Is it ever acceptable to hire a cleaner?

Should I feel sorry for my gardener, and my window cleaner, too? And the man who has his own business valeting cars?

IME the people who look down most on those who do 'women's work' are men

Hmm , I think it suits a certain type of feminist and/or anti- capitalist to peddle this notion as a given. I'm not at all convinced it is true.

However my personal struggles with the patriarchy don’t make it ok for me to exploit another woman in perhaps an even more precarious position than me

That is just virtue signalling. Why would employing a cleaner be "exploiting another woman"? It's up to you to set fair terms and conditions

Presumably you grow all your own food and make all your own clothes (recycled from old materials) never eat out in a restaurant and never stay in a hotel or even use the NHS.

I mean, with your high moral standards heaven forfend that you might be benefiting from the labours of a lowly paid person in a precarious position.

Individuals in low paid jobs are generally not respected as much as high status. This is capitalism and yes, women suffer even more than men. This is not however something that individual women who employ cleaners can change.

Anyone who thinks cleaning for others isn't a skill that takes fitness, intelligence and common sense has never tried it themselves, or managed someone else doing it.

It's a bit like baking birthday cakes - something everyone can do for themselves if they put their mind to it, perhaps with varying degrees of success, but not many can do to the standard of being paid for it.

I don't know if anyone remembers Mma Ramotswe in the Ladies' Detective Agency books set in Botswana. In one book she visits the house of a university professor and the garden is overgrown, the house is dirty and he has no cook or housekeeper. She is outraged that he hasn't done his civic duty and employed people to do all these things, and ends up berating him for selfishly hoarding his money and not spreading it around to people that need it!

IME the people who look down most on those who do 'women's work' are men.

This relates to the fact that even the 'nice' men, deep down, feel that this work is not their problem. Hence doing such a shit job when they do, not 'noticing' stuff that needs doing. And all reinforced by society with people talking about dads babysitting or being amazing if they do the laundry etc etc

So again I would suggest that putting the blame that 'women's work' is low paid and undervalued, the exploitation of women at the door of other women, in a capitalist patriarchal society, is to give them what they want, isn't it? Business and men get to carry on as usual with no guilt while women shoulder all the guilt for, well let's be honest, everything is presented as the fault of women in the end, isn't it!

Yes I have one because it's my money and I'll pay for a legal service that my cleaner has decided fits her life if I want to.

Individuals on here may well respect their cleaner and and pay them well and not leave foul messes for them to clean up and if that’s the case then great. However this is not the general experience for the majority of women who work as cleaners you only have to speak to them to discover this. I’m not suggesting that cleaners should get paid the same as a doctor but they should have the same respect as anyone doctor or not and often they don’t.

I am disappointed that accusations of jealousy over not being able to afford cleaners is behind criticism of using them because that’s not the case and to say so seems like a defensive reaction to me.

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.

Of course - why wouldn’t it be?

"Have we anything to say about the males who pay cleaners to scrub their toilet bowls, or do their attitudes not require examination?"

This needs reiterating.

So the men can hire a cleaner, have a mum, girlfriend etc to do the cleaning, or the woman they lives with hires a cleaner and this makes her a bad person who exploits women.

His exploitation of women is unexamined and uncommented on, which is just how he likes it, and society supports.

(NAMALT but tbh the vast majority to some extent).

However my personal struggles with the patriarchy don’t make it ok for me to exploit another woman in perhaps an even more precarious position than me. Let’s face these jobs are looked down on in the U.K, the doctor who pays a cleaner to scrub her toilet bowl probably doesn’t see the cleaner as in the same level value wise as herself.

I earn less than my cleaner. But I know that if it was left to me the cleaning wouldn't get done. Farcically, I actually worked as a cleaner for a while, and considered paying someone else to do mine for me, as I still didn't do it

I respect my cleaner for doing a job I don't enjoy with a big smile on her face. She doesn't need the money, her H earns decent money, but she's one of those people who gets satisfaction from making things look clean and tidy - my BF's house is a mess and she loves it there

I charge £15 ph for something not hugely skilled and with lots of unbillable hours, which works out at about half that as an hourly rate once I'm done. I'm still more than happy to give my cleaner £12 an hour to do the job she has chosen, and was happy to get £10 an hour for doing it myself previously. I'd rather do that than work in an office or in retail for the same money tbh.

Thinking that doctors ought to be on the same level as cleaners, gender aside, is unrealistic though. This is nothing to do with feminism.

Let’s face these jobs are looked down on in the U.K, the doctor who pays a cleaner to scrub her toilet bowl probably doesn’t see the cleaner as in the same level value wise as herself

Are they looked down on? I've employed domestic help for over 30 years. I don't look down on them. I'm suspicious of this claim. I think it's put forward by those who either (a) resent that some people can afford cleaners or (b) want to put women down for employing cleaners.

Some on this thread seem to think that women should somehow opt out of capitalism and leave it to the men to carry on as usual!

There is certainly one poster who seems to think that.

'Or is the problem that society in general looks down on cleaners?'

Is that true? I'm not sure I believe that.

Have we anything to say about the males who pay cleaners to scrub their toilet bowls, or do their attitudes not require examination?

I get it, it pisses me off that my husbands idea of clean isn't what mine is he’s a good guy and does do house work but after the dishes are washed and put away he doesn’t seem to see that the sink needs wiped out, or the floor swept, or the hob cleaned he just says to leave it and I’d like to see his face if I actually did just leave it for even a few days!

However my personal struggles with the patriarchy don’t make it ok for me to exploit another woman in perhaps an even more precarious position than me. Let’s face these jobs are looked down on in the U.K, the doctor who pays a cleaner to scrub her toilet bowl probably doesn’t see the cleaner as in the same level value wise as herself.

OPs original point that the graun berate women for hiring cleaners but are in favour of men paying women for sex is worth reiterating.

Men must have whatever they want and women should facilitate that.
Women must know their place. On their backs on a bed or on their knees scrubbing a floor. Righty hi.

Some on this thread seem to think that women should somehow opt out of capitalism and leave it to the men to carry on as usual!

Not sure this is the solution.

Valuing 'women's work', paying properly, society seeing these things as for people to do not women's responsibility, all of this would be good. And how come men, businesses, public services etc are all allowed to hire cleaners but women aren't?

Yes it all needs talking about, framing the lot of low paid women as being the sole fault of higher paid women seems like a large part of the picture is being missed tbh

'Or is the problem that society in general looks down on cleaners?'

It's related to this and also to women should be doing it themselves ie old school sexism.

'You do need to know what products to use of each surface, '

Yeah I'm not sure.

If you use the wrong products you risk causing damage possibly £££
You need to not leave floors slippery
You need to not break anything, accidentally Hoover trailing charging leads, take care with any pictures etc
Getting glass clean on Windows without smears isn't something I have mastered!
You need to make sure no chemical residue left in sinks etc

If you cock it up it can be £££ or even a bit dangerous.

Doing things carefully, attention to detail, knowing what to use when etc ARE skills. You have to learn them. They are not innate.

The gardeners round here seem to mainly mow the lawn and blow leaves into the road from private houses (which pisses me off no end)!

I think that these skills are just not recognised as such for various reasons.

I’m working class and I don’t know anyone in my family or in my area (council estate) who uses a cleaner or any domestic help. Sometimes you do see food delivery vans from supermarkets as many don’t have cars but that’s about it. People round here do their own cleaning even though they work long hours and have other responsibilities and demands on their time because having a cleaner is just too expensive when you are on a low wage yourself. It doesn’t quite sit right many either although I’m sure many would have one if money was no object.

I did go to a nice university and have some middle class friends and nearly all of them have cleaners and sometimes gardeners. In their circles it seems to be the usual and the going rate is about £10 an hour via an agency (outside London). Most of them have bigger houses which might be a factor although in my observations a smaller house often looks messier and dustier more quickly than a larger home where there is more room for things to spread out. I notice the same or more amount of dust or mess looks better in their house than in my small council house.

Once when staying at a wealthier friends house in London I chatted with their cleaner she was a young woman from Bulgaria and she told me she felt very depressed because to be a cleaner was to be invisible and looked down on in the U.K. she said my friends were nice but that many weren’t so nice and left her very unpleasant things to deal with and that she felt she couldn’t complain. I’ve seen this attitude myself in various work places where people wouldn’t even attempt to tidy after themselves and leave things in a disgusting state while saying “it’s the cleaners job to do that” and would get angry when challenged, I used to just end up doing it myself!

My mum was a cleaner for many years, poorly paid and treated badly. She ended up collapsing when she was only in her mid 30s due to overwork. When she cleaned in hospitals nurses would ask her to clean up geriatric patients who had soiled themselves because they were too busy and would buy her own supplies for cleaning as all the hospitals gave them was dilute washing up liquid, I shit you not.

I agree with a previous poster who said that middle class women getting on in life off the back of poorer women’s labour is a blind spot in many women’s feminism. There are also issues of classism and racism in the mix.

I'm sorry if I'm being stupid but I don't understand. I thought private cleaners, as in the ones who clean homes for families etc, were paid quite well. When I was looking for work recently as I said before I thought about cleaning, I just didn't think my bones could take it. I went for retail instead which pays NMW, less than the cleaning jobs I had seen, and definitely isn't respected if the attitude of a lot of the customers is something to go by. I don't know about industry employed cleaners but they're not the ones we're talking about. I know of a few women near me who've started their own cleaning business where they choose their own clients and hours and fees etc. I thought that sounded pretty cool. Or is the problem that society in general looks down on cleaners?

It is. And this is why so often the response to one group of women being disproportionately involved in a particular type of poorly paid or difficult work is that some or all of it should be done by other women instead.

To write that article you need to be hardwired into thinking that ensuring the cleaning is done (by yourself, or by outsourcing it) is always the women’s job. Never the man’s. That is the issue we face.

The thing is janeskettle, it took you several posts to mention all the males who benefit from usually female usually underpaid labour in childcare, cleaning etc. When the issue is framed as middle and upper class women benefitting from poorer labour not middle and upper class people, that betrays a fundamental societal view that actually this is women's work. The penis magically grants immunity, or at least afterthought status. It isn't possible to have a feminist analysis that fails to acknowledge this double standard, and the Guardian article reeks of it too.