We are being watched !!

[domesticgodessintraining]

A friend just called from the Middle East to say that the bored desperate housewives of Dubai are slagging us off ........

www.expatwoman.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=171798

Mrsmicawber that website really is quite an odd website. Honestly.

It is aimed at and attracts a certain type of person and is ridiculed massively on the other expat boards.

And once again linerunner am not arguing against anything you say.

I did make the point that laws have been enacted to prevent many of these abuses, the labour courts are active and things are changing. Unfortunately there will always be people that flout the laws.

Different governments specify different statutory minimums for their nationals but that doesn't mean it necessarily translate in practise as different levels of pay for different nationalities. In part because many people pay well above the statutory minimums.

What do you think it is then? Racism? There are all sorts of reasons why maids of one nationality or another may be suited better to certain families and vice versa. Dogs, for a start. Lots of maids have deep-seated issues with living with dogs. I would purposely not seek an Indian or Sri Lankan for that reason - for their benefit and comfort - not mine.

IME most 'westerners' don't actually care what nationality they are, so long as they are able and willing, although many employers may have a religious/cultural preference - but it is usually the Muslims who insist on wanting another Muslim.

No it doesn't. I misinterpreted your post if you were commenting on the reasons why people stipulate nationality, I thought you were commenting on nationalities being paid differently depending on their passports.

The reasons specific nationalities are sometimes requested for different jobs are varied and there is certainly truth in the fact that companies might advertise for a filipina office administrator because they are aware they can pay her a lot less than a western candidate, this is largely to do with how foreign qualifications are viewed and valued as opposed to race itself.

With housemaids I have always understood the request for a specific nationality to be a sort of code for the likely religion of the woman. Most people seem to prefer someone of the same religion working for them and vice versa. Also of course there are hundreds of thousands families employing maids from their own home countries so I guess they specify nationality for matters of culture and language.

Bijou, i don't live in Dubai and have never been there or any of the Emirates or whatever they are called. We got an offer but actually preferred not to go for many of the reasons people have said here but we did go to another country with some similar issues such as maids, low paid contract workers etc. If others want to live there then that's up to them it just doesn't appeal to me.

Again, MrsM your last post had just epitomised how people can read something and take it out of context or jump to conclusions without actually having had experience of living here.

Another example - we like to eat bacon in our house. We can buy it here now. I am happy for a Muslim maid to take a job with me but she must be happy to cook my bacon and look after my dogs. The reality is, she probably won't be, but may be too nervous to say so. (culturally they can have a problem with saying no or being assertive and they just have a tendency to say 'yes' when asked is that ok with you? even if it isn't!) so she will be uncomfortable in her job and not happy, and I don't want that.

Therefore I might well stipulate a Filipina as a) they will handle and eat pork and b) they are less freaked out by dogs.

Well again, MrsM - we are not in the UK! Maybe British people of Indian origin are different but I am talking about Indian Indians of Indian origin living in an Arab Islamic culture where barely anyone except Western expats owns or tolerates dogs. It may be a gross generalisation in the UK but I ASSURE YOU it is not a gross generalisation here. We have many Indians coming into our house or garden to do all sorts of things and they TO A MAN knock on the door and then cross the road and wait for us to tell them that the dogs are locked away in another room before they will even come near the front door, and once they are in the house they are like frightened rabbits, constantly checking that I haven't let the dogs loose!

Can't remember from upthread whether you have lived in the Gulf or not, but if not then please accept that some of us may have a slightly better grasp of how things really are here than you do.

I am happy for a Muslim maid to take a job with me but she must be happy to cook my bacon and look after my dogs.

Are you serious ?????? You would make someone do that if it was against their religion ??????

I think it is ok to discriminate in relation to some roles.

I dont think for example specifying as a Muslim that you would like, another Muslim who shares the same religious and cultural beliefs as you to live in your house rather than someone who doesn't is racist. It is a very familiar, personal role. I also don't think it is inherently wrong to specify that you want a female domestic worker over a male.

I don't think I would go and live in a Muslim country and insist on eating pork and keeping a dog. That seems a tad colonial.

Oh FFS bijou of course I would not make them! That is the whole point! That is why people may refer to specify which culture/nationality they want, and maids may do the same.

Does your nanny live with you full-time MrsM? And you very religiously observant then? And is your nanny? I suspect probably not, really, otherwise the 'adapting' to one another's needs might be tricky.

prefer, not refer.

You sound really aggressive Hillywally. Why don?t you get the maid out of her cupboard/bedroom to make you a nice cup of tea so you calm down ?

I don't 'insist' on anything, other than in the privacy of my own home. Just as some British Asians still 'insist' on arranged marriage to their first cousins, or bringing in some poor illiterate girl they've never even met from a Pakistani village to marry their son and provide them with a legalised form of domestic drudge and breeding heifer. It doesn't float my boat, but it's not really any of my business.

I am here as a guest not a member of soem ruling elite, and the country I live in is happy to tolerate my dogs and my (discreet) pork eating (in the privacy of my own home) in return for my DH's expertise in his job. Colonialism absolutely does not come into it and it's a frankly ridiculous thing to say.

And I am non practising Christian with an Arab father who employs a non practising Muslim housemaid. We also seem to manage suitably well.

I can however appreciate that she might find it incredibly distasteful to watch me drink wine or cook my DC's sausages if she didn't eat pork herself. Or that she might be offended at being in the same house as my unmarried brother and his girlfriend who share a bed when they stay with us.

Equally I guess I might struggle with the idea that she stays with herboyfriend, or doesnt dress conservatively if I was strictly religious.