values as much. We already know the mother and household jobs, but what about janitors, people who prepare our foods (especially fast food restaurants), waiter/waitress, general workers in college facilities, etc. To bring this point closer to home, lets think about the relationship Colgate students have with the workers (such as people who work at our dinning halls, dormitory custodians, gym equipment mentor etc.) While there are indeed people who have a respect Colgate workers, I bet we can all think of people who don't. These are the people who have the mentality that they can justify their actions because "that's the _____ (worker's job) and that's what he/she is suppose to do." It is privilege to hold oneself higher than another person. It is also privilege to judge which jobs are worth values and which jobs are not. Likewise, the motherhood image and household chores are also functioned under privilege for those who place the values onto these unrecognized jobs and society's privileged to justify who does these jobs.
I agree completely in that people pride themselves on having more "valuable" jobs than others. Especially with regards to B & G workers who work in the dorms. I walked in to the elevator the other day and saw pizza slices half eaten and pepperoni on the floor. This is ridiculous that people expect B & G to clean up nay sort of mess they make. I don't even understand why there needs to pizza on the floor of an elevator. This devaluing of jobs is in close relation to being a mother. Mother's do not get paid for their jobs, which is understandable since you are raising your kids. However, there is no reason not to value the importance and complications of motherhood. However, like you said, living in a capitalist society makes us put a value on a job simply by how much that jobs pay. For example, teachers. In America, we stereotype teachers as first, being women and secondly not making a large salary. It is so unfair that when something needs to be cut from a government budget, state or federal, the first thing to typically go is education. As a society, we need to recognize the importance of jobs based more on what that job actually does for our society and not how many figures it makes.
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