I want to open a discussion on housework, not because I think it a more important subject than any other problem confronting feminist socialists, but because I think it is the most neglected. Housework is so unpopular that people won't look at the subject, hoping it will go away. It won't. It accumulates, and in the end, someone has to do it, usually a woman, and usually without payment.

The proposals that I am making are intended as a basis for discussion, not as a cut-and-dried policy. But after the cool and even hostile reception that any suggestions on the subject usually receive, it is encouraging to find a gathering willing to discuss it.

Before going any further, it is necessary to define housework. I would describe it as the job of making a dwelling-place as clean and comfortable as possible. This can be done equally well by both men and women. It is a totally different job from the rearing of children, requiring different skills, and should receive separate payment. The provision of meals should not, strictly, be included, though it usually is. Organisations on the political left have frequently demanded the provision of creches, nurseries, communal restaurants, etc., but housework they refuse to consider. In Britain the princely sum of one pound a week now paid by the state to the mother for her first child (correct in principle but ridiculous in amount) is not wages for housework, which still goes totally unrewarded. If housework and child-rearing are both done by the same person, then this person should receive wages due for both services,- two separate payments. These payments should be wages not allowances, because wages are pensionable and allowances are not. The state should be the employer, as it is an unpleasant idea that a husband should be his wife's employer, or vice versa.

All my life I have been campaigning for the socialisation of housework. This means that housework would become a social service. Houseworkers, female and male, would be employed by the state to do the housework for several households. They should be available for all households which require them. At present we have some publicly employed "Home-helps" (mostly women but sometimes men) who are available only where there are children, the aged, or the sick, and even then the service is not free, "'here are too few home-helps to serve many who really need them badly. This is mainly because the state, which can afford to spend millions on wasteful projects and on means of destruction, cannot afford to pay for anything which benefits the people.

Until more houseworkers are recruited, it could be arranged for one adult member of a household to be paid a wage by the state as the "housekeeper". It has already been suggested by a former Cabinet Minister that housewives should be paid an allowance, to be drawn in the same way as a pension. This, however, would be unsatisfactory, because it stipulates that the recipient must be a woman, and also because the payment was suggested as an allowance, not a wage. The person who stays at home to do the housework is usually a woman, but could be a man. Already in this country it is often the husband who stays at home and the wife who goes out to work.

All houseworkers, whether working at home or elsewhere, or both , should receive the rate for the job and have an appropriate union to safeguard their interests. Many houseworkers might wish to extend their work in order to improve their income, and thus the work would become more collective. If more men were employed in it there should certainly be more chance of better pay and conditions. The men usually see to that.

The collective method is far superior to the individual method. Professional houseworkers would be specially trained and would be employed in working in more than one domicile. This would be both more economical and more efficient than the employment of one housekeeper for every dwelling. Time was when every household was held responsible for disposing of its own rubbish heap, until it occurred to people that it would be far better to send one cart round to collect the whole lot in any given area, and so avoid the quarrels and fights that ensued when people shoveled their rubbish onto each other premises. Nowadays the man who empties the dustbin is not expected to do it for love alone, like the housewife who fills the dustbin, though her work, to most people, is no more attractive. In a block of flats there may be, in one building, many vacuum cleaners, washing machines, etc., each separately worked by one person and the idiocy of this arrangement has apparently not yet occurred to society in general. To have the work done communally would not only save time and money, but would prevent the loneliness and frustration experienced by many a housewife who must feel like jumping off the top storey.

Housework does not appeal to everybody, but there are worse jobs, e.g. sewage disposal. The unpopularity of housework is mainly due to the fact that it has traditionally been regarded as menial, done by servants, and fit only for women. But some people enjoy it. I have known personally both women and men who did. I am not one of these. I only like the finishing touches, like arranging the flowers. But anything designed to make the place look more attractive, like flower arrangement, is useless if surrounded by filth. So the essential part of the work is cleaning, and I have even known those who found this a satisfying job, because they could show the results proudly. I had a friend who was quite an artist in this work, calling me to see how lovely the place looked when she had finished with it, as indeed it did. She was as happy working in other people's houses as in her own. But one of the best houseworkers I have ever known was a hefty sailor home from the navy. Men on board ship see nothing "effeminate" in cleaning and polishing. Why should it be considered essentially a woman's job in the house? I think that if people ceased to regard housework as degrading more people would be willing to undertake it, with adequate pay.

The socialisation of housework was the policy of the revolutionary government of Russia after World War 1. People were promised a housework service, communal restaurants, communal laundries, creches, nurseries - the lot. About 50 years ago, as an ardent young Communist, I listened to a broadcast from Moscow and heard a voice say: "The kitchen! - We will abolish this penitentiary!" Houses were being built without kitchens. But in 1975, the Deputy Editor of Izvestia wrote to "Soviet Woman":

"However tired a woman may be when she comes home from work, however exhausted physically and mentally, the first thing she does after coming through the door is to put on an apron and prepare dinner. Why? Because "woman" and "home-maker" are inseparable concepts."

An English woman who recently visited the U.S.S.R. said on the Radio, that she was afraid Russian flats were not very clean; the bath, for example, was not well cleaned. Presumably Mother, after returning from a day's work, cooking for husband and family and probably washing up afterwards, does not feel like scrubbing out the bath. But two generations ago it was promised that main meals would be provided communally and the housework done as a social service, while people were out at work.

These services, however, are not provided even after a revolution, as long as men remain dominant and women acquiescent. For several years I have been trying to get the Communist Party to demand the socialisation of housework. I first received the reply that probably not until after the achievement of socialism could the problem of housework be solved. But how can true socialism possibly be achieved without the problem being solved? The fact is that the U.S.S.R. has not achieved socialism. Next, the CP. informed me that the Party always had advocated communal restaurants, creches, etc. Not only have they kept very quiet about this lately, but, I repeat, cookery and the care of children are not housework. I have received no reply to this as yet. The demand for the socialisation of housework must be raised now. We can't afford to wait till after a revolution. The establishment of a workers' state will not guarantee socialism, of which the liberation of women is an integral part.

Socialism, in its true, original sense means a classless society in which the means of production and distribution would be communally owned and controlled, and in which there would be economic, social and political equality for all, nor for men only, women being released from their traditional chores, and children being a communal responsibility. It was synonymous with communism, and was accepted as such by the CP. in its early days. Stalin invented the concept of socialism as a "transitional" period between capitalism and communism. This "transition" would be a period of inequality, each man being paid according to his work, and women being obliged to accept a double burden of paid work outside the home and unpaid work inside the home. Obviously a woman is not paid according to her work. This double burden has now been accepted by Soviet women for about 60 years, and they are now told that it is woman's natural role. To what, may we ask, is this transitional? The message to us is clear. Once accept the double burden and you will never get rid of it. We have been burned.

About two years ago I heard that in the G.D.R. (East Germany) women were divorcing their idle, selfish husbands and families were breaking up with such rapidity that the Government was becoming alarmed and was urging men to help their wives in the house. They were even trying to introduce the socialisation fo housework (a last resort in a "socialist" country?). For two years I have repeatedly asked the CP. how the socialisation of housework is progressing in the G.D.R. and have only recently received the reply that an article on the subject will appear in the next quarterly newsletter of the National Assembly of Women, an organization led by CP. women. The subject is evidently not regarded as very urgent. Therein lies the danger.

The Socialist Workers' Party, which is to the left of the CP., says, (and I agree) that the U.S.S.R. where there is a wealthy, privileged class, and where women still wait on men in the home, is not a socialist country. Yet the S.W.P. also seems to think that the liberation of women will follow automatically when the working class is victorious over the capitalist class. It will not follow at all unless women fight for it every inch of the way.

Several women Labour Members of Parliament seem to hold feminist views and to be interested in the socialisation of housework. But as their Government is determined to maintain the position of the husband as breadwinner and head of the family, there is little that these few women can do.

Some headway might be made in women's organisations such as the Co-operative Guilds, but I have no opportunity nowadays to participate in these. Activity in trade unions is essential, when possible, for feminists, but it is tough going.

The Working Women's Charter, which has been drawn up by various working-class organizations in consultation, starts off with; "The right of all women to work"! Most women work already, but the difficulty is to get paid for doing it. No social services whatever are suggested in the Charter to release women from this predicament. Outside the socialist and labour movement, the idea of housework as a social service is usually dismissed out of hand.

To tell husbands that they should do some housework is useless as a general policy. Some will and some won't, and if they won't there is no power on earth to make them. Lenin told the Russians that "a man should help his wife in the house and he is failing his revolutionary duty if he does not." The neglect of this revolutionary duty does not seem to worry Russian men very much. In England now many husbands do all they can to help their wives, and I am very fortunate in this respect. But many English husbands sit down to be waited on by their wives even when the wife has already done a day's work or is obviously unwell. It is not right that it should depend on the kindness or the callousness of the husband whether the wife is a free citizen or a domestic slave.

Even when a husband is helpful and considerate, nobody likes to come home after a day's work to be faced with the housework. It would be far better for all concerned if this were already done by a public employee, so that everyone could relax in the evening in a comfortable atmosphere or proceed to whatever activities interest them. A few years after World War II, a working-class woman told me that, with a "home-help", she actually did less work when she went out to a job than when she stayed at home with the children. Hopes were high in those days. Since then they have been dashed. The welfare state was coming into being, but it has gradually been eroded away, and now it is threatened with extinction altogether. Working-class women are being told that they "ought to be at home, anyway" - even without enough to live on.

So feminist socialists have to fight on two fronts: the class front and the home front. We have to give special attention to the home front, because it is more neglected by left-wing and working-class organisations than the class front, and in particular we must demand the socialization of housework, which is usually disregarded altogether.

To sum up in conclusion, I would recommend the following plan of campaign for all feminist socialists:

1. Demand that housework should be treated by the state as a social service, and press this demand through all possible channels, stressing that this is a separate job from child-rearing and can be done equally well by men
2. Urge all political parties and groups claiming to be socialist to incorporate this demand into their programmes, and to publicize it, not shelve it as a "side issue".
3. Urge all houseworkers to become organized.
4. Never, on any account, accept the "double burden". If you do, you've "had it".

I hope these suggestions will give rise to a useful discussion.

In sisterhood
Kathleen Jones England