>I have been debating whether to wade back into this one, and I have
>not been meticulously reading some of the longer posts, so apologies
>if I duplicate stuff other people have already said.
>
>There is a thread in Ehrenreich's critique of lifestyle choices that
>to me seems to imply that women are the ones responsible for cleaning
>up global inequalities.
I didn't see one iota of evidence provided--from anyone who made this claim--that this is true. I read the book. I can't find any evidence of sneering at lifestyles or any claims that women are responsible for cleaning up global inequalities.
>That the book does not take on wider dynamics of immigration policy
>for both sexes and all divided families of immigrant labor seems like
>a major weakness to me. But writing about policies that deliver
>millions of people to US shores for exploitation and cream-skimming of
>local professional classes such as health care workers is probably a
>whole separate book
Global Woman, by Arlie Hochschild and Barbara Ehrenreich. It is an edited collection of research monographs on immigrant domestics in the US, Great Britain, Canada, Asia. They explore the lives of housekeepers, nannies, and maids,
>I agree with the posters who called her book an ethnography. As such
>the book states a lot that is painfully gruesomely obvious to anyone
>who has ever worked in the service industry or talked for more than 10
>seconds with people who do this work. Since other people do not
>automatically think of these points unless the info is smeared focibly
>in their faces, an ethnography has important functions.
>
>However, I think the postings below and Ehrenreich as represented on
>this list are both being consarnedly patronizing. Who the hell is
>Barbara Ehrenreich or anyone on this list to tell a desparately poor
>woman from another country that we are "polluting" her life with
>filthy cash?
She doesn't say this. If anything, it seems to me that the whole point is, aside from explaining how hard it is to survive on the wages these people earn, she wants _far more_ cash offered these women. Not at as a gift, but because it is work that is actually worth being paid for. \What is a problem is the attitude that people have about hiring domestics: while I _could_ do it myself, I'm in a position not to, so I'll pay someone to do it for me, but no way on earth will I pay someone as much or _more_ than I earn in order to get that work done.
Ask people who hire domestics if they would pay their hourly rate, especially ask them if, like you, they can't stand housework, feel incompetent at it, etc. Would they? I bet you that you will find a very slim minority of people who will substitute their own housework with the domestic labor of someone else if they had to pay as much or more than they earn.
There's a reason for that: housework and childcare has a mythology built up around it that means that we simultaneously glorify and denigrate it. The result is an ideology sometimes expressed on this list. It doesn't get expressed when it comes to other kinds of labor, particularly not labor associated with men. I recently hired two movers when I realized that, unlike previous moves, there was no way I could get the sofa/sleeper moved by myself. Everything else, no sweat. But the sofa/sleeper down a flight of stairs, no way. I _felt_ like hiring kids to do it for less than I make per hour. Heck, some friends even offered to do it for free. So, I forked out nearly four times what I make to hire two professionals who have insurance, experience, special equipment to make the moving easier, and know what they are doing/their limitations. I'm not patting myself on the back: I'm pointing out that I hired help for something I couldn't do myself and paid for it.
>But to me it is a complete no-brainer that both sides of the cash for
>housework transaction can be better off, the one because of getting
>the housework done, the other because doing, say, housework in most
>households might be far preferable to other work options either in the
>US or in other countries.
the immigrants who end up as domestics in the US think otherwise, mainly because they are so poorly paid. $250/week or so for 24/7 work and being expected to sleep with the kids or in a closet? Being patronized? Etc? They aren't just patronized b/c of the proclivities of individuals. It's systematic and it results from the way people think of domestic labor/race/gender.
kelley