On Wednesday 9 of January at 6 pm Six chairs books and guest-host Hedvika Janečko will run its TENTH twice monthly Open Reading Group – Clap when you want to! – which is an invitation to read ahead, collectively discuss and support dear bodies of women, of the earthly and the technological, and seek the joy of learning the planetary together. This time readings are dedicated to domestic work considered as any form of paid or unpaid labour within a domestic environment and its relation to oppresion, the global politics of domestic labour, and challenges and opportunities for its redefinition.
Neither a manifestation of women’s love nor a result of women’s nature, women’s work in the household and outside of it must be understood in relations of power and expropriation. This idea was central to the Wages for Housework Campaign, launched by the International Feminist Collective back in Italy in 1972. According to one of its main organizer, a feminist activist and scholar, Silvia Federici, the struggle for wages constituted a struggle unambiguously and directly against women‘s role.
Critiquing this premise from a black feminist perspective, Angela Davis writes that ‘cleaning women, domestic workers, maids – these are the women who know better than anyone else what it means to receive wages for housework.‘ In many countries, domestic workers are excluded from national labour regimes, or treated as inferior workers. On global scale, they have demanded better working conditions and recognition. Does domestic work constitute an issue of unfinished feminist agenda? In what ways can housework become visible, representable, describable, comprehendible? And can doing the domestic work be just another job? Let’s explore the debates surrounging both paid and unpaid labour within a domestic environment, the global politics of domestic labour and a horizon of reformist and revolutionary possibilities for redefining housework as well as resistance strategies of domestic workers.
READINGS AND MATERIALS:
Silvia Federici’s „Wages Against Housework“ (1975), Angela Davis „Women, Race and Class. The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: a Working Class Perspective“ (1981), Bridget Anderson „Understanding the Interpersonal and Structural Context of Domestic Work“ (2018).
Materials will be in English. Conversations might swing between Lithuanian/ English depending on participants’ mood and preferences.
TO SIGN-UP AND RECEIVE MATERIALS, please write to info@sixchairsbooks.lt; space is very very limited, but, if necessary we can move around the KAH building.
The session will take place at the bookstore (Kauno Menininkų Namai / V. Putvinskio 56, Kaunas) from 6 to 8 pm. It is free and fresh beverages are provided.
IMAGE: name: katayoun / age: 27 / profession: freelance writer, curator, translator / location: amsterdam / weekday: Wednesday / reference: mother wants to talk about cleaning. From: www.werkermagazine.org/domesticwork
CLAP IF YOU WANT TO!
