More smiles, more money.”—Silvia Federici, “Wages against Housework,” 1974

Marginalized strands of the second-wave feminist movement, such as International Wages for Housework Campaign––which included the Wages Due Lesbians and the Black Women for Wages for Housework—advocated for salaried domestic labor. These feminist groups formed in the 1970s to raise awareness of how housework and childcare are the basis of all social reproduction and industrial work. Their demands were, however, often sidelined by mainstream feminist goals like equal opportunity in the labor market. These groups were not only discussion clubs or thought experiments, but real activist efforts whose demands were often expressed through protest songs. 

Artist Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyen will discuss her current research on the music these women’s groups created to articulate their frustrations through embodied collective experience. She will be joined in conversation by Amalle Dublon, a PhD candidate at Duke University whose research focuses on sound, aurality, and reproduction in all its valences.

This event is held in conjunction with Soft Skills, on view at the James Gallery from April 14 through June 5, 2017. It is organized by the exhibition's curator, Kaegan Sparks, the 2016–17 Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow and doctoral student in Art History, The Graduate Center, CUNY.