WOMEN AND HOUSEHOLD LABOUR 57 conceptually belongs within the sphere of individual consumption, since children are to be regarded as extensions of the self, it is an activity similar to producing oneself", this sounds not like a Marxian statement but more like capitalist psychologising. While begetting and carrying a child may still be looked at as "extension of the self^ (even though this too is very debatable) the whole labour process of washing, cooking, feeding etc, which is essential for bringing up children, can certainly not be seen in the same perspective. Even the generalisation of household labour as "consumption" is only seen from the point of view of the reproduction of the male labourer. It is he who consumes. The more the woman strives to replenish his labour-power and the more she strives to build up future labour-power (i e, to bring up children), the less her own consumption will be. It is well known that Indian wives and mothers eat last and least, even if they work outside the house. This is the reason why categorisation of housework as consumption does not throw light on the actual situation of the working class housewife and her suffering. The efforts of the socialist feminists to show housework as "productive" probably has its root in this inadequacy. Yet, their efforts suffer from the same shortcoming as the orthodox Marxist view. They use a terminology which was developed to understand the capitalist production process for forms of exploitation which to a large extent are precapitalist, even though they have, under the present condition, been made subservient to the reproduction of capital. Working Class Housewives as Unemployed Workers One has to view working class housewives as unemployed workers because in a majority of cases they would gladly work outside the house if given the opportunity. The fact that they are unable to join the work force has to do not only with the general economic crisis but with the fact that they are women. The percentage of women in the work force has steadily decreased over the last decades. While some new opportunities come up from middle class white-collar workers, unskilled and illiterate women face decreasing scope for work. More than 90 per cent female workers work in the unorganised sector. They often get less pay even for equal work. Besides, they suffer from a customary division of labour which assigns to them the more back-breaking and less remunerative jobs. Women are generally under-represented in unions. Once they are out of employment it is harder for them to be re-employed etc. etc. The double exploitation of women as workers and as housewives expending their energies in the reproduction of the workforce is expressed in their position as "reserve army" of capitalist production, easily sent back home again. The fact that in some of the 'developed' countries it is the immigrant workers or the blacks