Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Title: Emily Callaci, "Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor" (Seal Press, 2025)
Date: November 20, 2025
Host: Nicole Bourbonnet
Guest: Dr. Emily Callaci

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Nicole Bourbonnet interviews Dr. Emily Callaci about her new book, Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor. The conversation explores the global Wages for Housework campaign, tracing its origins, development, and impact through the biographies of five key organizers. Callaci reflects on the personal and political motivations behind her research, the intellectual debates within the movement, and its continuing relevance in contemporary discussions about gender, labor, and capitalism.

Main Themes and Purpose

• To chronicle the history and impact of the Wages for Housework movement across five decades.
• To analyze the lives and ideas of five central figures in the campaign.
• To explore how the campaign challenged dominant views on women’s work, labor, and economic organization.
• To reflect on the relevance and transformation of these ideas in today's political and economic climate.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Motivation and Historical Context

• Poster Inspiration: Callaci describes the famous Wages for Housework poster in her kitchen—Statue of Liberty with a broom and children tugging at her dress—as a constant reminder of unpaid labor’s invisibility, especially after becoming a parent.

  "That poster, I'm actually looking at it right now. It's right across from me... Initially...it seemed kind of quirky, kind of like a provocation, you know, like wages for housework sounded to me more like political theater than a serious political idea...And then, around 2017 I had my first child... I was doing this work around the clock in addition to my paid full time job, and yet that work was basically invisible to the outside world." – Emily Callaci (02:53)

• Transition to Research: What began as an intrigue became urgent after her firsthand experience of the ‘second shift’ and the inadequacy of self-help/work-life-balance advice.

2. The Global and Diverse Origins of the Movement

• Universal Appeal: The universality of housework across contexts made the movement resonate globally, transcending backgrounds and class.

• Biographies of Five Key Organizers:

  • Selma James: Working-class Brooklyn background, connected struggles of women in the home to class politics and left movements.
  • Mariarosa Dalla Costa: Italian academic, emphasized the “assembly line” stretching into the home—making the invisible labor visible.
  • Silvia Federici: Italian philosopher, highlighted the emotional coercion and social naturalization of women’s unpaid labor.
  • Wilmette Brown: Black lesbian activist from Newark, tied housework to Black freedom struggles and reparations.
  • Margaret Prescod: Barbadian immigrant, centered the movement in experiences of migrant women and issues of global labor extraction.

  "At the core of all of it was an idea that capitalism in theory is a kind of free market kind of system...What they all share is the insight that is actually a myth that hides that so much of that economic system relies on coerced labor, uncompensated and extraction." – Emily Callaci (13:45)

3. Controversy Over Demands and Strategies

• Demand for Wages: The slogan “Wages for Housework” crystallized into the movement’s core and most controversial demand.

• Internal and External Debate: Not all feminists agreed; mainstream feminists sought to sever the link between women and housework, seeing wage demands as retrograde.

  "...for a lot of people, when they see this group coming around and saying, demanding wages for housework, you know, it seems like what they're demanding is that women should actually double down on that connection between women and housework, at a time when people are trying to get rid of that link..." (16:06)

• Question of Empowerment and Labor: Challenged the notion that “work” is inherently liberating; exposed the limits of focusing solely on equality of opportunity in formal work.

  "It's not the work, that we don't want more work. We want money, but we don't want more work..." – Nicole Bourbonnet (19:15)

• Class and Race: Recognized paid employment is not always liberating—especially for working-class women; linked to welfare rights, anti-racist, and immigrant struggles.

4. Contestation within Left and Marxist Circles

• Left Critique: The movement challenged the Marxist orthodoxy that only waged labor is productive, insisting that unpaid reproductive labor is central to capitalism.

  "...Selma James pushed against at first was saying, actually people who do work in the home are part of capitalism...if their labor is also being exploited...so recognizing that those people, you know, are part of capitalism and therefore might have some power to resist capitalism and might have political insights..." (24:40)

• Marginalization in Movements: Women’s organizing was often sidelined or attacked even within radical circles, forcing Wages for Housework activists to carve out their own space.

5. Research Methodology and Choosing a Biographical Approach

• Deciding on Biographies: Callaci shares her initial hesitation—concerned it might create a “hero narrative”—but found that focusing on five individuals allowed her to show the contextual, dialogic, and often contradictory nature of the movement.

  "My main misgiving about the biographical approach is that, you know, it makes it sound like individual heroes or geniuses are the ones that make social change...but...there's a lot of disagreement within the movement...so part of me thought maybe the way to tell the story is to let the different accounts of it kind of sit side by side..." (28:54)

• Archival Work: The archives (Italy, UK, US) reflected the organizers’ differing styles—decentralized messiness versus coordinated discipline—and contained both admiration and critique from contemporaries.
• Oral Histories: Interviews with activists revealed strong, sometimes conflicting, personal narratives about the movement’s divisions and impact.

6. Historical Legacy, Language, and Today’s Relevance

• Care Work vs. Housework: Callaci reflects on why she retains “housework” as a term, citing Dorothy Roberts’ work and warning against romanticizing or uplifting only high-status forms of care.

  "I think there's a potential danger in separating those things out...so part of me wanted to keep the category, you know, unified, to recognize that, not all of it can be uplifted and commoditized and made into this kind of beautiful experience. A lot of it is really hard..." (40:06)

• Contemporary Resonance: The pandemic made the value and demands of unpaid care visible; the political perspective of Wages for Housework is more relevant than ever.
• Campaign vs. Perspective: Even as the formal campaign faded, its critique of the economic system and the definition of work continues to shape feminist thought.

7. Future Research Directions

• Ongoing Interests: Callaci is pursuing research on reproductive justice in Africa and feminist activism in the 1980s, particularly the intersection with global capitalism and feminist economics.

  "In the course of researching wages for housework and seeing the ways this campaign made connections with activists in the Global South...thinking about how women's uncompensated labor...could be a starting point for some real new kinds of feminist thinking..." (44:06)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the contradiction at the heart of empowerment rhetoric:

  “The version of liberation that's always been offered to me has been like, how can you work more?” — Emily Callaci (23:29)

• On unity amid diversity:

  “These five women...at the core of all of it was an idea that capitalism...relies on coerced labor, uncompensated and extraction. And they were united by the idea that if you reveal that labor...you can challenge that system and through that other forms of hierarchy and oppression.” – Emily Callaci (13:45)

• On the need for compensation, not glorification:

  “It wasn't, we want wages because this is really rewarding and wonderful...we want wages because this is exploitative.” — Emily Callaci (42:54)

Key Timestamps

• Motivation and personal connection: (02:53–06:26)
• Movement’s diverse origins: (06:48–14:20)
• Controversies around demands: (15:03–19:26)
• Feminism, class, and the limits of "work": (19:26–21:12)
• Relations with the Left and Marxists: (23:58–27:32)
• Choosing the biographical method and working in archives: (28:54–38:33)
• Debates over "housework" vs. "care work" and current relevance: (39:46–43:14)
• Future research and closing remarks: (43:25–46:21)

Tone and Language Notes

Throughout, both Callaci and Bourbonnet balance personal anecdotes, critical analysis, and historical insight. The tone is deeply reflective, occasionally wry and self-aware, and always rooted in the specifics of organizing, lived experience, and the challenge of translating those into historical narrative.

Conclusion

This episode offers an in-depth look at the Wages for Housework movement through the lens of biography, global context, and personal reflection. Callaci makes clear that recognizing and compensating unpaid labor challenges not just gendered roles but the very foundations of capitalism, with lessons as urgent now as fifty years ago. The episode is essential listening for anyone interested in feminist history, labor, and political economy.