Liza
> From: Kelley <the-squeeze at pulpculture.org>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:42:01 -0400
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Queen for a Day
>
> At 03:14 PM 7/16/03 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> Liza Featherstone wrote:
>>> Poor neighborhoods have more nail
>>> salons than rich ones
>> And the hair salons are open until very late. I've seen women in a
>> Dominican neighborhood of Manhattan getting their hair done at 10 on a
>> Sunday night.
>>
>> Doug
>
> well, that's because they work odd hours, spend Saturday cleaning their own
> abodes, and wait 'til 10 when the kiddles are in bed so they don't have to
> pay a sitter, just ask a neighbor to keep an eye out. :)
>
> Apparently, someone here argued that po' and working class folk don't get
> their hair cut or get their nails done. Who said dat?
>
> I agree with Liza that nail salons aren't priced out of the budget ranges
> of working class women. I wondered if they really made such a great
> wage--and I'm _really_ troubled by claims that people make a good wage if
> they're clearing even $15/hr. Why is that "good"?
>
> Also, just a quibble, I don't think that the # of salons by neighborhood is
> a good indicator to support that argument. Awhile ago, I read a
> dissertation on the rise of nail salons, gender, and ethnicity. In it the
> author examined the stats and pointed out that where salons are located are
> a function of other things: 1. affordability of rents; 2. zoning
> ordinances; 3. the well-to-do use full service salons, spas, and
> manicurists who make housecalls. So, counting free-standing salons doesn't
> always signal that working class women spend more on nails or have them
> done more frequently. however, this dissertation was about the way in which
> nail salons blossomed in recent years and that it did so "democratically."
> LIza's statement reminded me of the diss's careful reading of the stats and
> their drawbacks.
>
> Jenny mentioned something about women who do manual labor working hard to
> look as if they don't. When I was getting my hair done Sunday, I listened
> to my stylist explain the acrylic v. fiberglass nail concept to a man
> wishing to buy a gift certificate for someone. This was precisely the
> selling point: "If she works with her hands a lot, her nails probably break
> and chip a lot right? That's why you get these, they're stronger and that
> way your real nails can grow and get stronger underneath."
>
> You're soaking in it!
>
> Madge
>
> At 01:05 PM 7/16/03 -0400, jbujes at covad.net wrote:
>> I
>> now pay a woman $20/hour to come and clean house twice a month. I also
>> give her paid
>> vacation once a year and a $100 bonus for xmas. She takes 100% of the
>> money herself
>> and it's tax free, cause she doesn't work for an agency.
>
> You know, this is actually an interesting response because I think it's
> getting at what Ehrenreich was pointing to, but never articulated
> particularly well. I was thinking this while getting my hair done. Let me
> point out, though, Joanna, that I don't think anyone is a bad person for
> hiring a maid. I don't think one is a bad feminist, either. E's discussion
> is simply interesting and worth discussing.
>
> The reason why E worries about feminists taking on the employer role here
> is exemplified by your post. I think she's saying that the nature of the
> work takes on the worst characteristics of the employer/employee relation.
> If you think relations of production matter--that they shape
> consciousness--then this is damaging to feminist solidarity. (Personally, I
> think there are worse things to worry about... but nonetheless)
>
> As you are probably aware, contractors frequently argue that they must earn
> at least double what a salaried FT equivalent makes in order to clear the
> same wages/benefits. A techwriter who contracts asks for $20/hr and this
> appears to be ~40k/yr. Not really, says the contractor, because I have to
> pay taxes, provide my own unemployment and disability insurance, buy my own
> health insurance and save for retirement. And, because it is contract work,
> I take greater risks, have higher overhead costs, and more administrative
> costs than an FTE.
>
> Same thing for a maid. She must also pad herself for short time between
> jobs or spend time always making sure she has new clients lined up (and
> this extends her working day). Otherwise, there is dead time when she's not
> working.
>
> Similarly, it takes time to move from client to client each day; that $20/
> is stretched over dead time. I don't think that the 5, 10, 30 minutes
> driving to the next job is accurately called a "break" any more than I
> think that kindergarten teachers pay is justified b/c they love the work so
> much that the job is reward in and of itself)
>
> She also has administrative costs in time: taking calls for new clients,
> interviewing with them, taking calls if a client is unhappy.
>
> If you add all of this up, one shouldn't assume that she's making $20/hr
> 2040 hrs/yr. It is more like $12.00 and that's not a living wage in your
> neck o' the woods. (Again, I'm not blaming you b/c most of us don't think
> this through. It's to our advantage not to do so.)
>
> Paternalism came in the form of thinking a maid should be grateful for the
> "extras" an employer gave a maid. I don't think any employee on the planet
> should ever, ever be asked to be grateful for gifts of hand me down clothes
> and cast off household goods. Those things are fine as far as they go,
> but... Workers are never, ever paid what their labor is worth to begin
> with: raises, gifts, bonuses are not gifts.
>
> If a CEO told a union organizer to "Go ahead and tell my employees they're
> being ripped off, we take care of 'em real swell and they _like_ what
> they're doing because it's better than punching keypads at the Safeway"
> what would be the typical lefty response? Applause? I think not.
>
> That's where Ehrenreich's argument didn't go far enough, nor any of the
> chapters in Global Woman that I've read thus far. But those chapters I have
> read, have explained the employer/employee relationship in a way that might
> get at what Ehrenreich experienced and why she came away from that
> experience down on the idea of feminists hiring maids.
>
> Because it is work you could do yourself but choose not to, you must pay
> less than you earn in order to make it worth your while. A kind of
> quasi-capitalist orientation: I pull in this much money, I have this much
> free time. In order to buy more free time and keep as much of my earnings
> as possible so I can buy other things, I need to pay a maid less per hour
> than I make. Very few people are willing to pay as much or more as they
> earn because it isn't worth it. Some may, but the majority do not. Since it
> hasn't yet (and probably won't be) understood as work that takes a special
> talent, there is very little bargaining power. I am not surprised that we
> end up justifying our decision to do so, by claiming that a maid is happier
> in her work than she would be were she, say, a manicurist, a cashier, or a
> barmaid.
>
> As for paternalism. What I was getting at was something that came up while
> you were gone. I said to Woj at the time that his claims that Whole Foods
> workers shouldn't fuss so about the anti-unionism of owners because it was
> better than that they'd face in other industries with a different, less
> progressive employer. It reminded me of the men in Arlie Hochschild's
> _Second Shift_ who point to the beer guzzling, wife beater tee shirt
> wearing, belching guys in the next neighborhood and say, "Hey, I don't do
> half of the housework, but at least I'm not like HIM." as if you're
> supposed to be grateful for less than what you deserve.
>
> If feminists are going to concern themselves with the way men try to
> negotiate more free time to themselves by not picking up their share of the
> housework, then I can't see why Ehrenreich is so horribly out of line when
> she points out that feminists who hire maids are doing the same. Again, I'm
> not saying you should stop hiring a maid.
>
> Just questions I'm curious about: I'm not sure we want to say that someone
> should make what they make because the cost of reproducing their labor is
> less than someone else's do we? That is, if a maid doesn't have children,
> lives by herself, does it follow that she should make less because she
> doesn't spend as much time cooking and cleaning?
>
> Also, we've been talking about beauty standards so I wonder: How could we
> mediate the politics involved here under a socialist economy? To say that,
> fr'instance, pedicures are a kind of obligation to others aesthetic
> pleasure is a political claim now. It takes on a different, no less
> political contour in a socialist economy, no?
>
> Kelley
>
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