Wages for Housework—The Canadian Context

Abstract

This evening session focused on the global campaign Wages for Housework. This transversal movement highlighted the capitalist appropriation of unpaid domestic labour, and demanded its remuneration by the state. The event highlights Wages for Housework’s actions in and around Toronto and Montreal in the 1970s and 1980s, which included the Women’s Liberation Bookmobile, the paper “The Autonomy of Black Lesbian Women,” by Wilmette Brown of Black Women for Wages for Housework, and the manifesto “Fucking is Work,” by Wages Due Lesbians. These activities aimed to meet the intersecting needs of lesbian feminists, migrant workers, domestic labourers, and Black and working class women. Following the format of the Feminist Duration Reading Group in London, which Helena Reckitt initiated in 2015 to bring to light feminisms from outside the Anglo-American canon, this session will centre on an out-loud reading activity. The meeting aims to open up discussions on how feminism operates transnationally, the politics of undervalued care work and what it means to “take care.” No pre-reading or preparation is required