AIBU to think women escaped domesticity by hiring other women to do it?

It means you are sitting in judgement of the value of someone's chosen profession.

Nope, I’m not sitting in judgement of the worker, but the employer. When someone is a servant to a private individual, the risk of exploitation even modern slavery type power dynamics goes through the roof.

There is a difference between a public/civil servant and a private servant.
It’s not hypocrisy to distinguish between the two and come to the conclusion that hiring workers (public servants) for public services like waste management, public transport, social care, MPs, firefighters, MI5, police, military is ok so long as all are treated equitably and are paid a decent wage but to be against private servants that are hired by a private individual to serve their person.

And you really have jumped the shark going on about “participating in a capitalist society” because all this is independent of who owns the means of production in society. Every society pre capitalism or without capitalism, and you still have private servants.😆

You already have "serving women" and "serving men" cleaning up after you. It isn't fairies who empty your bins and drive your buses and clean the places you shop and work and get your dental treatments done, and serve you in bars and restaurants and shops. All of these people are "serving men and women". By participating in a capitalist society you are already being a hypocrite. I also want working people to have fair terms and conditions of employment. But to suggest that offering them no employment at all is the way to go about it seems utterly absurd. It means you are sitting in judgement of the value of someone's chosen profession. The mere fact that you would refer to a cleaner as a "serving woman" is evidence of this.

Oh no, they count too especially where we have drifted towards insecure zero hours contracts. And I’m not happy, I participate in activism to close inequality gaps so I’m hardly going to be a hypocrite about it and have my own serving woman cleaning up after me.

I don’t understand that line of logic. How does centuries of paying a low daily rate attach value that wasn’t already there? It has had low value all along regardless of whether someone is earning a few bob to do it.

So you are comfortably perpetuating the subordination of both working class men and women every time you get on public transport, go to the doctors surgery, go to the supermarket, buy ANYTHING, send your child to nursery or school or university, have a coffee. Cleaners work in all of these fields, let alone the rest of the jobs that are "drudgery" type jobs but don't seem to count because they are outside the private sphere. If you're happy to avail of the subordination of workers in other areas of life then what difference does it make where they do their work?

I think it attaches value to something that is otherwise not valued.

Well ofc they are! Whosoever pays, man or woman, is directly participating in the perpetuation of the subordination of working class women (and an handful of working class men) into domestic drudgery.

Just like men & women paying for sugar in 1805 were actively participating in and benefiting from enslaving Africans for sugar plantation labour.

So true

I think when women make the comment about cleaning there own home as a point of pride i think to myself they must have very little to be proud of.

Hear hear! 👏

I think when women make the comment about cleaning there own home as a point of pride i think to myself they must have very little to be proud of. Reminds me of old aunties who would make sure the front of the house was kept up because by God we may be poor but we are clean. It's strange to me. The absolute disrespect for cleaners on this thread is wild, how arrogant do you have to be to think women who work in household service roles are doing the dirty jobs. This sounds like classic liberal rubbish who on behalf of an entire group of people think they know what's good what's bad and who should be doing what. When you read between the flowery attempts at compassion you can see clearly how hateful and demeaning op and women like her can be.

paying a cleaner £15/hr is not necessarily the same as a cleaner earning £15/hr
Lots of people don't seem to notice that

Outsourced to men too?

My gardener, window cleaner, gutter and drain cleaner… all men.

my car…. Cleaned by men

my carpet cleaner… man

My grandmother had a live-in maid in the 1940s; this was normal for middle-class families, even less well off ones. She worked outside the home as a teacher. These days she wouldn't have had a maid as appliances do most of the work, but she might have a cleaner and would definitely need paid childcare. Women have always outsourced work - wetnurses, laundrymaids, cooks, nannies, governesses, housekeepers etc etc, it's nothing new.

The first part of my post was for @tinytemper66 (sorry if that wasn't clear tiny)

The second part of my rant was for everyone on this thread and the other aforementioned thread and op who think that women are subordinating other women by paying for help with cleaning their homes.

Although I’m trembling with fear by the response!!

I don’t know why you are so het up about my contractual agreement with my cleaner,

vaguely intrigued

It’s not complicated: [3hrs x hourly rate x 52 weeks year] divided by 12 and invoiced monthly

have you agreed a maximum amount of holiday over the year she’d take before the payment would reduce?

Bloomin heck!!!

I think you need to get outside for some fresh air!

She get’s holiday pay. Wtf do you think I mean?

It’s not complicated: [3hrs x hourly rate x 52 weeks year] divided by 12 and invoiced monthly. If we go away and don’t need her to come that week, she is still paid for the 3 hours; she has 3 weeks a year when she likes to go away, but she still gets the 3hrs pay as its included in the above calculation.

My friends, whether contracting directly or via an agency do the same, only they will be sent an alternate cleaner when theirs is on holiday if using an agency. I’m not privy to the legal and contractual arrangements their agencies have with their cleaners, but feel free to contact a few in your area if this is distressing you.

I don’t know why you are so het up about my contractual agreement with my cleaner, but yes as a self employed person, she has factored holiday/sick pay into her pricing and our agreement.

Hang on a minute @Auldy

at least ask “why” before pouncing

I think any job you are paid for is by definition an escape from domesticity, a word which broadly means working without remuneration to run your own household. You've taken one job that happens to involve being paid to, say, clean, and decided it is exploitative to women. Maybe out of the available minimum wage jobs, women prefer the ones they're likely already quite good at, and men prefer the ones where they are employed for their physical strength. As long as all jobs are open to all who can fulfil the requirements, I'm not sure it makes sense to say women are being subjugated because they take domestic roles more often. In the other scenario of women not being in the workforce, there are fewer jobs, no financial independence for either woman who is now employed, and lower overall standards of living (from a GDP POV).

But actually you avail of the services of cleaners all the time. All the lovely, middle-class women twisting themselves in knots about the morality of hiring a cleaner are availing of their services every single day. You all go and do your jobs in offices, schools, hospitals, supermarkets, retail and factories, that are cleaned by other people. But that kind of cleaning is ok because you don't have to look at it when they come in at 6am. Its only when women ask for help at home it's an issue.

My parent's cleaner used her cleaning wages to pay for her horses! They paid her well over minimum wage. As long as you pay your cleaner well treat them well, I don't see what the problem is?

For what reason?
financial?
no need?
didn’t want?
some kind of moral aversion?

Anyone I know that has the kind of help pay very well - nannies can earn well, cleaners get at least £15-20/hour near me, private cooks certainly demand decent salaries. And these are good, ‘honest’ jobs. I do know a couple cleaners who are Polish, but they do it as it provides flexibility. But otherwise all the ones I know (Nannies, childminders, even the two cooks/housekeepers) are English.
Of course if both parents work they will have to pay for childminding. A few I know pay for cleaner once a week. I only know two people who have a cook and/or housekeeper. They are trained and do well. One couple (he died maintenance she dies cooking/cleaning) have their own cottage provided. One nanny gets to travel with the family and enjoys that immensely.
So while I get your point many of these jobs are done by women, I’d argue that many of these women want to do those jobs. And I think there’s a snobbery it considering these jobs as unworthy or burdensome.