Exploiting women to support yourself

[Felascloak]

This is partly inspired by another thread and partly by an item on immigration I heard on women's hour a couple of weeks ago.
Women returning to work typically the use other people (usually women) to provide childcare, and maybe do cleaning/housekeeping. In some countries, so many women are emigrating to richer western countries to do these jobs that it leaves a care deficit in their home country, causing issues there.
I've read numerous arguments implying that middle class feminists have exploited working class women for their own benefit and this is anti-feminist.
For most women, being able to access childcare/cleaning etc is necessary to allow them to work at all. I also feel that if I was to pay e.g. a cleaner, I would be giving her an income so she wasn't financially dependent on her husband or on benefits. Maybe that's me trying to justify myself though.
I don't know what the answer is. I want to get my thoughts straight on this so wondered what others though?

But yes, there must be a whole parallel debate about the damage done from producing the parts made for computers and cars etc. in the developing world - not to mention the piles of unnecessary crap you can buy in shops like ManKind or whatever it is.

But the post I was responding to cocoa was saying that this contracting out (and I've posted upthread about why it's not women contracting this out but households, something you touch on with your final sentence) isn't as significant as exploitation of women in the third world. British people who employ cleaners and carers are using British residents, whereas that's obviously not the case when you buy clothes made in China or wherever. The idea that the service sector in Britain is contributing to labour shortages in poorer countries doesn't really fit with current immigration law either. You can't get a visa for that type of unskilled labour and haven't been able to for a long time. People doing it in the UK are either here illegally or have some other entitlement to be here such as a spouse visa or the dependant of a skilled worker. Which suggests they'd be here anyway.

In terms of clothes, women who can wear any old rags at home but not at work might well find they buy more of their clothes from the less sweatshoppy end of the market working than they would at home. And again, it says everything that you're only talking about your clothes. Men wear clothes too. There doesn't appear to be any scrutiny about whether their working arrangements are contributing to global oppression. It's a gendered discussion when there's no reason for it to be.

British people who employ cleaners and carers are using British residents...The idea that the service sector in Britain is contributing to labour shortages in poorer countries doesn't really fit with current immigration law either
See, the woman's hour thing I listened to says it does. Women from poorer EU countries are migrating to richer ones to do childcare/cleaning. Many of them had professional jobs in their home country that don't pay as well, and it's leaving a care deficit behind too.
As I said up thread I only heard this radio item about it but I found it intetesting

I agree with you, Boner, you make good points.

I am talking about my clothes because I am feeling defensive and like I need to justify my choices. This is one way exploitation continues to work, because it sets one group of women against the other, rather than a) asking the question you ask about things being gendered and b) what we are to do about it, as many different women in many different circumstances?

The comments about clothes seem to me a perfect example of middle class, not really understanding other people's lives.

I make a point of buying clothes and shoes which are made in European countries but I can afford to.

I think Maoist Rebel News might be coming from a particular viewpoint

Indeed. I suspect not the most objective or reliable source.

Oh yes, there's EU nationals. They don't need visas. However, the reality is that in a lot of EU countries there aren't any opportunities, or not enough. It isn't simply the case that there were jobs for workers there and they've all come here so that's created a shortage at home. Things like eg the Latvian recession a few years back (they're doing ok now) blighted a generation. So people left because there was nothing for them, and this was especially true of ethnic Russian Latvian citizens who felt marginalised and discriminated against. Think of push factors, not just pull. The argument you mention OP also doesn't consider the fact that large numbers go back. And again this is something that happens when the economy is doing better.

Lastly, I think this 'care deficit' because of women leaving is significant. The women in a society are assigned to eat shit, because they're women. When they're no longer present to eat the shit, the problem is seen to be them not being there. Rather than with a system that used them to eat all the shit in the first place.

Yes totally agree boner.
The care deficit/exploitation thing can be wronglyframed as women's "fault" but I think a better description is it's a consequence of women working - the shit work still needs to be done.
The answer is probably more flexible work and men stepping up to do more, but how a society moves to this when the situation is usually framed as caused by women and women's problem to solve I don't know.
It makes me feel defensive too cocoa. I know I have lots of advantages compared to other women. That's why I started the thread.

I think the whole issue of traditionally 'women's skills' being valued much less than men's is definitely a huge part of this whole debate.

Eg I have a friend who is a very skilled dressmaker/soft furnishings maker/textile artist. This is viewed as her 'little hobby' and people think nothing of saying 'oh, I bought this beautiful fabric, could you make it into cushions for me?' and they expect that she'd be willing to do this for free. I have a male relative who is skilled at woodwork and carpentry. When people say they have a stash of wood that they would love to be made into shelves, and would he be able to do it, the next sentence is always 'I'll pay you, of course'. Always. Yet my female friend is accused of greed, and of over valuing her skills if she suggests payment. Because, you know, anyone could do what she does

Again it's interesting that you say a consequence of women working rather than of men working OP. After all, you don't need a vagina to do this care work. And actually, in an EU context, the poorer EU countries we're talking about had very high women's employment in the postwar period. You didn't have much choice about it in the Eastern Bloc.

Yes, and the Eastern Bloc is where the phrase 'dual burden' originated. It is not like men suddenly took their fair share of domestic care there.

You're still talking about this yourself as a gendered problem, OP. To put it bluntly, you're part of the problem.

Many of them had professional jobs in their home country that don't pay as well, and it's leaving a care deficit behind too more like there are no jobs for them, in many of these countries, unemployment is extremely high. They are not leaving professional jobs to be cleaners, they have professional qualifications but can't make ends meet and so would prefer to start immediately in 'unskilled' jobs (ones which don't require formal qualifications, they usually do require some type of skill) in somewhere like the UK.

These are not necessarily destination jobs for them either- the Eastern European cleaners I have known or employed have immediately got promoted to managers or transfer to other jobs or go to nightschool to get qualifications. Similarly, when I was young, I worked as a cleaner (chambermaid), waitress, shop work, all of which made me really keen not to have to do this type of work for long hours for many years.

The gender divide is there in terms of the type of jobs that people are comfortable doing and that their host country expects- so you find that men tend to do gardening or working on taxis, and women doing cleaning and care jobs. That's not hard and fast; I know some male cleaners, unfortunately our male EE cleaner at work turned out to be a sex attacker and was prosecuted for molesting students. There are male cleaners though, but fewer of them. This gender divide is not coming from outside the Uk though, if you look at who does childcare and taxi work from British origin, the same pattern is observed.

You misunderstand me. When I say as a consequence of women working, I mean in the context of a societal shift away from single income families with the woman doing housekeeping to dual income families where both parties work. That is a gendered shift.
As you know nothing about me or my life tendon I don't think you can fairly say I'm part of the "problem" whatever that is.

The way you talk about it is part of the problem, is what I'm saying. And you're demonstrating that on here.

Women have always worked, just usually it's been on a class basis (ie working class) and not for the monetary/social status rewards that men have had. Once that spread to more women and middle class women, that's when it became a social problem.

You misunderstand me. When I say as a consequence of women working, I mean in the context of a societal shift away from single income families with the woman doing housekeeping to dual income families where both parties work. That is a gendered shift

What are you suggesting then ? I'm still struggling to see why I'm exploiting the people my husband and I paid , and are still paying, to make our domestic lives run more smoothly are being exploited by me but not by him.

Well, in the context of the poorer EU countries it's wrong to frame any current care deficit as a consequence of the move away from a one income family. Because that's not been part of these societies for decades. Communist rule meant that both parents were generally in paid work, whether they wanted to be or not.

I'm not suggesting anything personally. I've read stuff and been told before that middle class women with a career have got there off the backs of working class women, by outsourcing housework/parenting. Then I heard the article about care deficits in Eastern Europe. Just wanted to discuss it is all.
Personally I don't have a cleaner or use much childcare at all, my husband and I both work PT and split housework 50/50. I don't see how a family could physically do everything that needs to be done if both work FT so some needs to be outsourced.

Clearly I have fallen into the common trap of doing feminismall all wrong though .
Not sure how else to discuss this. I didn't write the article. And if I hadn't read/been told the other stuff it wouldn't have crossed my mind that there could be a position that using a cleaner / housekeeper was anti feminist.

Here you are:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/middle-class-feminism-female-cleaners-domestic-low-paid

reelgirl.com/2013/03/feminsm-class-and-the-problem-of-prvilege-caitlin-moran-on-plumbers/

It's not some kind of madcap idea I invented out of my own head!

I think Maoist Rebel News might be coming from a particular viewpoint

Of course they are - rather obvious in the site name, isn't it? I linked to it because I consider it a good source for that particular viewpoint. I should hope that, since we are feminists here, not capitalists, people here would be open to consider that point of view.

If your child grows out of shoes, gym shoes and non-school shoes six weeks before the end of the year, and their trousers don't fit, and your bath waste pipe bursts, all in the same week, and you have enough money left for food budgeted, then actually, you might find yourself in Primark looking for the cheapest way to clothe your child.

I understand why you go to Primark. But that doesn't make it non-exploiting. The reason why you don't have to have your children run around naked or in ill-fitting clothes is because people in third world countries are on that step of the ladder now - and not because those on top of the ladder have a sustainable lifestyle in our part of the world.

That's my life described and I actually am not in a minimum wage job, I get all the ethical arguments, I don't buy new fashions etc, but I am can't see how blaming mostly women for the condition other women work in helps any of us.

I do blame men most. But I doubt that going to an MRA forum and opening a thread titled "Have you considered the ways in which you are oppressing women in the third world, and how you could stop doing that?" would achieve anything.
The thinking will have to be done by feminists. By women. We can then advocate for political changes that force men to stop exploiting women. But asking men nicely won't achieve anything.

I do think that the article I linked to holds some truth also for the potential for a feminist revolution.
We need to be aware of the fact that patriarchal oppression has not been abolished, it has simply been shifted towards women in the third world.

Depending on how much money you do have, you may not actually be able to change anything you do based on understanding this - but with so many women believing that "women aren't oppressed here", we need more awareness of that the oppression of women not happening here doesn't mean the patriarchy here isn't responsible for it.

I don't think anyone's blaming you for having invented the idea that middle class women are outsourcing their domestic labour OP, just saying it's a flawed way to look at it. Which you don't disagree with, I think? We've all been socialised to think of caring labour as women's work. It can't be unlearned just like that. So some of the things you say betray your socialisation that this is fundamentally the responsibility of women, which is wrong. Surely none of us are immune to that, but it needs getting out of the way before a discussion can achieve anything.

EE is a particularly interesting example because their history of women in the workplace is if anything more extensive than ours. We can discuss Eastern European women, triggered by the radio programme that interested you, whilst also acknowledging that the premise of the programme was wrong.

Lastly, I think this 'care deficit' because of women leaving is significant. The women in a society are assigned to eat shit, because they're women. When they're no longer present to eat the shit, the problem is seen to be them not being there. Rather than with a system that used them to eat all the shit in the first place.

Oh bloody hell, you're right.

The problem isn't that we're exploiting the women and stopping them care for their own families (well, obviously that is a problem, but it's not the only one) - it's that by exploiting them, it's seen as doubly bad because now their families have to fend for themselves too - talk about getting you coming and going! Either you're a terrible exploiter, or you're the exploited who's also abandoning her responsibilities at home.

It's 'worse' than when men go abroad to work, because well, at least mum's still at home to look after the kids then :S

I agree with vestal
"I do blame men most. But I doubt that going to an MRA forum and opening a thread titled "Have you considered the ways in which you are oppressing women in the third world, and how you could stop doing that?" would achieve anything.
The thinking will have to be done by feminists. By women. We can then advocate for political changes that force men to stop exploiting women. But asking men nicely won't achieve anything."

If I can't discuss the idea (which is not my idea) that middle class women benefit from taking advantage of other women on a feminism board, where can I?

I'm extremely frustrated to be told that I'm part of the problem when I just wanted to deconstruct an argument that I find challenging in lots of ways

What you cannot do on this board, ever, Fela, is acknowledge that women have agency, or that they can ever be responsible for doing bad things. It just isn't on. Find a way of blaming men entirely, and you will be fine and dandy.

Blaming men entirely for not being held accountable for the women they exploit and take advantage of?

Asking that men are held responsible for anything from their own sex drive to taking care of the children they produce and the homes needed to nurture their offspring?

Good idea!