Is having a cleaner exploitation or liberation?

[foreverastudent]

I remember reading in some feminist book a long time ago (maybe GG?) that when rich/middle class women hire poor/working as cleaners they are exploiting them.

I'm not even sure if that quote is accurate but anyway, is it exploitation?

It is if they aren't being paid well or are being treated badly but is it not liberating to create work and financial freedom for someone who can maybe only do this type of work (eg due to childcare)?

Does one (rich) woman's freedom from domestic drudgery come at the expense of another's?

Agreed wholeheartedly with SGB.

To clarify, when I said some middle class mothers felt they would not stoop to doing housework, I didn't mean to say they should do it anyway. If you can afford to pay someone, and you don't want to do housework, or have the time, pay someone!

What I criticize is the snobbery and devaluing of housework or cleaning, which is hypocritical because clearly they value the results. No one is too good to do it. That's not to say they should do it. Appreciation is key. Mutual gratitude should be expected.

It's the ones who can't afford to pay a cleaner, yet whinge about having to do so-called drudgery, who irritate me. I hear it all the time - oh boo hoo, I have to clean! They are not complaining on sexist grounds, they are complaining because they think housework is beneath them. Either work it out with your husband to do half, or all of it, or live in filth, or shut up and clean. I suggest learning to clean efficiently. Letting it build up makes it into hard work.

Sakura: MOney flows (but not enought) from the rich to the poor. There are more poor people than rich ones. Telling women or men that they should do their own domestic work - that having a cleaner is somehow more wrong and more exploitative than employing someone in any other capacity - is just ridiculous.

yes, but I take issue with the fact that poverty is feminized. Money flows from rich to poor and that is gendered: it flows from men to women, on the whole.
Your comment is like saying DV and rape are not gendered crimes. Yes, there is the odd exception when a woman commits DV against her husband, or when a man rapes and murders another man, but on the whole it is gendered.
Some women are better off than other men and wwomen, but poverty is gendered, as is wealth and power.

Yes I'm not telling people it's wrong as in morally wrong. Perhaps I didn't make my point clear.
I was just making a sweeping comment about society and the way it has been set up and designed so that women are more exploited than men. In this context, cleaners, who are mostly women, are being exploited.

I don't think that housework is beneath me. I just don't like doing it. So sometimes I moan. Not at the moment when dh does it all, or when we had a cleaner so the house was spotless once a week, and gradually less so as the week went by. But when I had to do some housework that I really didn't want to do I moaned, like lots of other people moan about having to do things they don't want to. Not a particularly endearing feature, but I think completely normal.

I am on the other hand most grateful to those who do the domestic work for me (paid or just supported). You can appreciate the results without wanting to do the work surely?

Yes of course! I was referring to perpetual resentment of people who perhaps have never had to clean up after themselves and suddenly motherhood means they must do so. As well as cleaning up after others. Bit like when men are asked to do it for the first time after a lifetime of being served. I should perhaps not have mentioned it because it's a very small group of v privileged women, an aside to the discussion but noteworthy I thought.

What annoys me the most though is people who hate cleaning and who can afford a cleaner but don't get one because they are old-school left-wingers who think it is exploitation to have someone else do their 'dirty work'. However invariably in these cases (my parents are a classic exmaple of this mindset) you see that the division of labour in the home is arranged along traditional gender lines. Somehow it's not OK to give someone employment to do a job you both hate but it is OK for the woman of the house to do all this work with no help from the man.

When I got sick of doing the majority of the cleaning in our house (my DH is wonderful but he has that common male illness of not seeing dirt) my ultimatum was that we either got a cleaner or drew up a rota. Funny how quickly the cleaner idea started to look attractive to him.

that'll be me then novicemama
Apart from the bit about my DH doing half, he does his share.

And I don't know what my problem is about cleaning. I used to be a cleaner and I honestly loved it. It's one of those few jobs where people leave you alone to your thoughts while you get on with it, you get a sense of completion and accomplishment.
Working on a cash register is soul-destroying HELL by comparison.
But I stand my my sweeping statement that it is a gender issue that most of the people doing low paid menial work are women.

Haha novice my DH has been rooting for getting a cleaner again now that my WAHM business means he is having to do a bigger share! We are in the midst of a cost/benefit analysis! He does LOADS of housework though but...not efficiently and not extremely well. I have set him a challenge to do all on my daily list while looking after the children and doing a bit of paid work too :) Perhaps report back with results!

Sakura, you describe exactly why I do love cleaning - alone with my thoughts and physical. It is very depressing when you're cleaning food off the floors for the 6th time that day...

Novice, I know just what you mean - my ILs are old skool lefties, peace marches etc - it's all about liberation and equality when it's about some political prisoner in a third world dictatorship, but she can't stick up for herself on the home front. Sad. I often wonder if her fight with regard to politics makes up for deep resentments and unexpressed anger in her personal life.