ON THE SYSTEMIC DEVALUATION OF REPRODUCTIVE LABOR

摘要

In exploring the role of women and children in community, this paper will focus on thernsystemic failure of the current economic accounting system to recognize or tornacknowledge the vital and foundational role of reproductive labor, generally performed byrnwomen and usually without remuneration. The unidimensional emphasis on productivity,rnon maximizing the throughput of material goods in the marketplace, has resulted in arntremendous waste of resources, both natural and human. Ecofeminist scholars haverndrawn attention to the connection between the devaluation of the reproductive labor ofrnwomen and the parallel devaluation of the regenerative work of nature. Of course,rnreproductive labor must be understood in as comprehensive a sense as possible, beyondrnthe obvious tasks of having babies and raising children; in the broadest sense itrnencompasses all of the work involved in reproducing the conditions of daily life: growingrnand preparing food; caring for the young, old, and infirm; sustaining communityrnrelationships; and passing on the cultural heritage to the next generation - maintaining thernhousehold of humanity. The word economics is rooted in the Greek work oikos, meaningrnhousehold, and originally referred specifically to the management of the household.rnOikos is also the root of ecology, the study of nature’s household, in terms of thernrelationships among living beings within community. The poverty of human communityrnin our fast-paced and commodified lives at the dawn of the twenty-first century beckonsrnus to reexamine the economics of our collective household and challenges us to find waysrnto reassign value to those intangible dimensions of being and sharing with others thatrnsustain us in both material and non-material ways that are absolutely essential to ourrnwellbeing.