Is it ever acceptable to hire a cleaner?

Reflection of the left’s priorities? Identity politics over class struggle?

If the problem is not that society looks down on cleaners (that's what I asked earlier) then what is the problem? Is it that some women who call themselves feminists are happy to use a cleaner, who is most likely to be a woman, and that they don't pay her fairly or treat her with respect?

Sorry I hope it doesn't come across as if I'm deliberately not understanding.

I am thinking about pregnancy as outsourced 'job'.

My guess as far as the facts is that this woman considers herself a feminist and got to thinking about the implications of hiring someone else to do that work in her home while she does work that is better paid. And since she needed to write an article to get paid, there is was.

Would a man have written thinking the same way, maybe not. I suspect it would have widened out into a question of paid domestic work more generally without the feminism element. There are certainly occasional articles written by men looking at the question of work and class, even in the Guardian, often they are from the more interesting writers.

As far as whether or not men also should avoid employing domestic cleaners, yes, the question is the same. I believe the woman who wrote the article was simply writing from a personal POV, which seems to be all many journalists are up to these days.

Still, none of that happened in a vacuum. The odds of there not being a male journalist employed at the Guardian who uses cheap female labour for traditionally female work seem remote, but either the men didn't feel the need to write a book about it or the paper chose not to run it. Part of this discussion must of necessity involve exploring why that is.

I think that would be more workable than arguing that nobody should ever pay anyone for domestic cleaning, yes.

I have to say, the professions I know where a lot of men employ cleaners, are full of entitled dicks. And I am not normally inclined to be down on men and have worked with mainly men in most of my career.

As far as whether or not men also should avoid employing domestic cleaners, yes, the question is the same. I believe the woman who wrote the article was simply writing from a personal POV, which seems to be all many journalists are up to these days.

I sometimes think that guilt is the strongest tool that has been employed to marginalise women. Don’t fall for it.

@VegetableMunge Great Post!

Precisely, Vegetable. All work that needs to be done, paid and unpaid, and by both sexes, should be examined and quantified, and discussions need to be had about who should do it and how and for what reward.

Firstly, you take the view that some work shouldn't ever be outsourced

Which is frankly bonkers.

It seems to me there are only two options.

Firstly, you take the view that some work shouldn't ever be outsourced. In which case, as a feminist you have to advocate for men to do a fair share of it too, and also look at what happens when a particular individual or family unit has too much of it to be able to cope with. So for example, nearly half of women will be carers before they're 50. In that scenario, if there's a conflict between domestic and caring duties, perhaps an only daughter with two parents requiring support, how is that resolved? If you include childcare in that list of work, and after all childcare workers are hardly better off than house cleaners, what provisions are you going to put in place to facilitate that?

Or secondly, you take the view that it's fine to pay for some work to be done on one's behalf such as cleaning and caring, but in which case you need to advocate for a fair rate to be paid. This certainly requires examination of the way we've structured our society and economy, but that needs to be full examination. Not relating only to the individual decisions of those members of society who happen to be in possession of two X chromosomes. I'd argue that not only does this mean scrutinising men in the same way we do women, but also looking at governmental policy and the society that the economic policies of the last few decades have created.

BeetrootRocks

I speak from my experience Dido

And I speak from mine.

Yet there are no articles about window cleaners, and I bet I'm not the only person who didn't think of a window cleaner in the same way as a house cleaner

I don't understand your point. I've employed cleaners, window cleaners and gardeners. I didn't treat any of them differently. I was very grateful they were doing a job I don't have time to do.

If you don't think of a house cleaner in the same way as a window cleaner that says a lot about you.

This is where marxist/socialist dominance of women’s movements leads.

You have disagreed but not actually said why you believe that it's not men who look down most on 'women's work'

I can only speak from my own personal experience but I'm from a background where many of the men I know socially and professionally employ domestic help and I have never come across the attitude you suggest.

I don't actually believe people look down on cleaners- I think it suits a certain type of feminist and/or Marxist to pretend this is true.

why women in particular should feel guilty about outsourcing cleaning

I've never felt guilty about this - or for outsourcing any of the jobs I can't do or don't want to do.

There does seem to be a certain type of virtue- signalling feminist who seems determined that I should feel guilty.

You sound defensive to be honest. Saying the wages you pay are above living wage for example. That’s still not great is it.

I’m not defensive, we pay what I think is a fair rate for work to our cleaner, and don’t go through an agency so there isn’t a layer taking a cut of it. And for the nursery we use, we deliberately chose one that had staff on good ts & cs (e.g. 6 months fully paid maternity leave and a defined benefit pension scheme).

Part of making a noise etc is by using your purchasing power in a more responsible way if you can, and I was pointing out that I do that.

There is of course a big issue with class in this country (coming from a working class family myself who a couple of generations back were living in extreme poverty), but the solution to this is not individual women refusing to employ cleaners, but better access to education and other opportunities, aspirations and role models for working class kids, higher wages for everyone rather than assuming benefits will subsidise wages from multinational companies, better childcare, better rights and conditions for the self employed etc. etc.

Was everyone expected to do their own housework? Something tells me that professional men weren't.

Not the married ones, certainly, that would have been a blind spot in that culture.

Her husband, and son, however, all pitched in equally, being more enlightened.

Also the op point that according to this paper men paying women for sex is good, but women paying women for cleaning is bad, is really interesting.

The same critique does apply to men who use domestic help but their is perhaps more hypocrisy from those who claim to be feminists of either sex.

The same critique manifestly does not apply to men. Otherwise it would be, well, being applied.

This article assumed the feminist in question was a woman for a reason, and I'd bet my left tit is isn't because they feel only women can be feminists. There's a reason why this argument, framed in this exact way, is so well trodden. It's because we hold women to different standards than we do men. Hence the article and the thread we're having about it.

Sure, sometimes those making the argument that middle and upper class women exploit poorer women will agree, when the fact that they've let men off the hook is pointed out to them. As an afterthought. But if you were saying the exploiting is by more privileged women rather than by more privileged people in the first place, you were not applying the same critique to men.

It's an interesting point about window cleaners fascinated. I think of myself as someone who doesn't have a cleaner, but we do pay a person to clean our windows. A bloke, as it happens. The arguments about house cleaning could just as well apply to him: he doesn't have any special equipment that DH and I don't already possess or could get easily. We live in a bog standard two storey postwar terrace, so no unusual or very high windows requiring particular training or care. He's no doubt better at it than either of us would be, but I'd bet most house cleaners are better at that than I am too. We just prefer to pay him for the work rather than do it ourselves.

Yet there are no articles about window cleaners, and I bet I'm not the only person who didn't think of a window cleaner in the same way as a house cleaner. Remarkable coincidence, I'm sure, that even domestic, low rise window cleaning is a traditionally male occupation.

Because the topics of why 'women's work' is low valued and low paid, why women in particular should feel guilty about outsourcing cleaning but not anyone else, etc etc, are all good topics for fwr

I read this article at the time and I think her guilt is misplaced and ott but I do think that she makes a valid point when she says that we don't value the work of cleaners enough and that we can't claim to be true feminists if we don't pay our (overwhelmingly female) cleaners a fair wage. I don't see what there is to get worked up about unless you are someone employing a cleaner and paying them considerably less than the minimum wage???

The men at my old job didn't even notice the cleaners!
All the women said hello.

If men think 'women's work' is not beneath them why don't they do more of it I wonder.

They pretty much all, to a greater or lesser extent, look to women to do it. Whether paid or unpaid. Leaving cups all over tables after meetings. Leaving crumbs all over tables. In homes, having to be told what to do then doing a crap job. It's everywhere.

I speak from my experience Dido.

You have disagreed but not actually said why you believe that it's not men who look down most on 'women's work'.