But 1970s feminism also involved rethinking and redefining what counted as work. The notion that
women were naturally oriented toward housework and child raising had held sway for centuries, and in
capitalist society, where work was redefined as earning money, domestic labor had lost its status as work.
While most women recognized the labor involved, many contributed to maintaining the assumption that it
was “naturally” women’s responsibility. By retaining that responsibility, women also retained control
over it—no small value. In practice, many men had long contributed to household labor, but the ideal, that
the family should consist of male breadwinner and nonemployed wife/mother, remained.
Feminists retheorized domestic labor, in part by identifying its economic value. A “wages for
housework” campaign never produced practical demands; who would or could pay these wages? Most
men could never afford to hire a housewife, even at minimum wage. Still, the “wages for housework”
idea illustrated how the economy depended on women’s unpaid labor. Moreover, the majority of women
in couples continued to do the bulk of the work even if their hours of employment equaled those of the
men they lived with. So feminists began insisting that men share the domestic work, with some success.
Men’s response affords an example of how consciousness change became behavior change: as more
women expected this sharing, more men accommodated to it—and often found they enjoyed it.
Recognizing domestic work as work underlay feminist support for what was then called “welfare,”
Aid to Families with Dependent Children. A part of the Social Security Act of 1935, this program
guaranteed, in principle, aid to the children of poor single parents. Over the years the grants became
steadily lower (the usual way that conservatives sought to undercut social programs they opposed but did
not wish to to condemn publicly), discriminatory (subjecting recipients to privacy-invading eligibility
tests), and stigmatized (recipients being labeled lazy and criminal). In the mid-1960s, a largely African
American welfare rights movement began asserting rights to fair and respectful treatment. Though its
members would not have called themselves feminists—associating that label with privileged white
women—they often were feminists, in that their analysis focused on the disrespect for women’s domestic
labor. Some women’s liberation groups sought alliances with welfare recipients, as Mothers for Adequate
Welfare did in Boston, and supported the national welfare rights movement.
Welfare rights demonstration, 1977. Photograph by Diana Mara Henry. Copyright © 1977 by Diana Mara Henry/www.dianamarahenry.com.
Backing welfare rights was an attempt by women’s liberation to support the different needs of poor
women of color. However, welfare issues exposed a disagreement within the women’s movement, a
disagreement that reflected different concerns. NOW, with its base among employed women, at first saw
wage work as the route to gains for women, so it pushed for subsidized childcare to enable women to take