Unsung History17 Mar 2025

Wages for Housework

In March 1972, Selma James distributed a pamphlet that declared: “If we raise kids, we have a right to a living wage. . . WE DEMAND WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK. All housekeepers are entitled to wages. (Men too).” Soon it was a global movement, with Wages for Housework branches in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and several other countries, and autonomous groups like Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Emily Callaci, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Get yourself a broom and sweep your troubles away,” composed by Albert Von Tilzer, with lyrics by James Brockman and Billy Rose, and performed by Frank Crumit and Frank E. Banta, in New York on December 19, 1924; the recording is in the public domain and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a Wages for Housework poster drawn by Jacquie Ursula Caldwell in 1974, From the collection of Silvia Federici copyright Creative Commons, available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

“A Woman’s Place,” Selma James, 1953.
“Women and the Subversion of the Community: A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader,” by Mariarosa Della Costa, 2019.
“Statement of the International Feminist Collective,” July 1972.
“Wages Against Housework,” by Silvia Federici, 1975.
“All Work and No Pay [video],” Made by the Wages for Housework Campaign with the BBC TV's Open Door series, 1976, posted by Global Women’s Strike, January 15, 2023.
“The women who demanded wages for housework - Witness History, BBC World Service [video],” Witness History, BBC World Service, February 12, 2014.
“Covid-19 has made housework more visible, but it still isn’t valued,” by Kevin Sapere, The Washington Post, April 8, 2021.
“Wages for Housework is 50. This is the change it has inspired,” by Leila Hawkins, Nadja.co, April 16, 2022.
“‘They say it is love, we say it is unwaged work’ – 50 years of fighting to be paid for housework,” by Rosa Campbell, Gloria Media, December 19, 2022.
“The ‘true value of women’s work,’” by Kristina García, Penn Today, July 26, 2023.
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