That those "woman" jobs being insourced would have primarily been the job of another woman, who is now out of work. I know it's not the point, but it's a point nonetheless.

...I guess we're not going to dwell too much on cost-saving items like doing your own car repairs, appliance repairs, roofing repairs, snow-shoveling, etc, since the evil sex has traditionally done that stuff "for free."

I guess that just wouldn't provide the ever-resentful Kate with more grist for that angry little mill of hers.

a valid take on this issue. although an equally valid (more entertaining tho, sorry) perspective comes from wonkette and its commenters: http://wonkette.com/406605/rich-american-households-forced-to-do-chores

at any rate, i think you're right. actually what i think is most interesting about this is that many households used to solve the problem of "who is going to do the chores...the wife doesn't want to do them all because she's no longer oppressed...the husband doesn't want to do them because they are below him...so instead of having a difficult discussion about feminism and how the personal is political and how labor is gendered, we will solve the problem by paying someone to do the goddamn chores." i like to read advice columnists and back before the hobo days, the columnist would frequently write to couples who were experiencing this problem "if it's that hard to figure out who should do what, just hire someone." maybe now, as emily bazelon for slate wrote, those difficult conversations will have to begin again.

of course for those of us who have been too poor the whole time to even contemplate getting some servants (and who find the idea of servants to be pretty awful in general), we've had those discussions lots of times with many different partners who regardless of their feminist attitudes refused to believe that their laziness about chores (or preference to eat out all the time instead of cook, or whatever) was due to their inherent laziness and not to the fact that they valued "women's work" so low that they were unwilling to do it. it had nothing to do with the fact that a woman (their mother) cleaned after them whenever they made a mess as a child. that doesn't socialize someone in a fucked up way, not at all. no, they're just lazy overall. yea that's it.

in conclusion, my mother recently informed me that my father has been dying her hair for upwards of a year now. apparently he really likes it. and this is a man who didn't even know how to operate a dishwasher until about 2 years ago. not like my mom was hitting the salons before...in the russian community, a woman who works as a hairdresser supplements her income on the weekends by going to other russian folks' houses and doing haircuts and whatnot.

We have always felt like we must do the domestic work ourselves-- that it would be bad to hire someone else to do it. Here we are a heterosexual, cohabitating couple in our mid-thirties. I have the more demanding job, but I still do more of the domestic work. We're renters, so we can't even the score by assigning household maintenance, yardwork, etc. to my BF. To some extent, this imbalance is voluntary on my part: I am not satisfied with the quality of his cleaning. i also do more of the cooking because he doesn't really know how. I do most of the grocery shopping because, even when given a list, he doesn't buy the right items. We each do our own laundry. We don't have a dishwasher, so I leave most of the dishes for him.

Here is what I have learned: Although I have a sweet partner who will try to do most tasks I ask him to do, I am better at domestic tasks than he is. It is not that my partner is lazy, he just never learned to do these things. His mother is a total slob who doesn't cook. I am physically and mentally more at ease in a clean environment eating well-balanced meals-- these are my needs. I'd rather make sure these needs are met, even if it means doing the work myself, than lower my standards. Another thing I have learned is that I do not want children because that would increase the domestic work 3 fold.

I'm not sure who you're talking about. My dad is quite handy (a contractor, in fact) and he certainly doesn't do nearly as much of the labor around the house as my mom did. Even if you factor in all the snow-plowing he did (she did some of that too).

The fact is that chores generally performed by women take up significantly more time... hours per day... than the occasional fix-it task of the man of the house.

They make up fancy words to try and hide the fact that you are getting screwed 8 ways to Thursday.

because it NEEDS to be or whether it is just the way she likes it. Paying for it may NEVER have mad sense. You also need to consider how many household expenses, upgrades, renovations, etc are really for the household or are really just entertainment for the wife (obviously in fairness the same should examination be applied to the husband). "If you care do it yourself" women say this to men all the time, why can't men say it to women.

that's what my mom said when I complained that she, my sister and I, who had all three worked all day, came home to cook dinner while my retired father and unemployed brother-in-law watched golf.

A tale as old as time, beauty and the beast.

see, EVERYONE is suffering.

If you believe domestic work is worth X dollars when you can afford to have professionals do it but zero dollars when you can't,

Is economics another topic we need to add to the list of subjects you know nothing about? I think it might just be.

Work is only worth something when it produces value. For example, the worlds best rugby player could be born in Kansas City but he will not be able to make much more than 15,000 dollars a year in America but if he goes to England or France he could make a few million. The best quarterback in the world could be from Paris but unless he comes to the USA he will make like 12 bucks. That is because we don't have a market for rugby and France does not have a market for football.

Or to put it simply who besides the person in the household gives a shit who does your laundry or cooking and why should anyone else pay for you.

what does that tell us about how much we value "women's work"? And if women are usually the ones who end up taking on that zero-dollar labor, what does it tell us about how much we value women's time?

Here is another great radical feminist myth. Here is some "men's work" that ends up being insourced in economic hard times. Lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, basic plumbing, basic household maintenance, car maintenance to name but a few. But we already know that rad feminist like yourself not only don't value this but act is if it does not exist.