AIBU to think women escaped domesticity by hiring other women to do it?

[AlloaintheMiddle]

This has been on my mind for a while, give me your thoughts.

There’s so much talk about modern womanhood, career success, independence, “having it all”… but often, that freedom seems to rely heavily on other women stepping in to do the work they’re now too busy (or unwilling) to do: childcare, cleaning, cooking, eldercare….

It’s rarely men picking up the slack. It’s almost always other women, often migrant, often poorly paid, and working long hours to support their own families while making it possible for more privileged women to “lean in.”

AIBU to feel like this isn’t really liberation so much as delegation, and that it doesn’t dismantle gendered domestic roles, it just shifts the burden to women lower down the socioeconomic ladder? And men still get away with it?

What do you think?

She get’s holiday pay. Wtf do you think I mean?

It’s not complicated: [3hrs x hourly rate x 52 weeks year] divided by 12 and invoiced monthly. If we go away and don’t need her to come that week, she is still paid for the 3 hours; she has 3 weeks a year when she likes to go away, but she still gets the 3hrs pay as its included in the above calculation.

My friends, whether contracting directly or via an agency do the same, only they will be sent an alternate cleaner when theirs is on holiday if using an agency. I’m not privy to the legal and contractual arrangements their agencies have with their cleaners, but feel free to contact a few in your area if this is distressing you.

I don’t know why you are so het up about my contractual agreement with my cleaner, but yes as a self employed person, she has factored holiday/sick pay into her pricing and our agreement.

Bloomin heck!!!

I think you need to get outside for some fresh air!

It’s not complicated: [3hrs x hourly rate x 52 weeks year] divided by 12 and invoiced monthly

have you agreed a maximum amount of holiday over the year she’d take before the payment would reduce?

Although I’m trembling with fear by the response!!

I don’t know why you are so het up about my contractual agreement with my cleaner,

vaguely intrigued

The first part of my post was for @tinytemper66 (sorry if that wasn't clear tiny)

The second part of my rant was for everyone on this thread and the other aforementioned thread and op who think that women are subordinating other women by paying for help with cleaning their homes.

My grandmother had a live-in maid in the 1940s; this was normal for middle-class families, even less well off ones. She worked outside the home as a teacher. These days she wouldn't have had a maid as appliances do most of the work, but she might have a cleaner and would definitely need paid childcare. Women have always outsourced work - wetnurses, laundrymaids, cooks, nannies, governesses, housekeepers etc etc, it's nothing new.

Outsourced to men too?

My gardener, window cleaner, gutter and drain cleaner… all men.

my car…. Cleaned by men

my carpet cleaner… man

paying a cleaner £15/hr is not necessarily the same as a cleaner earning £15/hr
Lots of people don't seem to notice that

I think when women make the comment about cleaning there own home as a point of pride i think to myself they must have very little to be proud of. Reminds me of old aunties who would make sure the front of the house was kept up because by God we may be poor but we are clean. It's strange to me. The absolute disrespect for cleaners on this thread is wild, how arrogant do you have to be to think women who work in household service roles are doing the dirty jobs. This sounds like classic liberal rubbish who on behalf of an entire group of people think they know what's good what's bad and who should be doing what. When you read between the flowery attempts at compassion you can see clearly how hateful and demeaning op and women like her can be.

I think when women make the comment about cleaning there own home as a point of pride i think to myself they must have very little to be proud of.

Hear hear! 👏

So true

Well ofc they are! Whosoever pays, man or woman, is directly participating in the perpetuation of the subordination of working class women (and an handful of working class men) into domestic drudgery.

Just like men & women paying for sugar in 1805 were actively participating in and benefiting from enslaving Africans for sugar plantation labour.

I think it attaches value to something that is otherwise not valued.

So you are comfortably perpetuating the subordination of both working class men and women every time you get on public transport, go to the doctors surgery, go to the supermarket, buy ANYTHING, send your child to nursery or school or university, have a coffee. Cleaners work in all of these fields, let alone the rest of the jobs that are "drudgery" type jobs but don't seem to count because they are outside the private sphere. If you're happy to avail of the subordination of workers in other areas of life then what difference does it make where they do their work?

I don’t understand that line of logic. How does centuries of paying a low daily rate attach value that wasn’t already there? It has had low value all along regardless of whether someone is earning a few bob to do it.

Oh no, they count too especially where we have drifted towards insecure zero hours contracts. And I’m not happy, I participate in activism to close inequality gaps so I’m hardly going to be a hypocrite about it and have my own serving woman cleaning up after me.

You already have "serving women" and "serving men" cleaning up after you. It isn't fairies who empty your bins and drive your buses and clean the places you shop and work and get your dental treatments done, and serve you in bars and restaurants and shops. All of these people are "serving men and women". By participating in a capitalist society you are already being a hypocrite. I also want working people to have fair terms and conditions of employment. But to suggest that offering them no employment at all is the way to go about it seems utterly absurd. It means you are sitting in judgement of the value of someone's chosen profession. The mere fact that you would refer to a cleaner as a "serving woman" is evidence of this.

There is a difference between a public/civil servant and a private servant.
It’s not hypocrisy to distinguish between the two and come to the conclusion that hiring workers (public servants) for public services like waste management, public transport, social care, MPs, firefighters, MI5, police, military is ok so long as all are treated equitably and are paid a decent wage but to be against private servants that are hired by a private individual to serve their person.

And you really have jumped the shark going on about “participating in a capitalist society” because all this is independent of who owns the means of production in society. Every society pre capitalism or without capitalism, and you still have private servants.😆

It means you are sitting in judgement of the value of someone's chosen profession.

Nope, I’m not sitting in judgement of the worker, but the employer. When someone is a servant to a private individual, the risk of exploitation even modern slavery type power dynamics goes through the roof.