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

Try find a provate cleaner for minimum wage 😆😆😆 you realise many of the women who do these jobs may not have the language or other skills to easily get them into other employment? Or that perhaps they like the flexibility that these jobs (like cleaning) offer?

Probably because they don't want it all. The all being housework/the bulk of childcare.

Plus the notion that other members of the household should be involved and not just the woman.

Shouldn't the phenomenon you call "white feminism" really be called "rich feminism"?

My cleaner does 30hrs a week across her clients at £23/hr. Gets holiday pay. That’s over £35k a year. More than most graduates earn within 5 years of leaving university.

The idea that this is minimum wage for the equivalent of working on a chain gang is farcical.

I hire a man to do my gardening and a woman to do my cleaning. They applied for the job / they were who turned up.

I didn’t care what sex they were, I just needed help.

I know. And that's why I don't have an issue with paying her £25 per hour when I earn £17.85 per hour. If she works 6 hours a day and I get paid for 7 then she still out earns me. Great. She's earning a living and so do I and we both do it in a way that suits our needs.

Admittedly a few years ago, but I costed up the price of:

• weekly cleaner, 2h
• weekly housekeeper, 2h
• fortnightly gardener
• fortnightly handyman (obvs wouldn't use fortnightly but averaging over a year)
• fortnightly PA, 2h

It came to something like £12000. More now, obviously.

I am dying from the exhaustion of working and parenting but I cannot let myself get a cleaner. It’s just one of those internal barriers from being WC. I used to be a cleaner too and was always struck by women paying me and their husbands seeming like they had loads of time on their hands (gaming whilst I was there). I would not be paying for a cleaner if my husband was at home ‘working from home/ gaming’

PP has it in one. Men are not judged if they hire a garden or tree surgeon for example. We have a cleaner via an agency. Properly paid with holiday leave etc. Sometimes the cleaner sent by the agency is male. If someone is properly employed/paid then why are we made to feel bad about it?

Not new, always been the same. Everyone had servants if they could possibly afford them, maids, cooks, odd job men, whatever. Financially poor women went into service Below Stairs, Lark Rise to Candleford are autobiographies and show domestic service was very much the norm for poor girls. It's only in the last century things changed, I think, wages, labour supply, technology all had a part to play.
My great aunt, born sometime in the 1890s, never married and became a housekeeper to a male relative, her cousin similarly. Domestic skills were valued.

My next door neighbour’s gardeners come as often as their cleaners. Once a week.

When I could afford it, I outsourced my cleaning because I hate it and I am happy to pay someone else to do it.

My clients outsourced their admin to me. They could have done it but preferred not to.

As long as the job is paid well and no one is forced into it, what’s the difference between hiring someone to do your admin and to do your cleaning?

The care crisis is a brilliant example of what happens when women withdraw from the work they previously did for free and zero appreciation and acknowledgment. Dh granny cared for her own parents and in laws at home.

Women now are either working or refuse to do this anymore so it has to be paid for and my god it costs a lot. I find it infuriating the little value placed on women’s labour.

You have a point, but the one of the big arguments is that we don’t recognise the economic value of caring/domestic responsibilities. Outsourcing them does put a price on them which recognises this.

We have a cleaner and we are not high earners - but I’m hopeless at it and it makes me miserable. and DH did not do his fair share.

This way, there are no arguments and it comes out of household income.

As long as people are paid and treated well I don’t see a problem.

Our cleaners are a team usually a mix of men and women. I find this op so odd and misogynistic. Is op saying women should do certain jobs in the house for free because they are women and should feel guilty if they do not? But hiring men to do gardening etc or mechanics to sort the car is acceptable? That is actually fucking insane.

You’d be lucky to get a cleaner for under £20 ph where I am.

But you probably work 7 or 8 hours per day whereas it's not physically possible for a cleaner to do this. Her hourly rate includes travel to the home and prep. If she is working a full day that's at best 2 x 3 hour cleans so 6 hours wages for a full day of physical labour.

My lovely cleaner is a man.

Their hourly rates tend to be much higher than rates charged for roles traditionally filled by women.

Its still all seen as womens work !

In the past, we would have had more community and extended family to help with a lot of those things that now we pay out for.
Men escape lots of things that they want done but dont want to do too!
I don't think many men feel much shame at hiring other men to do stuff

Things are changing though. Childminders in Ireland will all have to be registered by Sept 2027. It’s a transitional period at the moment and people are encouraged to register.

Why do you feel that way?
Do you not think a man would do a good job?
Do you view it as women's work?
Do you have trust issues with men?

If the latter are you happy with men coming in for other jobs such as plumbing, plstering etc..

Delegation gives employment opportunities to other women.

It is no different to any other service, childminders and cleaners are not earning pittance, it usually suits their lifestyle too, by allowing them flexibility whilst earning.

I don't use these services, my Dsis has an important job, her dog walker and cleaner earn very well.

These jobs usually fall to other women as men generally work full time too, outside the home.

My sister in law is a loud and proud feminist with a high level corporate job, but pays an Eastern European cleaner minimum wage to clean for her. So yes I see your point.