CHENNAI: The election season in Tamil Nadu, of all things, has introduced the average voter to a feminist debate that captured the attention of the western world as early as in the 1970s: wages for housework. While it was the American writer, feminist and social activist Selma James who spearheaded the initiative through her International Wages for Housework Campaign, in the here and now, it finds its way into Tamil Nadu through Kamal Haasan’s political debut and the Dravidian majors keeping up with the third front.
Now, as was then, the intention is to acknowledge and honour the unpaid labour that women do in the house. The criticism, too, has not changed over the years that incentivising housework would only serve to reinforce specific gendered roles, tip the scale against women in terms of the amount of housework they are subjected to, keep women from being able to go out and join the labour and undo the little progress that’s been made in the arena of gender parity. While Selma’s argument was drowned out by the feminists of subsequent generations, it finds some favour in the nascent playing field of Tamil Nadu politics.
Bringing home the concept
It was no surprise when Makkal Needhi Maiam tried to appeal to the female voter base one that has had to contend with little more freebies and paltry execution of populist schemes with a new promise: a salary for housewives. The DMK took it one step forward and put a number to the policy: Rs 1,000 and replaced ‘housewives’ with ‘women heads of households’. Not one to be left out of the race, the AIADMK pushed the figure to Rs 1,500.
Both Dravidian majors have pitched the policy as a form of income support and a means to economic equity and experts in the field of women empowerment for once agree. S Anandhi, professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies, suggests that it’s a radical departure from the welfare programmes carried out so far by the government. “It has shifted the whole argument from assistance schemes to the notion of entitlement.
This has long been a feminist argument too. It definitely goes along the lines of recognising women’s labour and the amount of work women put into childcare (among others). I think the model is going to be something like bringing in the universal basic income. That has been experimented in the US, some parts of Denmark and other places. In that sense, it’s a very welcome experiment that follows the trajectory of the long history of welfare programmes in Tamil Nadu, which has some imagination about the question of social justice.
Particularly, the DMK’s long engagement with women’s welfare programmes be it micro credit or several assistance schemes for women,” she elaborates. The Wages for Housework Campaign and its many offshoots too argued that there was a need to pay women a living wage for the work they were doing in terms of housekeeping and childraising. The movement put this form of recognition a step above universal income support, which disregarded housework, the gender discrimination that played a role in the kind of work women tended to get and was subject to the whims of the market.
M Gowri, a mother of four who has had to stay home to care for the children, can’t imagine why this aid of Rs 1,500 would not be of use to her. “For women who haven’t been able to go to work because they’ve had to care for the children, this will be very useful. Even if it goes towards buying some provisions, it’d be a good thing,” she suggests. The family’s income comes from the husband’s daily wage job as a painter.
Focus on the vulnerable
Taking forward the thread of social justice, Sujata Mody of Penn Thozhilalar Sangam points to the scheme’s particular benefits for single women and mothers. “We believe that all single women should be given financial support, especially if they are married and have children (whether young or older). In the last decade or so, there is a large number of young women who have become widows, losing their primary earning member. So, all women-headed homes, where they are the primary breadwinner either by abandonment or death, should be provided with financial support.
They may also need housing, and a number of different ways to be helped. Earlier, Tamil Nadu government had a scheme of widow’s pension. But, that came with a patriarchal mindset: that women are likely to get married after their husbands died; so, till the age of 45, they would not be given a pension. I think this corrects the perspective and the general perception that only older women deserve the pension,” she explains. Maragatham, a woman in her late thirties, was left to fend for herself after her husband’s death in 2018 and her brother refused to accommodate her.
She happened to find a family that took her in as a cook and also provided a place for her to stay. While her needs are taken care of, this scheme would certainly help many like her but aren’t as fortunate as to not have to worry about rent or their children’s wellbeing (Maragatham does not have children). Thirty-seven-year-old Sumithra can attest to that. Her husband abandoned the family a few years after the birth of her second daughter. Since then, it was the work she found as domestic help that put the two girls through school and college.
Now, the eldest has started earning but life is, by no means, easy. “There are many like me who would find this money very useful,” she begins. “I tried applying for the old pension but I was told I would only be able to access it if my divorce comes through. I don’t have the money to chase after that. I get Rs 1,500 per house per month.
There’s never money to spare; we only end up borrowing above this. But if the government money were to come, it’ll come in handy even if it’s just to get some medicines,” she reasons, adding that the Pongal dole of Rs 2,500 was spent the very next day when her younger daughter was diagnosed with typhoid.
Striking a balance
It’s considering these benefits that Sujata suggests the policy (as promised by the DMK and AIADMK) is better than what MNM had initially put forth. “Kamal Haasan said that every housewife should be paid. That was a very regressive demand. The women’s movement has, for many years, considered unpaid work but it chose not to monetise that work. But, Kamal Haasan’s promise is very different from what the DMK offered in its manifesto that has an idea of supporting women in many different ways.
They say that they will increase the maternity period and maternity payment, there are housing schemes and so on. There seems to be a wider thinking there. The AIADMK’s manifesto came as a quick response to what the DMK had announced the previous day.
But, in the last five years, the AIADMK government changed its old pension policies (as Amma Thittam) and in the process created multiple schemes and the system became extremely confused that today one out of three elderly persons do not get the pension. In that way, this scheme of the AIADMK is one-shot and lacks perspective. While I’m not pro or against any party, the DMK has always had a social justice agenda and within that framework; I’m not saying they are perfect but they attempt to make these kind of changes,” she offers.
Making true a promise
The bigger debate should be about where the money will come from, suggests Swarna Rajagopalan, founder and director of Prajnya Trust. “I think `1.500 is not going to make a huge difference to anybody. The question I’m concerned with is where is this money going to come from. Covid expenditure has come largely out of the states; GST has pretty much killed state budgets. So, how is the state going to pay for this month after month? It’s in perpetuity and the only way to better it is to add money to it. These are promises they cannot feasibly keep and, at the same time, they are not putting in place the structures that would make them redundant.
But, we are so focussed on the optics that we don’t think any measure all the way through,” she argues. She points to the example of how difficult it gets just to acquire the BPL card, let alone get the benefits it has to offer. Rajalakshmi, a young mother who does tailoring out of her house, says shabby execution has been true for many schemes that the government has come out with. “There’s the housing scheme and two-wheeler scheme.
But, it’s difficult to get the benef i ts; there’s no guarantee that you’ll get it. You have the e-seva centres but even getting a community certificate becomes impossible. So, how will we get ‘freebies’,” she asks. The Green New Deal for Europe of 2019 proposed a care income for unpaid activities like “care for people, the urban environment, and the natural world.” We have plenty more to catch up with. “Where women are stereotyped as welfare recipients in the absence of political representation, this seems to be only a minimum compensation the state could think of and so it’s welcome.
But, the compensation also has to be about meeting the healthcare expenses for all, particularly for the poor. Besides this, there have to be special social policies to ensure that this economic policy results in a high number of women taking part in the political aspect of governance. Nordic countries are being successful because they combine welfare policies with women’s participation.
That’s because they have provided adequate child care provisions and social care protection against women. Here, we don’t have gender-focussed labour legislation. If we are moving towards emulating some of these provisions, we need to think about what aspects will cumulatively have an effect on women’s empowerment, rather than one aspect of economic justice at a time of crisis,” Anandhi concludes.
No use for election-time promise
Beyond the good and bad of the poll promise, N Vasanthi finds reason to reject the scheme in its entirety. “It’s an election time promise, isn’t it? And it’s our money that they will be giving back to us right? I don’t want that. If they were to reduce gas price, that would be more useful to us. This only makes us feel much more,” she opines.
