Fw: An Article From Slate

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Thu Mar 30 10:40:27 PST 2000



> The "dean of feminist economists," the thoroughly bourgeois Barbara
>Bergmann, said:
>
>>Somehow, nobody ever talks of exploitation of ethnics by
>>"professional white couples" when the husband's mowing is replaced
>>by a Hispanic gardener, or when they eat in a restaurant and are
>>served by a Hispanic waiter. But when the wife's housecleaning is
>>replaced a Hispanic or African American cleaner, that is for some
>>reason considered a terrible
>>sin. The professional wife is passing on "her" shitwork to a
>>minority person, and gets hell for it. And this goes on among
>>people who consider themselves feminists!
>>The people who are sinning are those who refuse to hire qualified
>>minority (and female) labor for the better-paying jobs, which
>>requires them to accept low-paid work, not those who hire them for
>>the latter.
>
>Apparently the existence of low-paid work doesn't trouble her, just
>its raced and gendered slotting.
>
>Doug

That's not fair to Barbara Bergmann. She would say that low-paid work is better than zero-paid unemployment, but that high-paid work is much much better than either...

Brad DeLong



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