Exploiting women to support yourself

"Although builders/car mechanics seem to be making a better living than care assistants"

Well exactly - it's valued as a trade and expertise, unlike care work

No one raises an eyebrow at people outsourcing home, garden, car maintenance etc. Just the things that women are traditionally responsible for

Who is raising eyebrows? In my experience the only raised eyebrows I've had to deal with are threads like this and the feminist who accused me of exploiting my cleaner but not my gardener.

I asked about what radical feminists would put in place once they had smashed capitalism. It doesn't seem to be addressed. Communist societies haven't exactly worked have they?

"some sort of utopia where we all earn the same and wear unisex clothes"

I'm not sure any radical feminist has ever suggested that this is what utopia looks like, but no matter

As others have said, there are several strands to the problem, amongst which are the fact that caring and cleaning work are devalued, and the fact that it is seen as the woman of the household outsourcing her responsibilities that are nothing to do with any man she might live with. No one raises an eyebrow at people outsourcing home, garden, car maintenance etc. Just the things that women are traditionally responsible for

If you don't want to exploit low paid labour then pay your cleaner more.

I have no wish to dismantle capitalism. One of the problems I have with radical feminism is that politically it does seem to align with what I would see as extreme left wing politics. It's very keen on smashing the current system but I'm not sure what would be put in place- some sort of utopia where we all earn the same and wear unisex clothes? Hasn't really worked out too well has it where it has been tried.

I have employed nannies. In the early years they were fully trained women who had done a college course, latterly not a formally trained person. For the nannies' salaries I paid the same rate as what the Law Society recommended for second year trainees- not stellar but certainly not derisory.

At present I have a cleaner who comes once a week and a gardener once a fortnight. The cleaner is a woman, the gardener is a man.

Am I exploiting her but not him? I have had male cleaners- were they exploited? I was told once by a feminist that of course I was exploiting my cleaner but not the gardener because I respected the gardener's trade but not the cleaner. This was entirely made up by her.

So none of these middle class women have male partners who live with them and therefore also benefit from the cleaner, possibly pay towards the cleaner, and thus are also liable for any of the 'exploitation'? It's all the fault of the women? Ok

Double bind, damned if you do, damned if you don't. As a single parent, I need childcare, and I am still paying off the debts incurred by early years care. I try to get a balance between what I can do myself and what I cannot.

Domestic work is overwhelmingly done by women and it is undervalued. That is the issue, not the individual ways women try to manage on a day to day basis.

As someone who works in early years/childcare I can kind of see where this is coming from. From some conversations I have seen on here and elsewhere it feels like our pay is being held very low and the job undervalued given the responsibility, physicality and difficulty of the job because otherwise it would stop lower earners being able to go out to work and even higher earners would further resent the cost.

There are also parents who talk as if looking after their children is a privilege they miss out on (which I totally understand) so the people paid to care for their children should feel lucky to be doing it.

im sure employing someone as a cleaner wouldnt be full time, so its a bit unrealistic to expect that you would be enabling someone to be entirely self sufficient. Feminists do not have the responsibility of also dismantling all of capitalism, even if that is also a worthy cause.