[lbo-talk] Servant culture

DoreneFC at aol.com DoreneFC at aol.com
Tue Aug 12 10:31:11 PDT 2003


I find the idea of Ehrenreich going after classism among progressives absolutely delicious. You go girl! And to the feminist intellectuals of the world, some of us aren't anti-intellectual; we just have toilets to clean.

However, as a former occasional paid toilet cleaner, I do not necessarily want to overly romanticize the families some migrants of both sexes leave behind. In my case, I used to spend a lot of time reading Ms magazine, something that would have appalled my mother, between swipes at one customer's bathroom. In the case of migrants, some of what they are leaving behind includes oppressive retrograde parental standards, heavy responsibilities caregiving for other family members, being forcibly married off at young ages, survival prostitution, and other assorted phenomena that I do not automatically get misty-eyed about.

That said, should well-meaning people tired of housework argue it out with their spouses or should they push for immigration reform so their maids and nannies can raise their own kids? Or do we get to vent about the devaluing of nurturing, caregiving "women's work human capital ....? Or should we all line up and lean on conservative columnist Rich Lowry? Today Lowry's column is chirping about some probably discredited studies about the evils of daycare--without of course making any leap to support living wage jobs, social welfare to pay women to care for their young children, or even an end to punitive welfare reform measures???

To take this thread even further, there was a US history teacher in my high school who became famous for, among other things, ranting about "you who have been buying foreign products." By Ehrenreich's logic, why stop at nannies? Why not go after everyone who wears imported shirts more than likely sewn in sweatshops or uses electronics likely also assembled under quite onerous circumstances ? Why not take on all those earnest lefties using their cellphones to coordinate huge unpermitted anti-war rallies?

For myself, I like my gizmos. I see the value of having learned to sew but am really glad a lot of other people do my sewing for me. So if I have a choice, I want for foreign product dollars to buy schools and support living wages and access to consumer goods in the countries where my goods are produced. And we ain't there yet by a long shot.

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