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Housewives Since 1972, the International Wages for Housework Campaign has been campaigning to get recognition and payment for all the unwaged work that women do. Our definition of housework is wide and includes all the work women do, in the country and the city, producing and reproducing all the workers of the world. Without this caring work there would be no life, no society, no industry and no profits. We consider that every woman is a housewife, whether or not she works outside of the home. Many women, especially younger women, no longer consider themselves housewives and even look down on those of us who do. Yet most would agree that when we go out to a waged job, we are doing the double or triple day – a job or two on top of all the housework for ourselves and our families. Over the years we have campaigned for money for women in the form of family allowances, child benefit and other benefits, as well as women's right to own land, to pay equity, to compensation for rape and other violence . . . We campaigned for governments to measure and value unwaged work in national accounts, and won agreements in Europe and the United Nations which have resulted in legislation, time-use surveys and changes in the census. In 2000, through the Global Women's Strike we co-ordinated for 8 March, we came into contact with the Sindicato de Amas de Casa de Santa Fe, Argentina – SAC (Housewives Trade Union of Santa Fe, Argentina). An independent women's organization, SAC organizes on the basis that all women are housewives and demands payment and a pension for housewives. Read more about the current activities and organizing of SAC & others groups for the Global Women's Strike at www.globalwomenstrike.net including URGENT FLOOD APPEAL FOR WOMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES IN ARGENTINA Open
letter to: Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes |