The kitchen and the multinational corporation: An analysis of the links between the household and global corporations

The paper examines relationships between multinational corporations and the unwaged work women do in their homes. It is argued that far from being a sanctuary, the home has become a dumpsite for unnecessary and unsafe products. Women in North America and the Third World are now dealing with health and safety issues in their neighbourhoods and households. Consciousness of these dangers has resulted in mobilization and the formation of alliances aimed at confronting multinationals and securing more government regulation. The experience of one group of women in a small Ontario community is described.Harriet Rosenberg is Assistant Professor in the Social Science Division at York University. She is the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Grant for her Aging and Caregiving in an African Population. She is the co-author of Through the Kitchen Window: The Politics of Home and Family, with M. Luxton, Network Basic Series, Garamond Press, Toronto; and co-author with M. FitzGerald of Surviving in the City: Urbanization in the Third World, Oxfam, Toronto.Paper presented at Women and the Invisible Economy Conference, Institute Simone de Beauvoir, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Feb. 22, 1985.