Program

Wages for Housework politics and local organizing in three Canadian cities, 1960s-1980s (Room: Y 224)

October 23, 2022 from 9:30am EDT to 11:00am EDT

Location: Room Y 224

 

Chair: Rhonda Hinther

Margaret Little, “Wages for Housework in Toronto” [Online]

Christine Hughes, MA student, History Department, University of Victoria and Morghan Watson, MA student, History Department, University of Victoria. “Wages for Housework in Winnipeg”

Lynne Marks, History Department, University of Victoria and Cherene Aniyan, IITMadras India  Cherene Aniyan, “Wages for Housework in Vancouver”

Wages for Housework (WFH) is an international revolutionary Marxist feminist organization that sought to transform how we think about labour, and particularly women’s unpaid labour, with a strong analysis of race, class, sexuality and gender. WFH had chapters in a number of countries in Europe, North and South America, and included the autonomous but linked organizations Wages Due Lesbians and Black Women for Wages for Housework. In their local communities WFH members formed alliances with racialized, immigrant, working class, sex worker and low-income women’s struggles.

Despite their distinctive political theory and important grassroots activism, WFH has not been adequately addressed in the history of the Canadian women’s movement. While there has been some scholarly work on the relationship between Wages for Housework and welfare rights organizing, as well as about the National Action Committee on the Status of Women’s (NAC) refusal to include them in this Canada-wide feminist organization, much of WFH’s local organizing remains unstudied.

In this paper we use archival and oral history interviews to explore the “on the ground” activities and impact of Wages for Housework (WFH) in Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto during the 1960s-1980s. This paper focuses particular attention to immigrant, welfare rights, and lesbian WFH politics during this time, while also examining the impact WFH organizers and ideas had on broader welfare rights, lesbian and immigrant women’s organizing in these cities.

Speakers / Panelists