Exploiting women to support yourself

I don't see anyone entirely excusing women, simply pointing out that far from having more responsibility for this than men as the argument in the OP suggests, we have less. Sure, a lot of the individual women who've had power have reinforced equality. That doesn't change the fact that we have less of it than men, and pointing this out isn't trying to excuse anything. It's simply placing the appropriate amount of responsibility in the appropriate places.

You cannot absolve all women from active support for capitalism and supporting the status quo though, KickAss. Janet Yellen, Christine Lagarde, and the next leader of the world's largest economy, Hillary Clinton. In the UK we had Margaret Thatcher who quite happily gave no fucks for the poorer elements of society. I don't see any of them rushing to overturn the system.

I think that really the main point of the problem is that the mc DO benefit from/exploit the wc (and upper class from the mc etc) and I'm very 'no shit, Sherlock' about that.

Making it about MC women going to work is just blaming women for how capitalism operates, in a society where men are the main decision makers, so they are the ones who invented that this aspect of inequality.

Capitalism relies on a certain % of the population being flexible for times of boom and bust. The people who get shoved into that 'flexible' category are the ones with the least agency. That doesn't mean that women are exploiting women, it means that capitalism (and the most powerful/influential people within it) are exploiting the more vulnerable.

Assuming you are exploiting anyone who earns NMW, then that is around 1.3 million in the UK <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/413415/The_National_Minimum_Wage_Low_Pay_Commission_Report_2015.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2015 low pay commission report.
In full time work, women have 28% of total jobs and only 18% of NMW jobs, so more exploitation of men. In part time roles, women have 22% of all part-time jobs, but 41% of NMW part time roles.
Overall, women have a larger % of NMW roles than total jobs, but mainly due to the number working part-time.
Still not sure why employing a cleaner is middle-class women exploiting working class women, but buying a McDonalds is not.

Then pay a decent wage instead of all this hand wringing. Still does not explain why it's a women's problem.

Lass, OP doesn't come across as trying to prove such hiring is exploitative, rather as being concerned that it might be.

Oh and Grim I agree.

If I can't discuss the idea (which is not my idea) that middle class women benefit from taking advantage of other women on a feminism board, where can I?

I'm extremely frustrated to be told that I'm part of the problem when I just wanted to deconstruct an argument that I find challenging in lots of ways

You are extremely frustrated because you were expecting posters to agree with you. Posting some twaddle from the Guardian's women page and Caitlin Moran does not make your case any more persuasive. Very far from it.

You still have failed to explain why one person paying another person to do a job is somehow grossly exploitative if the person paying is a middle class woman.

Heavens, Grimarse, you are a tedious gent, are you not?

I don't think anyone's said you can't discuss the idea OP, but since when does a discussion mean nobody can tell you when you're wrong? Some of the things you've said don't hold up to scrutiny. I wouldn't have come out and said you're part of the problem, but it is true that some of the ways you've characterised this issue suggest that the domestic labour of middle class families is the responsibility of the women. That needed to be deconstructed. This isn't a gender issue, it's a class issue.

I think another point that needs making here is that this argument only focuses on the traditionally female labour that gets passed on to other people at low wages. There's a song and dance about middle class families using cleaners and nurseries, but not painters and decoraters, taxi drivers or landscape gardeners. The things more stereotypically associated with men. Men who can afford to employ other men to do these household related duties aren't accused of exploiting other men. We could usefully discuss why that is.

There we go - normal service has been resumed.

Blaming men entirely for not being held accountable for the women they exploit and take advantage of?

Asking that men are held responsible for anything from their own sex drive to taking care of the children they produce and the homes needed to nurture their offspring?

Good idea!

What you cannot do on this board, ever, Fela, is acknowledge that women have agency, or that they can ever be responsible for doing bad things. It just isn't on. Find a way of blaming men entirely, and you will be fine and dandy.

Lastly, I think this 'care deficit' because of women leaving is significant. The women in a society are assigned to eat shit, because they're women. When they're no longer present to eat the shit, the problem is seen to be them not being there. Rather than with a system that used them to eat all the shit in the first place.

Oh bloody hell, you're right.

The problem isn't that we're exploiting the women and stopping them care for their own families (well, obviously that is a problem, but it's not the only one) - it's that by exploiting them, it's seen as doubly bad because now their families have to fend for themselves too - talk about getting you coming and going! Either you're a terrible exploiter, or you're the exploited who's also abandoning her responsibilities at home.

It's 'worse' than when men go abroad to work, because well, at least mum's still at home to look after the kids then :S

I don't think anyone's blaming you for having invented the idea that middle class women are outsourcing their domestic labour OP, just saying it's a flawed way to look at it. Which you don't disagree with, I think? We've all been socialised to think of caring labour as women's work. It can't be unlearned just like that. So some of the things you say betray your socialisation that this is fundamentally the responsibility of women, which is wrong. Surely none of us are immune to that, but it needs getting out of the way before a discussion can achieve anything.

EE is a particularly interesting example because their history of women in the workplace is if anything more extensive than ours. We can discuss Eastern European women, triggered by the radio programme that interested you, whilst also acknowledging that the premise of the programme was wrong.

I think Maoist Rebel News might be coming from a particular viewpoint

Of course they are - rather obvious in the site name, isn't it? I linked to it because I consider it a good source for that particular viewpoint. I should hope that, since we are feminists here, not capitalists, people here would be open to consider that point of view.

If your child grows out of shoes, gym shoes and non-school shoes six weeks before the end of the year, and their trousers don't fit, and your bath waste pipe bursts, all in the same week, and you have enough money left for food budgeted, then actually, you might find yourself in Primark looking for the cheapest way to clothe your child.

I understand why you go to Primark. But that doesn't make it non-exploiting. The reason why you don't have to have your children run around naked or in ill-fitting clothes is because people in third world countries are on that step of the ladder now - and not because those on top of the ladder have a sustainable lifestyle in our part of the world.

That's my life described and I actually am not in a minimum wage job, I get all the ethical arguments, I don't buy new fashions etc, but I am can't see how blaming mostly women for the condition other women work in helps any of us.

I do blame men most. But I doubt that going to an MRA forum and opening a thread titled "Have you considered the ways in which you are oppressing women in the third world, and how you could stop doing that?" would achieve anything.
The thinking will have to be done by feminists. By women. We can then advocate for political changes that force men to stop exploiting women. But asking men nicely won't achieve anything.

I do think that the article I linked to holds some truth also for the potential for a feminist revolution.
We need to be aware of the fact that patriarchal oppression has not been abolished, it has simply been shifted towards women in the third world.

Depending on how much money you do have, you may not actually be able to change anything you do based on understanding this - but with so many women believing that "women aren't oppressed here", we need more awareness of that the oppression of women not happening here doesn't mean the patriarchy here isn't responsible for it.

Well, in the context of the poorer EU countries it's wrong to frame any current care deficit as a consequence of the move away from a one income family. Because that's not been part of these societies for decades. Communist rule meant that both parents were generally in paid work, whether they wanted to be or not.

You misunderstand me. When I say as a consequence of women working, I mean in the context of a societal shift away from single income families with the woman doing housekeeping to dual income families where both parties work. That is a gendered shift

What are you suggesting then ? I'm still struggling to see why I'm exploiting the people my husband and I paid , and are still paying, to make our domestic lives run more smoothly are being exploited by me but not by him.

The way you talk about it is part of the problem, is what I'm saying. And you're demonstrating that on here.

Women have always worked, just usually it's been on a class basis (ie working class) and not for the monetary/social status rewards that men have had. Once that spread to more women and middle class women, that's when it became a social problem.

Many of them had professional jobs in their home country that don't pay as well, and it's leaving a care deficit behind too more like there are no jobs for them, in many of these countries, unemployment is extremely high. They are not leaving professional jobs to be cleaners, they have professional qualifications but can't make ends meet and so would prefer to start immediately in 'unskilled' jobs (ones which don't require formal qualifications, they usually do require some type of skill) in somewhere like the UK.

These are not necessarily destination jobs for them either- the Eastern European cleaners I have known or employed have immediately got promoted to managers or transfer to other jobs or go to nightschool to get qualifications. Similarly, when I was young, I worked as a cleaner (chambermaid), waitress, shop work, all of which made me really keen not to have to do this type of work for long hours for many years.

The gender divide is there in terms of the type of jobs that people are comfortable doing and that their host country expects- so you find that men tend to do gardening or working on taxis, and women doing cleaning and care jobs. That's not hard and fast; I know some male cleaners, unfortunately our male EE cleaner at work turned out to be a sex attacker and was prosecuted for molesting students. There are male cleaners though, but fewer of them. This gender divide is not coming from outside the Uk though, if you look at who does childcare and taxi work from British origin, the same pattern is observed.

You're still talking about this yourself as a gendered problem, OP. To put it bluntly, you're part of the problem.