Response to Eveyln Nakano Glenn's essay

In her essay, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Evelyn Nakano Glenn presents a much more complex analysis of the nature of the relationship between a white woman and her employed domestic worker as compared to the analysis introduced by Barbara Ehrenreich in her essay, "Maid To Order." Ehrenreich briefly mentions the "peculiar intimacy of the employer-employee relationship," attributing the peculiarity to the various "idiosyncrasies of the employers" (64). According to Ehrenreich, some employers seek friendship, even "therapy," while others "demand deference bordering on servility" (64). Whether a relationship of companionship and amity or servitude and subjugation, the nature and eccentricities of the employer determine the nature of the relationship. However, Glenn proposes a different, somewhat more complex interpretation of the employer-employee relationship. According to Glenn, the relationship universally consists of the employer denying the womanhood of the domestic worker. By ignoring the domestic worker's familial ties and general responsibilities as a mother, the employer eliminates any sense of commonality potentially created by their shared gender in a male-dominated society. In doing so, the employer justifies her actions of passing on her burdens to the domestic worker rather than confronting the underlying problem of gender inequality herself, head-on. However, in her essay, "Maid To Order," Ehrenreich only gestures towards this racial component of domestic service, which perhaps explains her different interpretation of the employer-employee relationship as compared to the one proposed by Glenn.