Housewives, Prostitutes, and Workers

The man/woman relationship is not a relationship between individuals, even if it is represented as such. It is a relation of production between women and capital mediated by men. It is a complex relationship, played out through duplicity, and notable for the contrast between its representation on levels of the formal and the real. This complexity is obviously reflected in the exchange presupposed by this relationship.

The exchange implied in the man/woman relationship has a twofold nature: on the one hand, it is an exchange between variable capital and domestic labor; on the other it is an exchange between variable capital and prostitution. On the formal level, it represents itself as an exchange between the wage and domestic labor or prostitution labor and between male worker and housewife or prostitute. However, in reality it is an exchange between variable capital and the labor of domestic work or prostitution and between the houseworker or sex worker and capital, mediated by the male worker. In other words, the exchange of the wage for domestic work (or prostitution) between the male worker and housewife or prostitute is the form of the real exchange that takes place between the houseworker or sex worker and capital. The fact that the exchange between variable capital and reproductive work adopts a twofold character is a necessary condition for the exchange itself. Capital cannot exchange directly with the labor power of reproduction because it has established the capacity of reproduction as a natural force of social labor. Capital is thus forced to resort to the mediation of a third party in exchange with the woman: it must pass through the male worker who engages with the female houseworker and sex worker as a form of capital, which is the true subject of this exchange.

In relation to the male worker, capital imposes a representation of the labor power of reproduction as a form of personal service, domestic labor or prostitution. At the same time, it imposes a representation of the woman as housewife or prostitute, instead of representing her as a houseworker or sex worker, and a representation of the labor of production and reproduction of male labor power as personalized services, instead of indirectly waged work.

Compared to the exchange between the male worker and capital, the greater complexity of the exchange between the female houseworker and capital is immediately apparent. But this complexity is necessary for its capitalist functioning: it is precisely this complexity that implies that it is not only the form but also the very act of exchange (and the essential conditions required for it to occur) which are very different on the formal level from those necessary to the exchange between male workers and capital. More precisely, the exchange between the female houseworker and capital differs from that between male workers and capital more profoundly than the exchange between the female sex worker and capital mediated by male waged workers. The reason for this differentiation is that the labor of prostitution, unlike domestic labor, has a price, so that even if neither are waged, the latter assumes characteristics similar to the exchange between male workers and capital. Besides the differences these two forms of exchange assume with respect to that between workers and capital, the most relevant factor remains the dissimilarity of both from the exchange between male workers and capital.

In contrast to a popular view, our argument is that such dissimilarity does not mean that these exchanges are not organized in a capitalist manner. The dissimilarity must instead be considered as the prerequisite and condition for the ordinariness of the exchange between male workers and capital. Although these forms of exchange diverge formally, in reality they work in a related fashion in that, as we demonstrate below, the exchanges between houseworker or sex worker and capital are not exchanges of equivalents. As with the process of exchange between capital and waged labor, in which capital appropriates the male worker’s labor time not through direct exchange but through the waged form of exchange, likewise in capital’s exchange with the labor power of reproduction, capital appropriates the female houseworker’s or sex worker’s labor time not through the mediation of the wage but indirectly through the exchange with the male worker.

The fundamental relationship to reproduction no longer coincides strictly with the man/woman relationship, but is articulated through many other relationships: man/man, woman/woman, men/women, and so on. Similarly, the fundamental exchange of reproduction is no longer merely that between woman and capital through the male worker, which is the one we are considering here, but it is articulated in many other forms. A major struggle against the macro-inequalities of exchanges, such as those between man and woman, has emerged on a mass level both through struggle within the exchange relationship itself, and through the refusal of the exchange altogether. Exchanges within communes, or homosexual and lesbian relationships, are behaviors with significant consequences. These exchanges are potentially less unequal than the heterosexual exchange. We say “potentially” because, we repeat, the heterosexual model is so dominant as a power relation on a social level that it is hard to practice equality within such a structure. Reduced inequality in the exchange between subjects, however, does not necessarily mean less surplus value is appropriated by capital; it only means a more equal redistribution, on four shoulders instead of two, of the exploitation of labor power on the grounds of its own reproduction. Nonetheless, these upheavals can have devastating effects for capital on the overall functioning of reproduction. For example, they inhibit the kind of income redistribution within the proletariat which capital requires. If the male wage, which is typically higher than the female wage, is paired with another male wage, it ceases to subsidies the notoriously low female wage and ceases to command domestic work from women.

We consider here only the man/woman exchange, which is to say the one between the female houseworker and capital mediated by the male worker. We do so because, even if the reproductive exchange takes on other forms, the man/woman exchange is still the most common on the level of reproduction. A first difference stands out with respect to the exchange between male workers and capital. While the exchange between male workers and capital is formally an exchange of equivalents, the man/woman exchange is not, even formally, one of equivalents because the objects that capital and the female houseworker exchange through the male worker (variable capital and the labor power that produces and reproduces labor power) are not defined as exchange values. The labor power at issue is a non-value in terms of exchange—a mere use value. Does this mean that it has absolutely no exchange value? Not at all. The female houseworker can in fact establish her domestic labor as a unity of use value and exchange value only insofar as her labor power exists for capital as a natural force of social labor. She can do so only insofar as capital does not present itself as the owner of the objective conditions of reproduction. The houseworker’s labor power has an exchange value not as labor power, but as domestic labor, because the latter has use value for the waged male worker. In other words, the female houseworker can sell domestic labor to the male worker, because he needs it for his personal consumption and for his reproduction as labor power. The male worker appears to buy domestic labor while in reality he buys female labor power as the capacity of production and reproduction of labor power. The exchange value of female labor power cannot represent itself in formal, monetary terms as exchange value. However, such value can still be defined through the quantity of labor objectified in her labor power itself, which is to say through the quantity of labor expended to produce the female houseworker. If, on a formal level, female labor power represents itself as non-value, it is indeed exchange value on a real level though appearing under the guise of domestic duties of the housewife.

The primary object of exchange, variable capital, on the other hand, is represented as exchange value. It is, however, a particular kind of exchange value, because it does not appear as exchange value as such. As Marx says, variable capital—the object of exchange between the male worker and capital—poses itself as follows:

The object of his exchange is a direct object of need, not exchange value as such. He does obtain money, it is true, but only in its role as coin; i.e. only as a self-suspending and vanishing mediation. What he obtains from the exchange is therefore not exchange value, not wealth, but a means of subsistence, objects for the preservation of his life, the satisfaction of his needs in general, physical, social etc. It is a specific equivalent in means of subsistence, in objectified labor, measured by the cost of production of his labour.1

But this is true for the male worker. For the female houseworker, variable capital operates as capital. The exchange between the female houseworker and capital via the male worker does not formally involve exchange value. On the one hand, there is an object of exchange value: variable capital, which is not exchange value as such. On the other hand, there is a non-exchange value: female labor power, which, for the woman, can only become exchange value as domestic labor. The fact that these two elements do not represent themselves as exchange values does not mean that they are not such in reality. They do not represent themselves as exchange value because this exchange must not appear as capitalist, because it does not include capital on a formal level, as a subject of exchange. They are both, however, in reality, forms of exchange value. Although this exchange does not formally appear as one of exchange values and thus not as an exchange of equivalents, it is still, in reality, an exchange of exchange values. The very fact that these cannot be represented as exchanges of equivalences, even on a formal level, is the very condition of their existence as exchange values. In other words, the fact that the exchange does not appear capitalist is the condition for its capitalistic functioning.

Assuming that, on the level of the real, this exchange involves exchange values, we should ask ourselves if, on the same level of reality, it is an exchange of equivalents. While the male worker exchanges a portion of his wage which corresponds to the value of the housewife’s means of subsistence, the female houseworker exchanges her domestic labor. The housewife receives money, or the means of subsistence, directly, while the worker receives a commodity, which has a price that, for him, is equal to the money, or to the means of subsistence, that he paid for that commodity. Everyone here appears to receive an equivalent. In reality, the male worker does not receive an equivalent. In this exchange, what he acquires is domestic labor only on a formal level, while in reality he acquires labor power as an equivalent in the exchange. With this, the worker “has acquired labour time—to the extent that it exceeds the labour time contained in labour capacity—in exchange without equivalent; it has appropriated alien labour time without exchange by means of the form of exchange.”2 While the worker receives such added value, he does not take possession of it for himself. As the purpose of his exchange with capital is not exchange value as such, but the fulfilment of his needs, likewise his exchange with the housewife is not the appropriation of the value created by the living labor of the woman herself, but the fulfilment of his needs. He operates solely as a conductor of capital. Thus, when capital buys labor power through the wage, it appropriates the value created by women’s labor power, which is incorporated in waged labor power as capacity of production. Such appropriation does not usually happen through a direct exchange with the houseworker but is mediated by her exchange with the worker. To conclude, we have proved that such exchange is not an exchange of equivalents, because the worker receives much more value than the value he gives to the woman, even if he does not appropriate such value for himself, but for capital.

The possession of a wage by a woman who is both a houseworker and a worker in the production process obviously affects the exchange between her and the male worker. She has, in fact, more contractual power in relation to him. In the last few decades, the possession of wages by women has become more common and sustained. This means that the terms of exchange between women and waged male workers have been considerably redefined. The supply of female domestic labor appreciably decreases, while the male supply increases. However, reduced inequality of the objects of exchange for the male worker and the houseworker does not automatically mean that capital appropriates less surplus labor from domestic reproduction. Rather capital appropriates surplus labor from two subjects, instead of one. However, it is an established fact that the increase in male workers’ domestic labor does not compensate for the decline in female domestic labor due to the great momentum towards the socialization of such labor (we eat out more and more, we send our clothes to laundry services, etc.) and due to the increasingly persistent demand by women for either more money or more commodities from men for the labor they supply.

Just as the exchange between the worker and the housewife takes on particular significance, the way in which the two parties are positioned as individuals in the act of exchange takes on specific connotations. Because the female houseworker is established as non-value, as opposed to the free male worker, she cannot, with her domestic labor, buy money or receive a wage from the male worker. The legitimate holder of the wage is always the one who earned it, that is, the male worker. Variable capital remains always the product or outcome of the production process, and thus the male wage. Variable capital is never a formal object of exchange between the worker and the houseworker. Because “money only gives the equivalent its specific expression, makes it into an equivalent in form, as well,” the nonmonetary nature of the exchange between domestic labor and wage has a precise consequence.3 The worker, exchanging his labor power with money, which is to say with the general form of wealth, “becomes co-participant in general wealth up to the limit of his equivalent—a quantitative limit which, of course, turns into a qualitative one, as in every exchange.”4 The houseworker, whose labor power is domestic work performed for the male worker, cannot exchange her labor power for money, that is, for the general form of wealth. As opposed to the male worker, she cannot formally own that part of variable capital that corresponds to her own means of subsistence. If we consider that her equivalent (her labor power) does not have a limit, because it does not have a price, it is evident that the houseworker is not entitled to participate in the enjoyment of general wealth. She does not, through the exchange, have the right to the money that expresses the value of her labor power. She only has the right to consume that part of the wage that corresponds to the value of her means of subsistence.

The difference between the houseworker and the waged worker described above indicates that the houseworker is bound by a major constraint. While the male worker “is neither bound to particular objects, nor to a particular manner of satisfaction,” the houseworker is always bound to the agreement of the male worker in terms of the details of her consumption.5 Because her relationship with money is not a relationship of ownership, but just the use of someone else’s ownership, it is almost irrelevant for the houseworker whether the worker provides her with means of subsistence in their natural form, or as money. Almost irrelevant because, in reality, money is less restrictive than means of subsistence. Moreover, the equivalent of what the houseworker gives to the waged worker within the exchange does not have a formal limit, because it does not have a price. This implies that:

1. The houseworker’s consumption has a quantitative limit which always tends to be lower than that of the factory worker;

2. The sphere of her enjoyment is also qualitatively limited, and this is true in and of itself, while for the waged worker this is true as a reflection of the quantitative limits of his consumption.

It is important to note that, since the Second World War, women have initiated a cycle of intense struggles over the dynamics of consumption within the family. First, women started to demand that husbands deliver their paychecks to them, so that women could handle them themselves. It is in this period that the wage becomes a crucial site of struggle between workers and capital. The direct management of the male wage by women within the family is as strategic in the struggle between women and capital as it is between women and male workers. This crucial move has been passed off by many women simply as an ideology of rational management of consumption but, in reality, it is simply a different, clearly anti-capitalistic management of the male wage. In fact, the direct management of the male wage does not aim at guaranteeing the steady reproduction of the working class, but, on the contrary, at determining a reproduction of the class constantly opposed to capital. The criteria of consumption become both more unproductive for capital, and more disruptive for the hierarchy of family consumption. More generally, these criteria help to dismantle the stratification of power within the class. It is now the woman who determines the priority of needs and their satisfaction among the family members and decides the quality and quantity of consumption with respect to the wage. She is the one who, as a strategic workerist defense, refuses the pressure to scrimp and save every penny, and makes the total consumption of the wage a normal condition, and a factor in the continuation of struggle. It is, of course, always the worker who has the last word, because the one who earns the wage is always the one in power. But now his words carry a different weight, and many mediations occur between the possession of money and its transformation into something that can be used. It should be noted that women in the 1960s made use of the wage mostly for their children, and not for themselves. One of the few simple achievements made by women for themselves in these years in the realm of consumption was establishing a weekly appointment with the hairdresser.

But in the 1970s, family consumption shifted again in the sense that: 1) women began to consume for themselves as well; and 2) families came to consume more than they earned.6 It was women’s mass achievement of their own wage that contributed to the development of their new agency, with full rights over their own consumption and even more control over the management of family wages. With the 1960s, the policy of abstinence, sacrifice, and saving as criteria to manage the family budget ended. The 1970s began with a new phase of management of the proletarian wage, based on mass indebtedness. Credit cards and loans became instruments for exceeding the wage on the level of circulation. To spend today what you can earn tomorrow is the new motto characterizing the dynamics of consumerism, especially in the United States. Once again, women are the battering ram that creates these breakthroughs. If workers have always calculated that their wages will arrive after a month or a week of work, these new social behaviors and patterns of consumption by the working class now assume consumption before paying for it with labor.

The formal nonequivalence of the objects involved in this exchange relation between man and woman leads to specific formal consequences. These consequences are very different from those related to the exchange between worker and capital, in which labor power in its capacity of production is sold as a commodity by the worker as its free owner. When the worker encounters the owner of money on the market, they “enter into relations with each other on a footing of equality as owners of commodities, with the sole difference that one is a buyer, the other a seller; both are therefore equal in the eyes of the law.”7 On the contrary, the exchange between women and capital is mediated by the worker. Women’s labor power, under the guise of domestic labor, is sold by the housewife to the waged worker as a commodity. However, domestic labor is not formally a commodity. When the free woman worker meets the owner of money (in the form of the wage) on the market, they enter into relations with each other, but not on a footing of equality as owners of commodities, and not as equals in the eyes of the law. It follows that the inequality in the relation between man and woman is neither a dysfunction in the capitalist mode of production nor a legacy of some precapitalist barbarity. It is, instead, inherent and ingrained in the functioning of the capitalist mode of production. Equality of exploitation between man and woman cannot exist in a capitalist society precisely because such exploitation is based on power differences that are present within the class itself. Either the struggle for equal rights8 becomes a struggle against the dominion of capital, or it becomes nothing but the impracticable program of a reformist utopia.