Skip to main content
Log in

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

  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Brownstein, Richard: 1981, ‘The Toxic Tragedy’, in R. Nader et al. (eds.), Who's Poisoning America? Sierra Club Books: San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bull, David: 1982, A Growing Problem: Pesticides and the Third World Poor, Oxfam: Oxford, U.K.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, Barbara: 1983, The Sexual Division of Labour and Class Struggle’, Social Studies/Études Socialistes: A Canadian Annual, pp. 40–50.

  • Cyng-Jones, T. W.: n.d., Unilever, Geneva: International Union of Food and Allied Workers' Association.

  • Counter Information Services: n.d., ‘Unilever's World,’ Report No. 1.

  • Dinham, Barbara and Colin Hines: 1983, Agribusiness in Africa, Earth Resources Research: Birmingham: U.K.

    Google Scholar 

  • Distelheim, Rochelle: 1985, ‘There's a Time Bomb Ticking Inside My Body’, Family Circle, Oct. 98 (14): 46 and ff.

  • Dowie, Mark: Circle of Poison.

  • Epstein, Samuel S.: 1978, The Politics of Cancer, Sierra Club Books: San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ewen, Stuart: 1976, Captains of Consciousness, McGraw- Hill: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fishbein, Laurence: ‘An Overview of Potential Mutagenic Problems Posed by Some Pesticides and Their Trace Inpurities’, Environmental Health Perspectives 27, 126–127.

  • Freudenberg, Nicholas and Ellen Zaltzberg: 1984, ‘From Grassroots Activism to Political Power: Women Organizing Against Environmental Hazards’, in E. Chavkin (ed.), Double Exposure: Women's Health Hazards on the Job and at Home, Monthly Review Press: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freudenberg, Nicholas: 1984, Not in Our Backyards, Monthly Review Press: New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Gore and Storrie Limited: 1982, Canadian National Inventory of Hazards and Toxic Wastes, Ottawa: Environment Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Ross Hume: 1974, Food for Nought: The Decline in Nutrition, Harper and Row: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, Ross Hume: 1981, ‘A New Approach to Pest Control in Canada’, Canadian Environmental Advisory Council, Report No. 10, July: 48.

  • Hart, Fred C. Associates Inc.: 1979, Preliminary Assessment of Cleanup Costs for National Hazardous Waste Problems.

  • Hayden, Dolores: 1981, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities, MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, Rhoda: 1978, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Africa, Croom Helm: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, John, Phil Weller and the Ontario Public Interest Group: 1982, Chemical Nightmare: The Unnecessary Legacy of Toxic Wastes, Between the Lines: Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, John and Phil Weller: 1984, ‘Focus: Chemical Nightmare’, Homemaker's, Oct. 19(8).

  • Labonté, Ron: 1984, ‘Chemical Justice: Dioxin's Day in Court’, This Magazine 17(16), 4–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luxton, Meg: 1980, More Than a Labour of Love, Women's Press: Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Temma: 1982, ‘Female Consciousness and Collective Action: The Case of Barcelona, 1910–1918’, Signs 7(3), 545.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melrose, Dianna: 1982, Bitter Pills: Medecines and the Third World Poor, Oxfam: Oxford, U.K.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moskowitz, Milton, Michael Katz and Robert Levering (eds.); 1980, Everybody's Business: An Almanac, Harper and Row: San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norwood, Christopher: 1985, ‘Terata’, Mother Jones, Jan. X(1), 15–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oakley, Anne: 1975, The Sociology of Housework, Pantheon: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ontario Waste Management Corporation: 1982, Waste Quantities Study.

  • Ontario: Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire Into Waste Management Inc., et cetera: 1978, The Hon. S.H.S. Hughes, March 30.

  • Pedler, Frederick: 1974, The Lion and the Unicorn in Africa: The United Africa Company, 1787–1931, Heinemann: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Proulx, Monique: 1978, Five Million Women: A Study of The Canadian Housewife, Advisory Council on the Status of Women: Ottawa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, Harriet: 1984, ‘The Home is the Workplace: Hazards, Stress and Pollutants in the Household’, in W. Chaukin (ed.). Double Exposure, Monthly Review Press: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, Keith: 1983, ‘Faking It’, Amicus Journal 4(4), 14–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vigod. Toby and Anne Woodsworth: 1982, ‘Captan: The Legacy of the IBT Affair’, Submission on Pesticide Law and Policy to the Consultative Committee on IBT Pesticides on Behalf of the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Pollution Probe.

  • Weir, David and Mark Schapiro: 1981, Circle of Poison, Institute for Food and Development Policy: San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Janet: 1958, What Makes Women Buy: A Guide to Understanding and Influencing the New Woman to Today, McGraw-Hill: New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, Ellen: 1981, ‘The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism’, New Left Review 127, 66–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wynn, Mona: 1985, ‘Selling Mrs. Consumer: Corporate Capitalism and the Domestic Labour Process’, Paper presented at the Women and the Invisible Economy Conference. Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Montreal, February 20–22.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

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.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rosenberg, H. The kitchen and the multinational corporation: An analysis of the links between the household and global corporations. J Bus Ethics 6, 179–194 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382862

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00382862

Keywords

Navigation