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The Feminist Valuing the Devalued Process

created by:

Alexis Frank, Shaheli Guha, Hitomi Yoneya
Valuing the Devalued Main - Changing Values - Opting Out - Policies to create financial incentives for Caring Work - Comparable Worth - Layer Cake - The Genuine Progress Indicator - Marilyn Waring - Quiz - Glossary - Resources

Valuing the Devalued Feminine:

Valuing Women's Caring Labor, Welfare Rights, and the Choice to "Opt Out"

This feminist process transforms traditional gender values, both on an individual and societal level, by endowing feminine work with the respect it deserves but has been denied. Valuing the devalued recognizes and demands social recognition for the enormous contribution the unpaid labor sector contributes to society (To learn more about unpaid labor sector's contribution, please click here). What is traditionally thought of as a woman's responsibility (child rearing, cooking, cleaning, caring for the elderly and sick, homework help, volunteer work, etc.) does not get the prestige traditionally masculine work does; we at Transformation Central want these tasks to be acknowledged by individuals, society, and the government as legitimate work and we hope you will help us. To learn more about other main aspects of gender opression such as gender inequality, please go to the main page of Transformation Central.

To truly understand how vital women's unpaid work really is, imagine a world in which it suddenly disappeared. There would be no volunteer work, no childrearing without pay, no free home-cooked meals, and no one to take care of the sick, elderly, or poor. There would be no next generation! Traditionally, women have taken on these roles and it is time for both genders to give them the acclaim they deserve.

Beginning in the late twentieth century, feminists began to understand that simply breaking into the paid labor force was not enough.Whereas women's roles expanded due to the feminist movement, men's did not. Women who worked in the paid labor force began doing double shifts: mothers came home from nine- to-five jobs only to spend the rest of the time working in the home for their husbands and children. Equal Opportunity Feminists, who disproportionately came from the upper-middle class, finally started to grasp what lower class members of the movement had known for a long time: women's liberation can not be achieved by wholly adapting traditionally masculine values such as workacholism. Women who entered the paid labor forced realized it was not the magic bullet of feminism. Some were unhappy in their jobs, others felt they were missing out of their children's development, and still more gained a new appreciation for undervalued caring work when they were forced to cut down on it. Please click here to learn more about changing values.

Caring unpaid labor needs to be respected and encouraged through government policies, which level the playing field of choice by providing incentives to individuals. When a woman chooses to forgo some or all income to go into home or volunteer work, she is taking a risk. Time out of full-time paid labor makes a woman financially dependent on someone else, decreases her marketability and future income potential, and places her in a position that is continually under compensated. Better welfare programs, financial incentives, paid parental leave, community babysitting centers, and more social programs to encourage caring work should be put in place by the government and companies (To learn about financial incentives for caring work, click here). At the heart of the issue is giving women the right to choose what is best for them, whether this means never opting out of the paid work force, opting out for a few years, or choosing to be a full-time member of the unpaid work force (To learn more about opting out, please click here). Moreover, valuing caring unpaid labor could also encourage men to reconize its importance and to participate in it more fully.

How does one go about valuing undervalued work, especially if it has traditionally been outside the market, and without a price tag or a market wage? Throughout the Valuing the Devalued portion of this website, we explore how individuals and organizations can incorporate feminist values into their lives by respecting and encouraging unpaid feminine work. We hope you will join us in exploring these options, and in resolving to value the essential caring unpaid labor that supports our economies and our societies.

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