Page Four
FHE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, February 2, 1915
Page Four EHE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, February 2, 'I91~
R== EPAREmF===mm
PREPARE FOR THE
i
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:
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I
MCAT, DAT, LSAT,__
GRE, & ATGSB 'The housewife as
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downtrodden worker
WOMAN'S WORK: T H E phy alone is 18 pages long), and
HOUSEWIFE, PAST A N D convincing.
PRESENT, by Ann Oakley. ("AKLEY BEGINS by show-
New York: Pantheon Books, ing that housewifery is a rel-
1974, 275 pp. $8.95. atively recent occupation for
women. In pre-industrial times
By BETSY AMSTER the entire family - children,
.N GREAT BRITAIN in 1973, women, men - was a unit of
PNGEt BGITAI became t production. Women worked in
Peter Giles became the agriculture, textiles, and trade:
first criminal offender to be Oakley notes that only S out
sentenced not to jail but to of the 500 British trade guilds
housework, and he took the 1 whose records survive did not
first step toward earning his admit women. But the advent
freedom by cleaning a senior of the factory took production
citizen's flat. As Ann Oakley out of the family sphere, and at
relates in her study of Woman's the same time idle wives be-
Work: The Housewife, Past came a status symbol among
and Present, one outraged wo- the rising middle class.
man journalist responded: "It g
may come as a surprise to the Although many women work
may e a dealt it rthe M ed in factories early in the
magistrate who d wi Mr. 19th century, during the sec-
Giles . that thousands of ond half of the century the
women- in this country are m- middle-class doctrine of femi-
terned for varying periods of nine domesticity began to in-
time, week in and week out, fluence the working classes as
performing the new ultimate de- well. The role of the housewife
terrent known as 'housework.' became firmly entrenched
Many are finding it difficult to gs
remember wa fes among women in all classes in
what offense they the Western world by the early
committed in the first place. 20th century.
Woman's Work is a serious Turning to the situation of
and scholarly protest against the modern housewife, Oakley
the social sanctions that con- shows that housewifery is pro-
fine too many women to the bably the least fulfilling occu-
home. Oakley argues against ation in Western society. Tier
two myths currently influentialpmos ingeservoty.nHes
in Western society: that labor most striking observation is
is natrl n ce:stharilaby d that "housewives experience
s naturally and necessarily di- more monotony, fragmentation!
vided by sex, and that mother- and social isolation in their'
hood and housekeeping are the work than do workers in the
most appropriate vocations for factory," and she has the sta-
women. tistics to prove it.
By drawing extensively on Oakley also shows that, con-
historical, psychological, socio- trary to popular belief, the de-
logical, and anthropological re- mands of motherhood are anti-
search, she proves to the read- thetical to rather than con-
er that these myths, although sonant with the demands of the3
masquerading as statements of housewife role: children are
fact, merely validate and per- "neither tidy nor clean," and
petuate the inferior position of "their demands are not neces-
women. This claim is hardly sarily timed to integrate with
new to feminism, but Oakley's housework routines, and may
study is particularly readable, ! positively frustrate the moth-
comprehensive (the bibliogra- er in her role as housewife."
It's the combination of the baby,
and the housework that's so dif-
ficult," corroborates one of
the housewives Oakley inter-
viewed.
WY/oman's Work includes four,
lengthy interviews with
housewives of varying socio-
economic backgrounds; Oakley,
knows that no amount of statis-
tics can shed light on the house-
wife's role as well as the wo-
men themselves. What consist-
ently emerges from these inter-
views is the housewife's ambi-
valence about her role. One
new fiscal strangler
GLOBAL REACH: The Pow-'
of the Multinational Corpora-
tions by Richard J. Barnet
and Ronald E. Muller. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 508
pages, $11.95.
By JAMES HIPPS
TN 1971 THE Fidelity Bank of
Philadelphia, one of the larg-
est in the nation, made loans
of $120 million from its Naus-
1 tion shows that malnutrition is
the primary or contributing
cause of death in 57 per cent of
all deaths in Latin America of
one- to four-year-olds. Missing
here are the children that sur-
vived but remain pernianently
brain - damaged. Ironically, in
these same Latin American
countries, the market-ability of
Coca-Cola and Ritz Crackers is
assured.
woman complains about herE
boredom and loneliness through-!
out the interview, yet insists at
the end, "I don't regret any-
thing." The one housewife
among the four who professes
the most satisfaction with her
role is also the one with theI
most aches and pains - anxiety
symptoms, in other words.
The last part of Woman's
Work is devoted to a fascinat-
ing survey of women in other
cultures that demonstrates how
the division of labor by sex is
entirely arbitrary. Individuals
who maintain women are inher-
ently weaker than men should
be interested to learn of the
Burundi in Africa, where the
men are exempted from ardu-
ous labor, or the Bbtui pygmies,
among whom childbirth, is
treated so casually, women are{
often on the hunt when it oc-
curs.
Oakley also shows that ther
delegation of the mother-
hood role to women is equally
arbitrary. Motherhood is not a
"practical resolution to penis
envy" - as psychoanalytic the-
ory sees it - but a learned be-
havior. It is human warmth,
not mothering in particular,I
that children require. In Sa-
moa, as well as in many other
cultures, older siblings and
sauorancn. ItI dorIac n Ion In the developed world the
sisted of one desk, a closet, a multinationals, by employing;
file cabinet, and a telephone. different sets of books for dif-
This ability to manipulate phe- ferent purposes, can effectively
-nonenal sums of monev is a supersede any attempts of gov-
hallmark of the multinationals, ernment inspection. Creating an
banks and corporations alike, internaional economy anchoredj
the vast international enterpris- in no-man's land gives the mul-
es which are the subject of tinations unprecedented power
Global Reach.
I a Rathm t eto take over government plan-I
In an attem t to conceptoally ning functions, hastening the
"gather-in' sthes i tinatonals, movement of the American
thantorad Richar mrnet economy from one grounded in
jadRonald E. Muller, must the manufacture of consumer
cone with the scope and sudden thesmaneaedfonser
proliferation of the mnltination- goods to one based on service.
als' great exnansion. Their suc- Forced to import manufac-
cesses in definition and analysis tured c o n s u m e r goods from
make this an important book: abroad where the American-
their failures merely soften the b a s e d multinationals h a v e
impact of this resonant accusa- moved their plants, America
, tion of the multinational' cor- must rely upon exportation of
poration's -,base of power. lumber and agricultural goods
'hrough accounting techniques to maintain a proper balance of
based in obfuscation and svs- payments. As such the United
tematic deception, the multi- I t a t e s resembles the Latin
national corporations evade gov-
ernmental regulation in both America of past years and, in
nroducing and consuming coun- the last few years, has encoun-
t-les, as Barnet and Muller rig- tered unprecedented balance of{
orously document. payment problems.
The result of the multina-
tional's plying their trade is not, PUT THE starkest danger to
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What is needed, say the
authors, is an end to the struc-
tural lag between the power of
the multinational corporations
and the growth of countervail-
ing Federal government power.
Only government regulation can
serve this end. By forcing pub-
lic disclosure of the multina-
tionals' books, the information
needed for regulation of the cor-
porations may be obtained. Ad-
ditionally, the tax credit favor-
ing foreign investment by Amer-
ican corporations s h o u l d be
eliminated, as should the exist-
ence of interlocking directorates
of banks and industrial corpora-
tions
But the authors only too brief-
ly note the possible trend to-
ward e c o n o m i c nationalism
which could restrain the multi-
nationals, as they concentrate on
utonian societal transformations.
They talk of changing the "glo-
bal valle system" as we be-
come "global citizens." This an-
alvsis lacks an essential sense
of pragmatism.
as ihev claim, 1r{motion of in-I
* rna:ional perce and prg)ress,
bot a world of poverty, urem-
I ployment and inequality.
TH multinationals' transfer
of technology to nderde-
grandparents care for children veloned nations wi serve as an
while mothers work. To allow example. The global cornora-
in our culture a similar free- tions present capital - intensive
dom, Oakley advocates a radi- a n d labor - saving technology
cal restructuring of society, in- which destroys jobs and abets
cluding the abolition of the nu- already adverse income distri-
clear family. bution. In the 1960's in poor
LE cml.eswithacountries a r o u n d the world,
AKLEY closes with a call to there was an increase in the
women to reject house- income of the top S per cent of
wifery and to socialize their the population accompanying a
children without regard to sex decrease for the bottom 40 per
roles. Easier said than done, of cent. In effect "millions in the
course, but reading Woman's bottom 40 per cent of the popu-
Work should exhilarate most lation actually have less food,
women with a sense of their w o r s e clothing, and poorer
3
the United States is the "UT ULTIMATELY the book's
structural lag between private t weak"ss lies in its vast
and public power. Much as in shone. By trying to make com-
the Gilded Age, the Federal nrebonsi1le the effects of mul-
hetinational corporations world-
government does not have the w+ athors lose their nar-
power to regulate the immense rative thrpad. The discourse
multinational corporations. Be- wvqers a-d falters as psycho-
ing five years behind these cor- ', og al imnlication~s of the multi-
noat'"lt are traded with inter-
national l a b o r considerations
niques, the government is los- and iugoled with the identity
ing the battle for the informa- nrobles of the global man-
tion necessary to even follow agers For the most part docu-
the multinationals' a c t i o n s, me-tation of the effects of the
much lss toregulteXthm. n-t" liatinnals is complete and
much less to regulate them. far-reaching. By maneuvering
Multinationals operate so in- human needs into categories
dependently of the Federal gov- such as "psychological health"
enentand account forgo and "basis of community," the
emnent df authors arguments dismantle in-
- much of the national economic to 'ins'ibstantiated relations of
. activity, that Federal macro- cause and effect. It is difficult
economic policy is becoming to attribllte the "sense of mean-
obsolete. Fiscal and monetary inglessness in modern life" to
the multinational corporations.
I policies, since they operate only Gt
within national bounds, cannot Gira reven ts its
adequately influence economicticulate work even though its
actions of the internationally- arguments lose their impact
oriented multinational corpora- iwhen couched i generalities.
tions. Not surprisingly, the gov- For the very newness of the ex-
ement has been ineffectix, pansion of the multinational
combatting inflation and reces- corporations makes this book a
sidn. Indeed, the authors fur- unique herald-a herald of bet-
nish a persuasive argument thatI ter or worse times to come, and
msh pesuaive rguenttha a herald which must be heard.
the U.S. has lost control of itsar
domestic money supply to the James lip ps is a junior ma-
multinationals. joring in economics.
( D CI
o ooa
u o aa
own potential.
Betsy Amster, a senior in En-
,lish, is co-editor of Astraea, a
collection of women's writings.
housing than their parents did."
Some effects of lower incomes
are obvious. Without money one
cannot eat. A study by Allan
Berg of the Brookings Institu-
Living life in a box: A tale of
actual and imagined isolation
THE BOXMAN, by Kobe
Abe, translated from Japanese
by E. Dale Saunders. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 178
pp., $6.95.
By CLAUDIA KRAUS
ONCE WHEN I was about ten,
I was at our neighbor'sj
house when her three year oldI
son came streaking out of the
bathtub into the kitchen. Notic-
ing me, he became suddenly
embarrassed and shut his eyes
while wrapping his arms
around his head. 'If I can't see
her,' he probably thought, 'she;
can't see me either.'j
The desire to become invisible
in difficult situations does not
diminish with age. The refuges
of adults are more subtle but
no less absurd. For adults take The 'boxman' begins telling
refuge in fantasy, emerging from his story under a bridge escap-
the sanctuary of their minds ing from the rain. He says that
only when they imagine the he is waiting for the return of
world less threatening. the woman with beautiful legs
The Boxman, by the Japanesewhom he spoke with not long
novelist, Kobe Abe, portrays the before. She's offered him a
inside of one such private sanc- great sum of money for his
tuary and bares its ultimate box. He cannot understand why
failure as a refuge. anyone would want his old box,
A boxman' is one who, be- but he's decided to sell anyway.
cause of some combination of THE WOMAN does not come,
desire and necessity, isolates so he goes to find her. She
himself from the world. He turns out to be the nurse. The
transfers his essential posses- 'boxman' crouches below the
sions into a large cardboard window of the infirmary and
box p r e p a r e d according to spies on her. She is standing
certain standard specifications. there naked and nonchalantly
There must be a peephole tur- talking with the doctor. Sudden-
, tained by a vinyl sheet to keep ly the 'boxman' is also in-ide
out weather and, most impor- the infirmary. He has been
tantly, the unwanted scenes of wounded and the nurse is giv-
the outside world. ing him a shot.
b H The story jumps from one ab-
WfHEN THE box is ready, the stract dream-like scene to an-
man enters by putting it other. The 'boxman' changes
over his head so that it covers roles with the doctor. He goes
him to the knees. He walks back to his childhood. He tells
away from h isprevious life to anecdotes about other 'boxmen.'
Sal. Drop-In
WORKSHOPS
EWE n' DYE
994-1166
The small
press has
its day
OT ALL publishing is
done by large conglo-
merates.
The Detroit Public Library
has set out to rectify this
situation with a February ex-
hibit devoted to the small
press of Michigan, commenc-
ing today with an Open House
from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the
Main Branch, 5102 Wood-
ward Avenue,
Ann Arbor, with its ple-
thora of small reviews and
publishing houses will be
heavily represented. Among
local presses planning d i s-
plays are Iron Horse Publish-
ing, self-styled "creator of a
new style of American Com-
ic Art," The Street Fiction
Press, best known to Ann Ar-
bor readers for its 'Periodi-
cal Lunch' and Anon, ARDIS,
publishers of "Russian Liter-
ature Triquarterly" and
translations and criticisms of
Russian literature, Apples
Magazine of the Shining Wat-
ers Press, and Generation.
13S
C; 1 6C
J 1 U J
wander incognito.
This information and the en-
tire novel is communica' ed
through the stream of con-
sciousness narration of a name-
less 'boxman.' It is his journal
we are reading, a journal scrib-
bled on the inner walls of his
box.
j It)
_ . ...
_ ._. - -
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The greatest
of the books
Anderson, Bli
Burroughs, Ca
de Camp, Elli
collection in town
of: Aldiss, Asimov,
ish, Brackett, Bradbury,
rter, Delaney, Sprague
A BE'S STORY is a hybrid,.
neither t o t a I fantasy nor
strict reality. The character has
no more of a box over his head
than does the reader. An opiatek
haze, a paradise fantasy, a pair
of sheltering arms, a box,t
they're all the same.
Kobo Abe has succeeded in
flashing a picture of some addj
creature, and then leading the
reader to realize it's a mirror.
Though the insanity of the 'box-
man's' thoughts is universal,
each individual controls how
tightly he wraps himself in the
comfortable quilt of fantasy.
Abe does not condone such re-
treat as his 'boxman' has taken.
He shows that reality cannot be
successfully locked out. I
Claudia Kraus is a staff writ-
er for the Michigan Daily.
ison,
Farmer, Henderson,
YOU ALL COME ON DOWN
and sign up for a chance to be a
FALL ORIENTATION
LEADER
in the Orientation Office
Herbert, Laumer, LeGuin, Leiber,
Lewis, Lord, Lovecraft, Moorcock,
Niven, Norman, Norton, Offutt, Peake,
Silverberg, Simak, Smith, Tolkien,
VanVoRt. Vonnegut, and many others. -
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rno; pl "nceifm4e
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