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

I have seen loads of male cleaners. My last two cleaners were both men (well the two before my most immediate one.)

Meh, you start where you can. When the first students who wanted to graduate from higher education pushed for it of course they weren’t asking for the same rights for poor girls. They would have been laughed at. How could they push for rights they didn’t have, for other women, who couldn’t have them due to their education.
White rich feminism was the only way to go for white rich girls. Things changed quickly with WWI and II. It’s too easy to tell the victims that they didn’t do enough for the other victims.

When I had a cleaner she was self-employed. I paid her $150 per week, and she would come one day and work 2-3 hours depending on what needed to be done. I didn't pay her for holidays or vacations but I don't think most self-employed people get paid for holidays or vacations; they build those things into the rates that they charge.

Same with the guy who cuts my grass. He charges me $35/week. If I want additional work done I pay for it separately.

My cleaner is a friend of a friend. She already works part time in a job she loves, but isn't able to increase her hours.

She cleans for me once a week for 2 hrs, I pay her above the going rate, and we're both really happy with the arrangement.

When DD was small, I paid my friends mum to have her at home for one day a week.

"Outsourcing" domestic and childcare work in our case has been money well spent - we have always paid at least the going rate, but it's meant that parts of our lives are less fraught.

Self employed cleaners, include holiday pay and insurance cover in their costs.

My Dsis's cleaner is very well off. Arrives in her new Audi with her vacuum, fit as a fiddle, she is EE and has managed to buy herself a home on her earnings.

Erm no. None work for minimum wage

I don’t think about too deeply. Also why is it only women who are made to feel guilty for outsourcing domestic tasks.

It ‘s a paid job at the end of the day.

Amazing, this completely makes up for zero holiday pay.

It not just lack of holiday pay and sick pay for self employed, it’s also a lack of employer pension contributions, Business insurance costs, public liability costs, materials costs, transport costs from one house to the next, business vehicle insurance.

19/hour self employed is not the cushy wage some on here seem to think it is.

My cleaner takes time off when she wants and just lets me know. She couldn’t do that if she was an employee. Self employment suits many people

Exactly. When I was younger it was totally normal that men would do most of this themselves. I think we are all outsourcing things we don’t want to do anymore.

Nannies do generally get holiday and sick pay

Cleaners generally don’t, so yes they should get it, or be able to charge enough on their freelance rate to cover it themselves. Freelancing only works if your rate is pretty high.

Also everything else about domestic life doesn't disappear just because you have a cleaner. It lightens the load, it doesn't vanish it.

I think your average couple can’t employ the help you’re talking about so no.

Wealthier people do of course, and that help is disproportionately female, but employing women to do domestic work long predates women being more fully in the workplace.

I think you do have a point on the gendered nature of it but I don't think it's straightforward or black and white when it comes to be being able to earn money doing it. There is value attached to cleaning for money in a way there isn't when it's unpaid and it's also good, honest work. I briefly had a cleaner when I went back to work and his hourly rate was a good bit more than mine at the time (he was self employed so it would have to be a decent rate). I would never be opposed to working as a cleaner myself if I didn't have my current job but then I come from a line of domestics on my mum's side and don't see anything inherently demeaning in it. I'd rather clean a hospital or an office or someone else's house than do my own kitchen for the sixty millionth time 😆

I am aware there is exploitation and we need to be aware of it and, well, not exploit other women.

19/hour at 37.5 hours per week with no sick pay, no holiday pay, no work place pension with employer contributions etc class 2 National insurance and tax works out at around minimum wage.

‘Domesticity’ uses up a woman’s time and energy with little to no gain. Hiring someone is a totally different thing.

Oh please op, stop making it seem like women are so hard done by. How many male cleaners, Nannies etc have you seen. Because women would shut that down too. So it is women who have to do these jobs. My nanny and cleaner is paid very well, well above minimum wage so no need to feel sorry for them.

@BeNiceWhenItsFinished or the pay remains low because it's only a woman's job. It's chicken and egg theory really. The lower the salary the lower the socio economic status and the less respect given to the people who do the job.

What are you on about? There are loads of male cleaners. We have an agency and they send a team of people 2-3 at a time it’s about 50/50 male / female though one is male but appears trans - don’t even want to go there as controversial but I would say male - but certainly not all female.

But you probably work 7 or 8 hours per day whereas it's not physically possible for a cleaner to do this

Whereas men work.in physical jobs plumbing, building, labouring for 8 hours plus every day.

Their hourly rates tend to be much higher than rates charged for roles traditionally filled by women. because they are tradesmen who have years of training before qualifying. I recently had a new bathroom put in, there isn't many women who could rip an old bathroom out, carry the new bathroom in up the stairs, carry tiles that are my own body weight, shower doors, heavy toilet and sink and work for 9 hours doing it.

Obviously there are some women doing it, but not many.

I think that white goods were a game-changer for women being able to escape from some domestic drudgery. When fridges became popular, you didn't have to shop on a daily (or every other day) basis. Throwing things in the washing machine and dryer is much quicker than doing it by hand, or putting it through a mangle or on the line. Dishwashers are quicker to load than to wash up. Robotic hoovers do a reasonable job of keeping on top of the floors, if you remember to use them daily.

Childcare... well, we wouldn't be able to work if we didn't have someone else to be there for the children when we were unavailable.

Not everyone has a cleaner, but some men are capable of cleaning, and some people actually seem to like it. I would have no problem with paying to support someone's business if I had a cleaner.

Care of the elderly can only be hired out if the elderly person in question agrees to it. I had a grandparent who would put on a show of being perfectly fit and well to get rid of the carers, and would then suffer for it and be grumpy with the family for the rest of the week.

The thing is... there are hardly any male cleaners, childminders or nursery workers. Now why could that be, one wonders?

Wild stab in the dark time here. Perhaps it has something to do with the work being sheer drudgery and the pay is awful. Most men would not touch that sort of job with a barge pole, but for many women (who have to find part-time roles in order to fit around family commitments), that sort of job is pretty much all that is available.

I think that if some women gain employment as child minders, nannies and cleaners by filling in gaps left by other women not doing so much unpaid work it it is a win for women. Obviously everyone needs to treat each other with respect.

If women don't have paid work and do all their own child care and cleaning then they are totally dependent on men for money. If nine women get office jobs and one woman gets a job cleaning the houses of the others to give them enough time to work in offices then all those women have an independent income stream. It means they can make their own savings, buy their own things, and it will be easier for them to only have relationships with men through choice. This is as true for the woman doing the cleaning as the others.

I was quite upset with a family member recently who was talking about a cleaner that was there for a couple of weeks, twice a week, while he was recovering from an injury. He couldn't get over the fact that she drove a nice car and kept saying he must be paying her too much and it's ridiculous that she is driving around the place like that etc. Like he was offended that she wasn't some poor down and out soul that he was helping in a charitable way. It was like her equal status somehow offended him. I was quite appalled and lost a lot of respect of I'm honest.