(FORTUNE Magazine) – An idea need not make a whole lot of sense to get into Nexis, which explains why our favorite computerized database was able to offer up 34 news stories when we asked to look at any in which ''housework'' appears within 30 words of ''GNP.'' As you have already guessed, the stories are about women's movement stalwarts jumping up and down and demanding that our government include the value of unpaid housework in the gross national product (or, reflecting a recent revolution in the Commerce Department, the gross domestic product). Owing to the inherently progressive nature of this crusade, which has captivated several generations of feminists, the news stories were uniformly sympathetic. Not one of them compared the crusade to Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks. It must be admitted that the Ford Foundation dissents from your servant's perspective, as is its right. It supplied funds to help along the ''international conference'' held in April at Pitzer College, in Claremont, California, for the purpose of furthering the cause. Operating on the same astral plane and cheered on by the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, Representative Barbara-Rose Collins (D-Michigan) has introduced a bill requiring the government to (a) place a value on ''unwaged work'' and (b) get those values into the GNP and GDP. Too timid to guffaw in Barbara-Rose's face, the House subcommittee on labor-management relations is glumly wondering if it has to hold hearings on the issue. How do you assign a value to unpaid work around the house? Usual answer: You calculate what it would have cost madame to hire all the chefs and babysitters and maintenance personnel needed to do her job. Tougher question: Precisely how is madame any better off if these costs are registered in the national economic accounts? What is the point of the whole exercise? Many have marched to the plate and had a swing at this question, but none have made contact. Sometimes (e.g., in the ''findings'' accompanying Barbara-Rose's bill) it is said that we gotta do it because the Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1985, proclaimed it a great idea. Strike one. Carol Clark of Guilford College enthuses that it would boost GNP by 25% to 40%. Our own view is that we could get the figure up to 80% if we counted the work performed by men in getting dressed by themselves in the morning, instead of hiring a valet. Anyhow, strike two. An organization calling itself the Wages for Housework Campaign argues that ''most of the work women do is invisible and unpaid, and any welfare, pensions, benefits, or services we receive are considered not a right . . . but a charity,'' yet fails to explain how this situation would change if unpaid work were being registered in the GNP. You're out. But we know you'll be back.