Wages for Housework Archive Workshop

Description

The demand for wages for housework was one of the most controversial feminist strategies in the 1970s. In this meeting Silvia Federici will examine the theoretical and political assumptions behind this demand, the particular forms of struggle it generated in the US and internationally, and its significance today, at a time when the struggle for ‘equality’ and ‘the right to work’ are demonstrating their political limitations. In preparation for the meeting, materials from the NY Wages For Housework Committee of the 1970s will be distributed and they will be available at Lesbian Herstory Archive and Interference Archive.

Silvia Federici is a feminist activist, writer, and a teacher. In 1972 she was one of the co-founders of the International Feminist Collective, the organization that launched the international campaign for Wages For Housework. From 1987 to 2005 she taught international studies, women studies, and political philosophy courses at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. All through these years she has written books and essays on philosophy and feminist theory, women’s history, education and culture, and more recently the worldwide struggle against capitalist globalization and for a feminist reconstruction of the commons.