This stems from a few milliseconds of thought that occurred during a job interview in my final postgraduate year. This interview was for a position in content creation at a large interactive services firm. I wasn’t very interested in the job but was sitting the interview for experience – as college students are wont to do.
The interviewer asked me about my family and I explained to him that my father was retired and ran a small lamination business and my mother was a house-wife. The objection, the interjection, the sneer came almost instantaneously. “Home-maker, you mean.” I was confused for a very brief moment before accepting his alternative terminology.
This post is a recollection of the thoughts I had in that brief moment. I should mention here that I was already aware of the term ‘home-maker’ before this interview. It wasn’t entirely new to me. Indeed, I had recently read a lot of feminist texts as part of the postgraduate curriculum and was very much in the process of unlearning a number of things I had taken for granted up to that point. I did not expect to be cut down by a macho HR man for being patriarchal.
However, in that moment I thought, how is it helping? By giving her a fancy job title, are you really changing her status? You are simply changing the term – from house-wife to home-maker – you are not shifting the paradigm. This isn’t like calling a secretary an ‘executive assistant’ or a nitpicky know-it-all a ‘wedding planner.’ She is still at home doing the housework and not getting paid for it.
Unless, of course, you tell me that the term ‘home-maker’ can apply to the male spouse as well. However, if you are (which, let’s face it, you are) simply saying that the new term is to give the long-suffering house-wife her overdue dignity then I will be calling a huge pile of male cow excreta on your proclamation. While language and terminology have played significant roles in the history of social change, token modifications without any substantial cultural, or even personal, backing are simply instances of patriarchal condescension.
The word ‘house-wife’ is an amalgamation of two Middle English words: huse (‘house’) and wif (‘woman’). Literally, this translates to house-woman or woman of the house. This term was used, well into the 19th century, to refer to the women who were in charge of managing all aspects of the household including the economic and financial. This would be their principal occupation even if they were, say, farmers’ wives helping out on the fields. Notice the use of the word ‘occupation’. It does not directly translate to ‘profession’ – because, again, they are not paid for their work – however, it does suggest a certain amount of authority.
If we look at the word ‘home-maker’ various online dictionaries give it a similar meaning to that of ‘house-wife’ but, there is a second entry that suggests this term was also used for a person employed to do similar work in someone else’s household. Therefore, this term has more currency in the capitalist world. The word ‘house-wife’ has garnered negative connotations because it suggests that this is a woman who is stuck in her house all day and does not have the freedom to do what she wants. Additionally, it also takes agency away from the women who have made that choice for themselves. (Yes, that sounds patriarchal but there are such women and they also need to be acknowledged.)
My argument here is that when we refer to her as a ‘home-maker’, does she magically get that freedom or that agency? No, she categorically does not. Even worse, she is given a fancy job title without any corresponding fancy perks. The patriarchal counterpoint is that she is getting a house to live in and food to survive in exchange for her work. Well, if she’s the one taking care of that house and making that food, it becomes debatable as to who is providing for whom.
Language, as I have said, plays a very important role in social change. For example, learning the right pronouns for different people can go a long way towards eliminating their insecurities about their identity. Unlike this, however, calling out people for referring to someone as a ‘house-wife’ and not a ‘home-maker’ is simply fastidious political correctness. Get your head out of your... you know.
I will write another post discussing the issues related to terminology and dignity. But for the purposes of this one, simply forcing people to use one term in place of another, or, indeed, smirking and smugly enjoying correcting a person who is actively trying to unlearn years of conditioning, will not amount to giving women who do housework as their principal occupation the dignity they deserve. It will simply make a mockery of years of feminist effort.
As of late last year, only 20.3% of women, 15 or older, formed part of the labour force in India. This is in comparison to 76% of men. (Source: Catalyst) This would suggest that a majority of adult women are at home and unemployed. This is not really even a matter of dignity through language, is it? It is a symptom of a fundamental problem in Indian society. Therefore, while the term “home-maker” is a step in the right direction, it is a very small step and very much a figurative one. Let us not stop there. Gestures should be the first steps towards actual change, not the be-all and end-all.
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