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Mormonism and Multilevel Marketing Companies

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139 points cdepman | 2 comments | 18 Jul 20 15:30 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bcatanzaro ◴[18 Jul 20 17:10 UTC] No.23882880[source]▶
Stay-at-home moms are another big reason for this besides the missionary experience. It is very common for Utah Mormon women to stay at home raising children.

The traditional full-time workplace totally disrespects that choice. SAHMs are not compensated for the hard work they do. It makes sense they would look for something part time to do to make a little money and think about something besides kids. But how can they do that in the traditional American workplace that expects 40+ hours a week and a resume with no gaps?

Many MLMs are built for SAHMs. They build on SAHM social networks and many of them are explicitly about making domestic life more bearable (kitchen gadgets, home goods, clothes, beauty and health products).

I think there’s a story here about SAHMs as a neglected overlooked and disrespected population, and how MLMs fill a need for them.

BTW, I hate MLMs generally, I’m just pointing out that Mormon missionary service isn’t the only thing attracting MLMs to Utah.

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ineedasername ◴[18 Jul 20 17:51 UTC] No.23883220[source]▶
To say they're not compensated is a fundamental misunderstanding of such a relationship, when it's really very simple: there is a pool of tasks that need to get done, and between the two partners there is a division of labor on who performs which tasks, often with at least a little overlap. If the person who works for pay happens to mop the floor at home, is that "uncompensated"?

Take a relationship where both people work, mine: My spouse does laundry. I go food shopping and cook. To say that either of us is uncompensated for those tasks is a complete misapplication of the term, and a gross oversimplification that attempts to reduce the rewards of effort to solely lie in the monetary realm.

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coliveira ◴[18 Jul 20 17:59 UTC] No.23883303[source]▶
You write as if there is a division of work between the couple. That would be true if men and women could decide who would stay at home and who would work at a company. In fact, women are required by their society to stay at home, so this is in fact a relation of oppression.
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1. ineedasername ◴[18 Jul 20 18:28 UTC] No.23883584[source]▶
No, I don't write like that. I'm fully aware of lack of choice and societal pressure. It is not strictly relevant to the "compensation" question. The imposition of the social order doesn't mean there isn't still just a set pool of tasks that have to get done, and each person does some of them. My partner can't cook and go food shopping to plan out meals. Not in their skill set. I have little choice in bearing that responsibility for my household. That still doesn't make me "uncompensated" for the task. The situations you speak of are just a matter of degree in that way, not a difference in kind.

You appear to be conflating value with compensation. Unfortunately society often seems to value the work done by the at-homeartner less. That is a different issue than compensation. The issue of compensation is personal to the relationship. To say one person is uncompensated completely ignores the fact that it is a partnership with a pool of resources and a pool of responsibilities. Sometimes there's more or less choice in involved in how those responsibilities are distributed, but dividing things into one person does this and gets this etc., acts as if there were two separate systems. There aren't. It's a relationship, a single system.

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2. anang ◴[18 Jul 20 18:39 UTC] No.23883711[source]▶
I think it’s fair to say that, generally speaking, individuals conflate value and compensation, especially when it’s related to a job being done.

That feeling of performing uncompensated work is what OP is claiming MLMs are taking advantage of.