Servants to Capital: Unpaid Domestic Labor and Paid Work

Abstract

The usefulness of the distinction of the "private realm" of the household vs. the "public realm" that lies outside it as a frame for understanding aspects of women's unpaid domestic labor is challenged. The paper supports the view that the unpaid involuntary domestic labor of women has been pulled into the labor process in capitalist organizations in the drive to increase profit by reducing the wage bill while at the same time encouraging consumerism. An historical case is presented of retailing where the "self-service" organization of commercial capitalism (and aspects of the service sector) resulted in both a new division of labor and in occupational change. Men sales clerks were displaced gradually by women who in turn had their work deskilled by the growth of the cashier occupation. Today, women as unpaid consumers and as paid cashiers do much of the work in buying and selling so-called white consumer durables and foods. These changes, because of the specifics of occupational changes, reinforce women's traditional subordination and women's position as a reserve army of labor. The case is a prototype of similar changes in health care, clerical work, and law that the writer is currently examining.