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?

Would you recommend anything in particular, Buffy? I've not even come across the term before, so would be starting from nowhere.

CatfromJapan, try Counting For Nothing by Marilyn Waring.

There is a video of Waring's most recent talk on the economy and unpaid. labour:

vimeo.com/122208914

Thanks, almondpudding.

This might be different to what Buffy was referring to, but is relevant to the topic.

Sorry to leap in, Buffy.

I have only looked at the comments underneath the videao, almondpudding (will watch video this evening when children not around) but it looks great. Thanks.

And you, Buffy.

I never knew economics could be so interesting. I'll come back to this thread once I've done some housework!

Thanks Buffy for that name. Just been looking her stuff up, and it is very helpful.

I'd have thought that Adam Smith would have sufficiently well off to afford to employ domestic staff - to cook for both him and his mother.

That's right - the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Felas I think what you're describing is the classic cross-fire between liberal and radical feminism.

Liberal feminism basically aims to make women the equals of men, within the pre-existing capitalist society. It wants women to have all the opportunities men have, but doesn't mind reproducing the inequalities and injustices within that system. For instance, capitalism has always allowed (encouraged) some men to be much poorer than others, liberal feminism is fine with some women being much poorer than others, or at least it doesn't immediately concern itself with trying to change that.

Radical feminism is more concerned with changing the entire system; it wants not just to balance out inequality between the sexes but to try to eradicate it entirely. To a radical feminist, therefore, the system of wealthier women employing (exploiting) poorer women is a problem, whereas to a liberal feminist it is not.

Liberal feminists would probably argue that no political movement can address all the woes of the world, and it's not their job to sort out the wider issue of economic equalities, which were largely created by and continue to be perpetuated by men.

Radical feminists would probably argue that, given that feminism is by definition based on some degree of solidarity among women, a solution which just improves the lives of wealthier women and leaves poorer women still being exploited, just exploited by women as well as men, isn't really an improvement.

My sympathies lie somewhere between the two. I think that the lives of poorer women probably are improved to some extent even by liberal feminism - legal and cultural changes to women's rights which have some degree of trickle down - but I am also pro a more radical approach to capitalism, and I think there's a natural affinity between this and feminism, due to the large burden of unpaid work which needs to be done and tends to fall on women, as several people have mentioned.

And thanks for reading recommendations buffy and almond.

One person's facetious remark is another's honest question. Smith's mother came from a wealthy landed Scottish family. His father was a writer and lawyer. Smith presumably had his salary from his academic career (at least) - what financial crisis befell this family such that they were unable to afford to employ domestic staff ?

Cadno I haven't read the book but I'm guessing the point will be that, as Adam Smith sat in his study, writing, he gazed about him and scribed his view into theory. What his keen gaze almost certainly failed to notice - and he was not alone in this - were the hidden hands and bodies that cleaned his study, lit the fire, collected the wood, cooked the food, gave birth to him, breastfed him, helped him learn to walk, taught him to speak, etc., etc, - and this didn't make it's way into his analysis and texts.

The book, I am guessing, will be an analysis of the 'blindspots' of various economic analyses. And I am willing to further guess that those blindspots will be related to a. domestic labour b. gender.

I could be wrong. But I'm picking that up from the title.

I'm assuming good-intent on your part. I could be wrong. But your remark is a little like someone looking at 'Post-partum Document' by the feminist artist (forgotten name temporarily. Mary Kelley??) and saying: 'But that's not Art! That's just a load of pictures of dirty nappies!!'

Already ordered it.

I've just bestirred myself to google (and order). Can see I was a bit wrong.

Cat I have ordered the book, so maybe there is some actual discussion about Smith's living arrangements - I know very little about the man and his writing.

Incidentally, if I want to observe that a pile of dirty nappies, is just that, I shall have no inhibitions in doing so. But, if (the possibly) Mary Kelley wants to call it art, I won't turn a hair either. It'll be a 'whatever' moment.

Are you sure lots of Eastern European women with children are leaving them at home to come over here?

I live in Italy and it is very, very common here to have cleaners and carers for the elderly from Ukraine, Romania and Moldavia. In fact, we employ a carer for my FIL from Romania. A lot of the women can no longer afford to live off their own wages or pensions in their home countries (e.g. 200 euros a month) as prices have rocketed. Some leave young children behind with relatives. However, I think it is more important that they are employed with a proper work contract and rights rather than try to ban the phenomenon completely - which would only mean that they would be forced to work for less ethical employers.

Also this notion that if we close a sweatshop the employees move to a brothel! Somewhere is the business rival to the sweatshop- the factory that pays decent wages. When that business is closed down because everyone's buying from the sweatshop, don't that factory's employees end up in a brothel instead?

It was a specific example of an instance where that happened.

I presume what you're arguing here is that people will need to buy a certain number of shirts, meaning there needs to be a certain number of factories making them. So there's no reason to favour the sweatshop workers above the decently paid workers who'd make the shirts if the sweatshop shut.

The problem with that argument most of us in the West buy more than we need, and some people are only able to afford this level of consumption because of sweated labour. So while some could afford to pay more for goods, others couldn't and would simply have to reduce the amount they buy if they were purchasing at a fairer price. Well and good, in some ways. Environmentally, for one. But that does mean that the number of people needed to produce the consumer goods Westerners buy would reduce as a whole, because we wouldn't be buying as much of it. It would be rather foolish to delude ourselves that this wouldn't have consequences. There are some instances where eg parents and children are in the same sweatshop, so if you pay a living wage to the parents the children won't have to work there. There are families and communities where fewer people would have to work if those who did were paid more. But this doesn't cover every sweatshop situation in the world, so you are still left with people who would have to go to their next choice down. What do you think that will be, if a sweatshop was the best they could get previously?

This ties in to the argument in the OP because even if one thinks employing cleaners, nursery nurses etc is intrinsically exploitative in itself, they won't magically be able to get better paid jobs if their sectors disappear overnight. Improving the lot of exploited workers is a two part process. Closing the sweatshops is the easy part.