ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors contest claims based on some fundamental misconceptions. Technological change in the area has indeed been dramatic but it has not reduced housework. It is not only that the sexes have different primary spheres. Nineteenth century had already seen a big increase in domestic servants, and particularly female domestic servants, to meet the consumption capacities of the new ‘middle class’. It might be thought that with this growing emphasis on the purchase of commodities, ‘readymade’ goods, the work actually carried out within the home might have been reduced. It seems likely that the sharp distinction between ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ (and with it the concept of the sexual division of ‘labour’) only emerged with capitalism. Women will necessarily be at the forefront of this struggle for it is they who experience the contradictions of the two spheres.
