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Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise
288 pages, Hardcover
Published February 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 13, 2025
“What would it be like to live in a society that rewarded the care of people and their environments as much as the production and consumption of commodities?
How would the geopolitics and the global distribution of wealth be transformed if governments had to recognise their indebtedness to the unpaid work of women with the same gravity with which they recognise their debts to financial institutions?
What would the women of the world do with their lives if they had more time?”
Essential reading to broaden your thinking about intersectional feminism and socialism.
How would the geopolitics and the global distribution of wealth be transformed if governments had to recognise their indebtedness to the unpaid work of women with the same gravity with which they recognise their debts to financial institutions?
What would the women of the world do with their lives if they had more time?”
Essential reading to broaden your thinking about intersectional feminism and socialism.
December 10, 2025
I thought this book could be a great following to "Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women's Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours" by Corinne Low which was one of my best reads of the year! Both talk about the same general idea of the recognition of women's unpaid labor, albeit WFH talks more about the historical side of this one given movement. I wanted to like the book and I am interested in the topic but struggled to finish it. I also found this book more heavy and rough than the HIA, more accusatory (albeit not without reasons), more US-way-of-thinking (even though the scope is global) and less solution driven. I acknowledge that the aim of both book are different and it can be seen as unfair to compare both. Yet it also made me think of things I had never though about, like the fact that women participate in men's leftist political movement and as part are expected to take gender-role in said participation (do the type work and cleanup after the men) - and helped me reinforce the idea that yes housework is work and a full time job at that! Something that I only recently came to realise.
Structured Summary (AI generated):
Emily Callaci’s book tells the global history of the Wages for Housework (WfH) movement from the early 1970s onward. She shows how a small group of feminist activists — including Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, and others — launched a radical idea:
👉 Unpaid domestic and care work is work, and it should be recognized and compensated.
1. What the book argues
Housework, childcare, elder care, emotional labour and community care are not “natural female duties” but vital labour that keeps the entire economic system running.
By labelling this labour “unpaid,” society hides its value and exploits the women who perform it.
A wage for housework was not only a demand for money — it was a political strategy to expose how capitalism depends on invisible reproductive labour.
2. What Callaci adds that is new
Callaci emphasizes the global and intersectional nature of the movement:
She traces WfH groups in Europe, the U.S., the Caribbean, Canada, Africa, and the Global South.
She highlights the role of Black, migrant, working-class, and lesbian women, whose experiences shaped the campaign in different ways.
She reconstructs how the movement linked gender, class, and race — demonstrating that domestic work was unequally distributed across social groups.
3. Why the campaign was controversial
Callaci explains that WfH provoked strong reactions:
Many feminists feared that paying for housework would reinforce traditional gender roles rather than abolish them.
Leftist critics thought the demand was too utopian or too focused on the private sphere.
Media often mocked the group as eccentric or unrealistic.
4. Why the idea still matters today
Callaci argues that the movement’s core insights are highly relevant now:
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how essential — yet undervalued — care and domestic labour is.
Current debates on universal basic income, care infrastructure, domestic workers’ rights, childcare policy, and the care crisis all echo WfH arguments.
The book shows that reproductive labour remains a site of huge inequality, often pushed onto migrant women or women of color.
5. Overall message of the book
Callaci presents WfH as an “unfinished promise.”
The movement did not win literal wages for housework.
But it changed feminist theory, influenced later struggles for care justice, and forces us to rethink how economies rely on invisible forms of labour.
Structured Summary (AI generated):
Emily Callaci’s book tells the global history of the Wages for Housework (WfH) movement from the early 1970s onward. She shows how a small group of feminist activists — including Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, and others — launched a radical idea:
👉 Unpaid domestic and care work is work, and it should be recognized and compensated.
1. What the book argues
Housework, childcare, elder care, emotional labour and community care are not “natural female duties” but vital labour that keeps the entire economic system running.
By labelling this labour “unpaid,” society hides its value and exploits the women who perform it.
A wage for housework was not only a demand for money — it was a political strategy to expose how capitalism depends on invisible reproductive labour.
2. What Callaci adds that is new
Callaci emphasizes the global and intersectional nature of the movement:
She traces WfH groups in Europe, the U.S., the Caribbean, Canada, Africa, and the Global South.
She highlights the role of Black, migrant, working-class, and lesbian women, whose experiences shaped the campaign in different ways.
She reconstructs how the movement linked gender, class, and race — demonstrating that domestic work was unequally distributed across social groups.
3. Why the campaign was controversial
Callaci explains that WfH provoked strong reactions:
Many feminists feared that paying for housework would reinforce traditional gender roles rather than abolish them.
Leftist critics thought the demand was too utopian or too focused on the private sphere.
Media often mocked the group as eccentric or unrealistic.
4. Why the idea still matters today
Callaci argues that the movement’s core insights are highly relevant now:
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how essential — yet undervalued — care and domestic labour is.
Current debates on universal basic income, care infrastructure, domestic workers’ rights, childcare policy, and the care crisis all echo WfH arguments.
The book shows that reproductive labour remains a site of huge inequality, often pushed onto migrant women or women of color.
5. Overall message of the book
Callaci presents WfH as an “unfinished promise.”
The movement did not win literal wages for housework.
But it changed feminist theory, influenced later struggles for care justice, and forces us to rethink how economies rely on invisible forms of labour.
October 25, 2025
Wages for Housework is a fascinating and necessary exploration of a revolutionary idea that continues to shape modern discussions about labor, gender, and value. Emily Callaci captures the heart of a global movement that questioned traditional economics and demanded recognition for unpaid domestic work not only as labor but as a cornerstone of social and economic systems.
Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, Callaci traces the origins and evolution of this movement, showing how it challenged power structures, reshaped feminist theory, and inspired new ways of thinking about equality. Her writing balances scholarly precision with emotional depth, giving readers both context and connection.
This is more than history it’s a reclaiming of voices and ideas that remain vital today. Wages for Housework stands as a powerful reminder that true social progress begins with reimagining what we value most.
Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, Callaci traces the origins and evolution of this movement, showing how it challenged power structures, reshaped feminist theory, and inspired new ways of thinking about equality. Her writing balances scholarly precision with emotional depth, giving readers both context and connection.
This is more than history it’s a reclaiming of voices and ideas that remain vital today. Wages for Housework stands as a powerful reminder that true social progress begins with reimagining what we value most.
June 12, 2025
Loved this book it covered many complex and intersectional struggles.
October 25, 2025
Beautifully written window into the revolutionary idea that housework, mostly done by women, is fundamental to upholding society and should therefore be compensated or at a minimum be considered important. Callaci has done amazing interviews with important women from the movement and writes scenes that places her reader in the middle of it all in the 1970s. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews