During the Tamil Nadu elections which happened recently in the month of april, Kamal Haasan's party Makkal Needhi Maiam made an election promise in their manifesto that if come to power their govt. will recognise housework as a salaried profession by paying homemakers. 

Well this is not the first time someone came up with the idea of paying homemakers a salary for their housework.

In the 1960's and 1970's during the second wave of women's movement or the feminist movement in North America and Europe this demand of paying wages for the housework arose. It became important for the leading women rights activists to bust the myth that women's work at home was a personal service. They argued that women work all day for their family like a labourer and get nothing in return because of the mindset of the society that women should do only domestic work and because of that protests erupted at a massive level in many western countries. In doing this they also challenged the assumption that housework is rooted in the essential nature of women who were performing a ‘labour of love’. 

It was not that every woman was demanding for a wage there were some groups who were against it. They question that what exactly will the payment of wage means for women. Ann Oakley, a sociologist who studied the history of housework and was also the part of the movement was among those who believed that if women started getting paid for the housework it would only imprison them more, their social isolation will increase and it would dissuade men from sharing housework.

They also argued that goal of the women's movement must not be to ask for wages but to free women from daily routine of housework and enable themselves to participate in social activities including paid employent outside the household.

A report was published by International Labour Organisation in 2018 which shows that globally women do 76.2% of total hours of housework more than three times as much as men.

Women and men both should equally share their household work. Thinking that only women should do the work and not men is very absurd. There has been a lot of change in the society but still there are a lot of people who have the same orthodox thinking. We have to abolish this mindset of the people and focus more on gender equality only then our society can grow and develop by working hand to hand.

Thank you :)