So non-feminists are like shabbas goys, they can hire and exploit domestics? Because after all, as Joan Robinson oncew said, the only thing worse, in a capiatlist economy, than being exploited, is not being exploited.
She
> thinks it's a bad idea because she thinks it drives
> a wedge between
> professional/managerial women who are feminists and
> women who do manual
> labor.
Better they shouldn't have contact with those women ata ll, except maybe with the clerical and custidial staff at their offices? Because those women aren't going to be hanging out a Starbucks chatting union with feminsit women lawyers and bond managers.
I don't think this is the problem she makes
> it out to be,
Good.
but I
> do agree with her that feminists have had to deal
> with the fact that
> those who speak and write about feminist issues have
> tended to reflect
> the interests and concerns of
> professional/managerial women, often
> excluding the voices of lesbians, poor women, women
> who do manual
> labor, women of color in the US, and third world
> women.
I dunno, you know this literature better than I do, but I have been hearing this self-flagelalting lament for 30 years, and I don't think it is true. People do write from their own perspective -- no duh -- but there's no "exclusion;" in the stuff I haveread there's beena systematic and pretty concerted attempt to take class, race, and especially lesbianianism into account. Too much of it has taken the form of moaning about how the voices of lesbian third world women of color are excluded, but the better feminist writers and scholars have been hypersensitive about inclusiveness, in my view.
I thibk the servant thing is an issue because of complex feelings of guilt. Hiring a nanny or a housekeeper seems intimatea nd persoan in a way thatusing a few minutes od a store clerk's time doesn't, and with nannies in particular there is the added sense that one is paying them are too to little for every imporatnt work, plus there is the whole upstairs-downstairs thing that goes with having servants.
Personally, I wish I could persuade mi espouza to allow us to hire a housekeeper. But she has the same deal as you all, and so I end up doing 60% of the cleaning-type housework because I care about it and she doesn't. Arrg. It's not likeI 'm not busy enough.
jks
>
>
> Kelley
>
> ___________________________________
>
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