Household Work, Women's Shackles

Since we were small, our role in the family seems to have been ordained by destiny. Men work for a living. Women at home take care of the household and raise children.

No one questions why the nature of men and women is the way it is. Sometimes the answer given seems so easy and makes sense: a man is physically stronger, therefore he is better suited to work outside, while a woman is gentle and better suited to work inside the house.

But this banal answer can easily be broken. We have met many brave women whose physical abilities are not inferior to men. Call it Cut Nyak Dien as an example. But no need to go far. All around us we can easily find women – from the working class, peasants, and urban poor – who are tough and strong, who have to work hard for a bite of rice like men, and their physical strength and spirit are not inferior. Only the bourgeois woman, who was born covered in milk and honey, appears as a weak creature.

Capitalism requires that millions of workers be thrown into factories, regardless of gender, because capitalism's motive is only one: to sweat for profit. In this situation, more and more women enter the factory. In addition, technological advances have made working in factories easier so that anyone, both women and men, and even small children can do it.

The traditional role of women seems to be getting fractured. However, it turned out that the opposite happened. Now women are trapped in two kinds of oppression: oppression at home as "babu" and oppression in factories as wage workers. She now has to bear a double burden of suffering: she has to work at the factory from morning to evening and when she comes home she has to carry out the "noble duty" of taking care of the household. Women's work is no longer working 8 hours a day, but working 24 hours a day. There is no room for him to improve himself, to realize himself as a free and creative human being.

Therefore, the liberation of women from oppression is closely tied to programs that will concretely liberate them from the confines of household (domestic) work. Capitalism still locks women up in household work because this work is free work, unpaid work. Capitalists need workers who are well-groomed and also able to reproduce. The task of caring for and breeding falls on the shoulders of the female. She had to take care of her husband, so she could continue working at the factory. She also has to give birth and then raise her child as the next generation of workers. In capitalism, therefore, women's duties are crucial for the continuation of the system of labor oppression.

In socialist programs, domestic tasks will be socialized, in the sense that this will no longer be the responsibility of women alone, but the responsibility of society as a whole. For the task of caring for and cleaning the house, a national house cleaning workforce will be formed. It no longer has to be women who sweep the house every day, but this is done by skilled workers, who are unionized, which are not only filled by female workers, whose salaries are decent, and professional. This service will be a free and universal social service, which every household can voluntarily access.

Then for the task of washing clothes, the state will establish a national laundry service, where in each community there will be a laundry service that employs skilled workers with the most modern washing machines and cleaners. Every family as well as individuals can use this laundry service for free and universally. Thus, women will be freed from the work of washing clothes which is so draining for them.

Then also will be established daycare centers in each community, which are free and of high quality. Thus parents – the father and especially the mother – during the day when they have to work can leave their children. As we know, usually after having children, the mother can no longer improve her quality of life (by working or going to school) because she has to look after her child 24 hours a day.

A universal maternity and maternity leave program will also be announced. The mother after giving birth will be supported by the government with proper social benefits for 2 to 3 years, so that she can dedicate herself to raising her baby during the most important growth period. The mother does not have to worry about not being able to make a living. She can rest easy after such a tiring birth and raise her baby. Then once this leave is over, he will be able to continue the job he left behind.

Large restaurants will be nationalized and made into public dining places (community kitchens) serving healthy, varied and free food for the people. Thus women are freed from the task of cooking in the kitchen every day. Instead of spending hours preparing food for his family every day, he can rest and develop himself by going to school, reading, doing art, playing sports, being active, etc.

In short, here are a number of programs that will liberate women from domestic duties that constrain them. This program did not just fall from the sky, but was an integral part of the program for economic nationalization and centralized economic planning, which is the essence of socialism. Isn't it that in today's capitalism there are already private companies that sell house cleaning services (and also the exploitation of housemaids), laundry companies, restaurants and restaurants, day care centers, and so on? But in the capitalist system, these companies are run by owners of capital to make a profit, so they are expensive and not affordable by the wider community. Those who can buy this service are women from the upper class. Within the socialist system,

More than that, we will also direct technology and human science to develop cutting-edge technologies that will ease these domestic jobs. Capitalism can create various cutting-edge technologies (mobile phones, super-fast computers, rockets to the moon, etc.), but if we look at the technology related to household work, there hasn't been much change in the last hundred years. Why is that? This is because in capitalism technology is used for profit and profit, not to lighten human work and liberate it from the oppression of manual labour.

The above programs will become a part of the entire women's liberation program, which includes gender equality in opportunities to work and go to school, protect women from domestic violence, and so on. It cannot stand alone, and even more so it cannot be fulfilled within the framework of capitalism. Socialism will create a social order that will allow the birth of one million Kartini and Marsinah, women fighters who are free, brave, creative, innovative and revolutionary.