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   IntersectionalityGender Unpacking ‘Housewife’ And Its Problematic
   Implications

Unpacking ‘Housewife’ And Its Problematic Implications

   Housewife as a word is complicit in the erasure of agency of married
   women by defining them in terms of their relationships and the domestic
   obligations that correspond.
   By Rohitha Naraharisetty Jan 7, 2019 4 min read

   The word ‘housewife’ is the product of the marriage (pun intended)
   between capitalism and patriarchy, where breaking the word up yields
   two of the factors from each ideology which ultimately determine a
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   In other words, being a wife and performing unpaid labour become
   synonymous with each other. Housewife as a word is complicit in the
   erasure of agency of married women by defining them in terms of their
   relationships and the domestic obligations that correspond. Recognition
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     femininity.

   In order to unpack why ‘housewife’ is a problematic word, the idea of
   ‘work’ must be problematised. One of the key ideas that capitalism
   tries to sell is the equation of financial capital with agency. What is
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   Traditionally, masculine jobs are paid for and have hence been defined
   over time as ‘work’ as per a capitalist definition which incorporates
   income and profit into its logics. To then use the word housewife for
   women who don’t “work”, therefore, is to not only leave the idea of
   work unproblematised, it is also actively playing into a capitalist
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   It is also not gender neutral, as unpaid labour in the home as the
   domain of the work that housewives do is specific to women; with its
   association with femininity, men escape the devaluation and therefore
   do not have a commonly used counterpart to the word housewife. The word
   when used for women ties in capitalist exploitation with patriarchal
   subordination to create an identity which does not allow for thinking
   about these women as having agency of their own.

     When being a ‘housewife’ is associated with “not working,” the
     importance of domestic labour in sustaining capitalism is swept
     aside and women are made to feel devalued as subjects themselves.
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   reproduction of labour power, or work which allows for someone else to
   re-enter the workforce to engage in paid labour everyday. When being a
   ‘housewife’ is associated with ‘not working’, the importance of
   domestic labour in sustaining capitalism is swept aside and women are
   made to feel devalued as subjects themselves.
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       January 7, 2019 at 9:19 PM
       Eye opening article! Thank you. I suggest we replace the term
       “Housewife” with “Equal Life Partner.”
          + Rohitha Naraharisetty says:
            January 15, 2019 at 5:50 PM
            Thanks for the comment! That’s an interesting suggestion; I
            was thinking more along the lines of a word that would do away
            with the idea of ‘housewife’ as an identity in itself. 🙂
    3. Anjana Radhakrishnan says:
       January 9, 2019 at 2:33 PM