Glenn Response

In her essay "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Evelyn Nakano Glenn explores the "social reproduction" (1) of labor.  She also attempts to dispel the notion that race and gender can be understood as separate categories.  In particular, she criticizes many Marxist feminists who view women as one unified group of oppressed people, a group that shares common experiences and ideals.   Glenn's claim makes sense, although one could easily take this point further and argue that class, nationality, and all other categories into which we place people are interrelated, and that societal relationships cannot be understood only in the context of two categories, either--but this would broaden the discussion far beyond the scope of one essay, or indeed of an entire life's work.

For the most part, Glenn argues her point convincingly by tying statistics and anecdotes into an analysis of the historical development of the labor force.  She seems to marry many of the ideas in Kessler-Harris' analysis with those in Ehrenreich's article, in that she focuses on the historical motivations for various trends in the labor force, while also concentrating specifically on domestic service and the racial divisions therein.  One thing in particular struck me: like Ehrenreich, Glenn seems to laud the institutionalization of domestic-like services (i.e., cleaning, preparing food, childcare, etc.).  Both Ehrenreich and Glenn seem to approve of the new bureaucratic structures' impersonal nature, since this gives low-paid employees greater flexibility and benefits in their jobs.  Their assessment stands in direct contrast to many writers--typically white males--who bitterly bemoaned the depersonalization of industrialization, complaining that the essential human element of labor had been replaced by a cold, cruel "machine."  In my opinion, these opposing viewpoints further highlight the different interests of different gender and racial groups.  On the one hand, those who lamented industrialization--white males--lamented the loss of the positive social interactions that had enriched their jobs and status.  On the other hand, for those whose jobs involved demeaning social interactions and few benefits--female minorities--this depersonalization may be viewed in a positive light.  It would have been interesting for either Ehrenreich or Glenn to point out this contrast explicitly.

Finally, Glenn's article raises a few questions about some of its gaps.  For instance, Glenn focuses almost exclusively on the northeastern, southern, and western parts of the United States.  While this is understandable, since most of the type of labor Glenn discusses took place in urban centers and on plantations, one wonders what was happening in the rest of the country.  Other questions arise when one considers that Blacks, Hispanics, and Japanese minorities dominate the analysis of different racial groups.  What was the role of smaller minorities?  Did they confront even more obstacles?  Where did they fit into the social and economic hierarchy?  It would have been interesting to see what Glenn makes of these issues.

Glenn Summary and Response

Evelyn Nakano Glenn proposes an intriguing theory in her essay “From Servitude to Service Work” that gender and race superimpose upon one another. In other words, the sexual and racial hierarchies should not be considered as separate, unique entities, but as a combination of the two. In order to illustrate her theory, Glenn examines the regional and historical basis behind “reproductive labor” in America by focusing on domestic service of Blacks in the South, Mexicans in the Southwest, Asians in the West and Hawaii, and finally the transition from domestic service to institutionalized service using the nursing labor force as a case study (3).

I have to admit that I’m glad I read the Ehrenreich and Kessler-Harris essays before reading this one; otherwise I would have been totally lost and bored to death. I believe that Glenn’s essay does the best job of the three in unifying the themes of race, class, and gender because she follows up each of her ideas concerning these themes with concrete evidence. One of Glenn’s concluding remarks caught my attention: “forging a political agenda that addresses the universal needs of women is highly problematic not just because women’s priorities differ but because gains for some groups may require a corresponding loss of advantage and privilege for others” (37). Today, there is still a disparity between the number of women and men in high paying, prestigious jobs in the workforce. I would like to see some recent research on these statistics. I suspect that the gap between men and women’s positions is narrowing. I would like to hear from Glenn on her perception of women in the competitive labor market today in America.

"From Servitude to Service Work" Response

I found it very interesting that the Glenn essay seemed to compensate for all the criticisms we had of the Kessler-Harris essay in class the other day. Not only does it fill in the rest of the history of women in labor from the Great Depression onwards, but it also addresses the other geographical regions of the United States besides the Northeast. It was especially interesting to read about Glenn's take on the racial division of reproductive labor in Northern California, since that's where I'm from. Although she says that the vast majority of service workers in Northern California are Japanese, in my personal experience, I have found that it's actually Mexicans that are the most common. Perhaps Japanese women in reproductive labor were much more common in previous decades, as this piece was written almost 20 years ago, but it would be interesting to hear Glenn's take on what caused this "racial shift" in the division of labor. Today, as far as reproductive labor goes, it seems that Asian women are relegated to childcare and housekeeping jobs for wealthier Asian families and that Caucasian families almost prefer Mexican service workers to those of any other ethnicity (something that Glenn emphasize was definitely not the case before). In Northern California, Asians have figuratively "moved up" Glenn's racial ladder and Mexican immigrants have been eager to take their spot. Today, it is not uncommon for Japanese families to employ Mexican cleaning ladies, gardeners, and nannies. If Glenn is the author that we'll get to talk to in class, I would be very interested to hear what she has to say about this recent development.

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. 

Response to "Stratifying by Sex"

In her essay "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women," Alice Kessler-Harris discusses the history of women in the labor market and how society's perception of working women has changed over the last few centuries. While I think Kessler-Harris does an excellent job summarizing each "stage" of history, I believe that she does not give enough attention to the transitions between these stages. For example, the first labor structure she describes is that of Puritan America: both men and women were responsible for the family business as well as the moral education of the children. This, in turn, eventually gave way to a society in which "ladies" stayed at home and took care of the children while poorer women who needed the money toiled away in factories. However, although Kessler-Harris believes that these two stages are dramatically different, I don't think that's the case. In colonial times, the richest women (what ever little bit of American aristocracy there was back then) still didn't work and took care of the children at home while assisted by many slaves. The woman who worked alongside her husband (I believe the example in the essay is a tavern-keeper's wife) did so only out of economic necessity. If she didn't help out, the tavern would go out of business. In the late 19th century, it was the exact same thing, except that instead of working in the family business, women worked in factories. This change, however, was not due to some American moral or ideological revelation, but rather could be credited to the Industrial Revolution. The exact same thing was going on as before, except women were just working in a different place now. Industry in general had just shifted from small, independently-owned businesses to large, corporate-owned factories. In fact, oftentimes, spouses still worked at the same factory, albeit at different jobs. Thus, I think Kessler-Harris might extrapolate a little too far in places like that, and that she might be overlooking much "easier" explanations for the phenomenons she describes.

Thoughts

Stratifying by Sex is a commentary on both the historical and the present day position of women in society. She comments on how there has been a socio-economic trend, which has, with some exceptions such as post WWII, which she cites, that has brought women into the workplace in increasing numbers. Despite such ideas of progress, Kessler-Harris believes that women have not transcended their traditional role as homemakers, and that this difference in a sort of Aristotelian teleological excellence has resulted in the stratification of society along sex lines. Toward the end of the essay, however, she admits that this reality might be changing, but instead postulates that times are changing somewhat, and that this will result in a move to stratification along race and class lines. Although she clearly presents a full set of statistics to prove her point, I believe that her underlying assumption – that a woman’s role in the family is a bad thing – to be false. Additionally, I don’t see the differences in what is considered accomplishment for men and women as being as a result of the role society has imposed on women, but instead as at least in part a product of their different nature. But perhaps I am a product of a patriarchal society, and this is why I say this.

Kessler-Harris Response

Overall, I found essayist Kessler-Harris’ work “Stratifying by Sex” to be very historically informative, but not incredibly intriguing otherwise. I expected Kessler-Harris to draw a more provocative and bolder conclusion from the large amount of historical data that she gave, yet her concluding argument -- that changing family dynamics have left room for women’s role in the workplace to drastically change -- fell short of impressing me as a reader. I believe the tension between women in the workplace and women in the household has been very thoroughly addressed recently, and, unless the essayist that has chosen to write about this subject has something new and thought-provoking to suggest, their essay becomes a very repetitive and mundane. I also believe that, in addressing ‘working women’, Kessler- Harris centralized too much in white working women instead of looking at working women overall. The majority of post-Civil War black women, for example, were expected to work just as much as their husbands due to the need to bring in as much money as possible; an expectation that did not exist for many of their white counterparts. While she does make a brief mention of African American women in housework, I found her essay to focus too much on affluent white women – which does not initially present a problem until she titles her work “Understanding the History of Working Women”, which implies all working women. Thus, I found “Stratifying by Sex” to be very well researched, yet underdeveloped in its arguments.

Response to 'Stratifying by Sex'

In Kessler-Harris' "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women," there is a footnote at the bottom of the first page in which the author reflects back, from the present, to when she first wrote it. She explains, "I note how much has changed in the structure of the labor market-as well as what has remained the same." This essay was first published in 1975, which accounts for the conclusion stating, "A few jobs are being opened up to women, and occasionally wages are being equalized...on the whole, women's wages have not risen comparably to those of men" (115). Obviously, in 2009 things have changed, thus the opportunity for her footnote. And that is exactly what I found myself thinking about mostly when I read the essay: how time has changed society. Kessler-Harris brings us all the way from Puritanical America to the 1970s, and I find it so easy to judge and dismiss "naive" and "unfair" societal norms such as the repression of women in the workplace. However, upon further reflection, I really wonder that if I had been born in that time, would I have considered being unequal to men normal and gotten on with it? If so (and I hope so much that this wouldn’t be the case), what am I accepting today that isn't fair? It reminds me of when my mom told me about how she hung out with a group of expat-wives when my dad was transferred to work in Tokyo. She explained that there was one husband who tagged along with the group of wives because his own wife was stationed in Tokyo for business. He was a home-maker, giving him time and opportunity to hang out with this group of women who were in the same situation as him. Why not? Well, depending on how one feels about that story, I don’t think women and men have been able to become fully equal yet. There is still stigma against men as home-makers and, although women who work for a living might not be stigmatized, I still think the ideal for women is to not have to work. Will this ever change? Should it ever change?

Stratifying by Sex - Response

In her essay “Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women,” Alice Kessler-Harris commentates on the family being a traditional “keystone of social order” (99) and breeding ground of morality. Although I do agree with the author that females have typically held the more celebrated roles in constructing and maintaining the family’s moral code, I feel as though she may have overlooked the function of the father and his contributions to the family’s structure of ethics. I would be intrigued to read Kessler-Harris’ perspective on the father-son connection and the importance the patriarch plays in shaping his son’s moral standpoints. At least in classical literature (The Aeneid comes to mind), it is evident that the son often desires to successfully emulate his father and thus trusts his parent’s guidance unequivocally. Despite the fact that these examples are from an ancient time, I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to state that many young boys today still look to their fathers as moral teachers. My request to Kessler-Harris would thus be to further investigate the contrast between the strength of a father’s ethical influence on his son and the perception of females being the moral nucleus of the family. In my opinion, the implications of this power dynamic could potentially challenge the culturally imposed necessity for women to stay at home and preserve family principles.

Stratification by Sex

In reading Alices , Stratification by Sex, it was imediatley prominant that the same "proper roles" that Alice discusses directly relates with Barbara's essay, Maid to Order introduction in which she discusses "gender roles". With females working in the home and males working outside of it. As Alice discusses the proper roles becoming evident is with the increase urbanization and with an increasing number of males leaveing the direct area of the household to provide for the family, which lead to a need for the female to stay at home and tend the family and look after demestic issues. While reading it seamed when that many forces going for women was actually hurting the womans overall cause, for instance women began to leave the household when the male failed to provide enough for the family, but in reaction to an increase in women in the workforce men blamed low wages on women because employers used them as strike breakers and were willing to accept minimal pay and worse working conditions. It seemed this struggle would be hard to overcome with out the help of future legislation. While reading Alice fequently refers to in her satistics , women in non agricultural labor force, or ocasionaly with agricultural labor force. This was not explained and I was confused on what it actually ment and how it effected the data.

Stratifying by Sex

Alice Kessler-Harris emphasizes in her essay "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women" on the sexual division of labor in society. She explains early in her essay "the relationship between changing ideas about women and divisions in the workforce involves several important elements" (97.) Reading the essay helped understand the factors why women work and why they do not. These "elements" are largely based on the families economic status and also the nations economic increase in growth or decrease in growth. For the most part women's role in the family was stay home and maintain and functional household where the husband can eat and rest and where the children can be educated and learn the necessary tools to mature and be prepared for life. Kessler-Harris mentioned it quite well when she says "Family and work were bound together" (100) in the early colonial period. The families were like businesses in which everybody had key roles to play in order for the family to be strong. The biggest thing that she mentions is that this integrated system of work and family morphed into one, and for the most part work did not tear the family apart or interfere the routine. But as external factors changed we notice how the roles in families expanded to help the nation. Like the Lowell mills, women were the ideal targets because they were already equipped with the tools to keep these businesses open. Parents approved because it taught their children, specifcally young daughters, the meaning of hard work. But its interesteing how the displinary and diligent characteristiscs of these women mill workers was the reason for a change. Women did not allow themselves to be taken advantage of and this was portrayed in the creation of the Female Labor Reform Association in 1845. Overall, reading this essay really exemplified the ability women possesed to be strong and survive in society based by the work put into the family. It is intriguing how Kessler-Harris ties and emphasizes how work and family in essence are one running theme.

Stratifying by Sex

Alice Kessler-Harris, in her essay "Stratifying by Sex," explains the division of labor in the in America's history. The division of labor is between genders. She explains that a woman is more likely to to work at home than their male counterpart is to work at home, and that women have are discriminated against in the work force in terms of advancement and opportunity.  

I feel that the author had some good info and facts based on past data, however I did not feel that enough evidence was present regarding women in the workforce in the twenty-first century. I know that my mother had a very good job working for a company called OXY. However, my mother chose to become a stay at home mother and raise my brothers and me. I do think that there is still some trouble for women to advance in the work force today, but I do not have enough evidence to make any claims otherwise.

Stratifying by Sex

While reading Alice Kessler-Harris' essay about male and females in the work force I found myself continually questioning what is happening to families.  Right now my plan for life is to graduate, get a job, and eventually start a family, but I wonder how difficult it must be to balance all of those different aspects of life.  At the end of her essay, Kessler-Harris brings up the idea, if more women are working what is going to happen to the family.  I am wondering the same thing.  I don't think that there should be a difference between the opportunities or compensation for men and women.  The work force should be based on merit rather than gender.  With that said taking care of the family should not solely be reliant on females either.  It is easily proven that women tend to have a more domestic side which helps with the housework and the child care, but forcing a woman to stay in the home can seem constricting.  I don't think I have an answer to what I think that work force and home care should be broken down into, but with the reading it does make me question what I will do with my time in life when I am older.  Members of families seem to be becoming more independent and are spending less time with each other because both parents are in the work force.  Kessler-Harris has raised a point, even if it wasn't her main argument, of how both women and men can work together to have a successful family life as well as career.

"Stratifying by Sex" Response

In her essay “Stratifying by Sex,” Alice Kessler-Harris examines the sexual division of labor and the role of female workers in the labor market throughout the scope of America’s history from the Massachusetts Bay Colony era to contemporary times. She thoroughly delineates the economic, social, and moral factors that influenced the development of women’s roles in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Next, she focuses on the twentieth century, tracing out how and why “the tension between the need for labor and the need for stable families” (106) is broken. By the end of the 1920’s there was a “compromise” between women and employers: some women would be trained professionally as necessitated by their job, but others such as married and poor women would stay at home. The advent of the Great Depression, and then World War II dissolved this compromise and opened the doors for women in the labor market. However, Kessler-Harris states that even to this day, many women still earn less than their male counterparts, and “the percentage of women holding prestige jobs has not increased” (115). She points out that the progress women have made in breaking down the sexual stratification in the labor market could inspire other groups to do so for their respective stratifications.

As the author stated in her essay, her goal was to show how sexual stratification has occurred over time in the United States and how working women were discriminated against. For the most part she succeeds, but I felt that her coverage of the twenty first century was sparse. More evidence of how the importance of women’s roles in the family declined would have strengthened her argument.

Kessler-Harris Response

Alice Kessler-Harris' article "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women" provides a good general outline of women's historical forays into the United States workforce from the Puritan era until after World War II.  Kessler-Harris, along with other scholars she cites, astutely observes that women's roles in the labor force must be understood not only in the context of the family, but also in the context of the political economies in which those families lived.  Thus, her exploration of employers' needs and rationalizations for hiring or not hiring women at various points in American history are highly appropriate.  This exploration also offers a broad perspective on women's jobs that many others have overlooked, instead favoring the narrow "gender wars" paradigm.  Kessler-Harris also pairs her analysis of employers' roles with the role of pre-existing, traditional gender roles, therefore bringing to the reader's attention the "tension between the need for labor and the need for stable families" (106).  

While Kessler-Harris' article brings many relevant points to light, there remain some points that could have been explored in more detail.  For instance, I wonder how child labor in factories affected the family structure and women's roles in the workplace and at home.  Though she mentions child labor a few times, she does not delve into it.  Second, many women opposed the idea of going into the workforce, even after World War II: it would be interesting to see, in detail, how this struggle between women played out, and where (if any) social or economic stratifications occurred in that struggle.  Third, it would have been fascinating to see what new social, political, and economic factors entered into the equation several decades after World War II, particularly during the rise of feminism.  In other words, what social, economic or political events served to reinforce feminism or set it back?  In which professional areas did women first break into during that time and why?  Fourth, a deeper analysis of the role of technology in women's labor history would also have been fascinating.  Which inventions were the most important and how exactly did they affect the historical development of women in the workforce?   There are surely many other unanswered questions, but those four are the main ones that spark my interest.

Response to Kessler-Harris essay

In her essay, "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women," Alia Kessler-Harris provides the reader with a very thorough and developed presentation of the integration of women into the labor market; she chronicles the departure of women from the ideological "crucial sphere" of domesticity and, more literally, from the very home itself (102). Kessler-Harris cites many reasons for the increased female presence in the workforce outside the home, such as the ideological changes in the "domestic code" and the presumed "proper roles" for women and also the economic changes due to phenomena like the Great Depression, World War II and general developments in technology. However, Kessler-Harris makes no mention of what would seem to be the opposing shift: the integration of men into the household. Granted, it seems that such a change would have happened on a much smaller scale. However, it still seems worth mentioning, even if only to dedicate a couple of sentences to the subject. Kessler-Harris writes about how widowed women straddle the line between running the household and supporting the family but does not even mention the opposing scenario, about how widowed men behave in a similar situation. Kessler-Harris also does not bring up the complete reversal of roles sometimes found in contemporary society, where the wife is found to be in charge of "bringing home the bacon" and the husband in charge of the household. 

Various thoughts and considerations

Barbara Ehrenreich, like any good postmodern Marxist/Feminist, looks for and successfully finds a social problem involving underpaid women, and claims that it is representative of a number of greater social ills. In her essay Maid to Order, Ehrenreich discusses the many problems with the recent cultural trend of having paid servants clean residential quarters. The essay fails polemically, however, as the expanse of Ehrenreich’s claims, and the eclecticism of her rhetorical choices shroud her central thesis, which is still not clear by the end of the last paragraph. Additionally, instead of focusing on a specific problem, such as wage inequality, or the predominantly female composition of the modern housekeeping industry, or the degradation of the moral fiber of the middle classes, or the industrialization of the cleaning process and consequent loss of quality, Ehrenreich focuses on all of the above. Her muddled exposé strings together all of these different points, while she supports her claims with some basic tenets of Feminist and of Marxist theory: minimum wage workers are exploited, women are simultaneously sexualized and physically degraded when doing housework, and capitalism tends to creep into any sector of the economy, sucking out its vital juices and alienating the worker from just about everything including his or her self. Ehrenreich argues that housekeeping should be subsidized by the government where it is sorely needed and that this will create “good jobs”, but fails to consider that the industry is already doing that, providing jobs to people that need them, and dividing labor quite efficiently among the social classes. Of course, Ehrenreich also fails to see the inherent worth of the new “invisible” jobs that dominate the American economy, arguing that we should perhaps have more physical or “visible” labor. Finally, Ehrenreich seems to think that industrialized housekeeping invades the home and turns it into a place of work. I can only comment from personal experience, but I will say in response that, no, industrial housekeeping is for the most part the realm of office spaces, hotels, and other businesses and public institutions, and that the majority of housekeepers that work in the homes tend to be immigrants, sometimes hired illegally, who cannot get other jobs, and despite having deep seeded resentment for their rich employers (which is natural to anyone performing a base task for the benefit of someone else), nonetheless appreciate their jobs and the often many perks it comes with, although there are of course the exceptions, the employers who are not particularly kind or generous with domestics.

In Barbara's essay "Maid to Order - The politics of other women's work" , Barbara goes into detail about the detail about maids or house cleaners. Barbara discusses the relationships between the homeowner and the maid and the relationship between husband and wife and how house work determines the social dominance in both relationships. She addresses gender issues and how housework predominantly done by women and different reasons for this. Later she discuss independent house cleaners and the conditions that they go through claiming race, language boundries ,and education levels are the reason for this. Later in her essay she tends to focus on economic class boundries as opposed to gender stereotypes.

Maid to Order

Barbara Ehrenreich in her essay "Maid To Order" explains the unappreciated and vital work women produce everyday. She includes input from outside source such as Marxist feminists Maria Rosa Dallacosta and Selma James. Ehrenreich explains how both of these women agree that "the home was in fact an economically productive and significant workplace, an extension of the actual factory, since housework served to 'reproduce the labor power' of otheres, particularly men" (Ehrenreich 60). By taking the time to absorb what is being presented to the reader it is obvious that this statement has a lot of truth. It goes to explain that without a decent running house it will have a negative impact on the husband affecting the running function of the family economically.
I have to agree to this statement because it is evident within my own family back at home. My mother is thbiggest reason why my family runs smoothly always making sure there is food on the table and she has where we are suppose to be at the right time. It is work people may see as degrading but for my mother she enjoys it knowing all of my brothers are good students. She might have to get on her knees in a degrading posture but it is what she produces from this position that makes her happy. Maids should get the saem respect we show to our own mother because their work helps a lot of people run there own "factories."

I agree with Barbara Ehrenreich when she says that, "Housework was not only a relationship between a woman and a dust bunny or an unmade bed; but also defined as a relationship between human beings, typically husbands and wives" (60). I think that in the past husbands have typically worked outside of the home bringing home paychecks, and women had the responsibility of taking care of the children and housework. More recently, women have been taking up jobs in addition to their husbands, in some cases instead of their husbands, and this has caused a shift in responsibilities. When both a husband and wife work outside of the home, sometimes it's hard to divide up the work at home, and since traditionally the role has been that of the woman, sometimes she ends up taking control of that as well. This unbalanced share of the work due to a new situation has caused rifts in many relationships. I understand what the owner of Merry Maids meant when she said, "We even save marriages." Having a housekeeper has, in my opinion, always been very understandable.

However, "The sudden emergence of a servant class" seems a bit extreme, is there really a society where there isn't one? 

I'd also like to address the claim that "upper-middle-class children... are bound to grow up as domestically incompetent" (69), by saying that it's possible to have maids and still know how to clean up after yourself. The theory is there, but in practice, I'm sorry; there isn't much technique to cleaning. People can pick it up pretty easily when they have to. 

Also,what was interesting was the bit about parenting: "instructing children in necessary chores; today it's more likely to center on one-sided conversations beginning with 'So how was school today?'...relationships with children are often strained" (70). Personally, I have to say that I'm glad my mom has enough time to sit down with me and talk instead of showing me how to do chores. I don't think this is bad parenting. Ehrenreich says that low-quality time doing chores can make a child feel more comfortable about sharing with their parents...I think there's a larger underlying problem if  child needs to have an excuse to feel comfortable with their parents...that doesn't sound like a housekeeper's fault. 

On a side note, I was very disturbed by the revelation that some housekeepers' responsibility is to make things only appear clean...

Response to "Maid to Order"

In her essay "Maid to Order," writer Barbara Ehrenreich analyzes the growing trend of outsourcing domestic work. She finds it curious that over the last 20 or 30 years, more and more people (and not just the ultra-wealthy) are seeking professional help for the cleaning of their own homes. Ehrenreich offers a summary of the "independent" and "corporate" cleaning industries as well as her own experiences working for one of these cleaning companies.

What I found most interesting about this piece was that although the opening of the essay and the title and subtitle both suggest that it will focus on gender inequalities, Ehrenreich's final conclusions about the impact on society of hiring maids has little to do with gender and much more to do with class. Ehrenreich even stresses that although professional cleaners are called "cleaning ladies," they can often be men as well (65). Thus, although it seems that Ehrenreich starts by stressing the importance of gender issues and feminism as it relates to her topic, it ends up playing out as an almost trivial issue. Rather, Ehrenreich concludes by warning readers that by hiring maids and other household helpers, the wealthier half of society is perpetuating the need for a "servant class" and that children are being raised with the callous attitude that there are "lower" people out there who exist to clean up after them. I agree with Ehrenreich's analysis and found it interesting how she developed this theme throughout the essay.

Maid to Order

In the essay "Maid to Order" barbara Ehrenreich provided many examples and opinions that I had never even thought about until reading her essay. Being a maid herself, she can provide factual information. I thought that the idea of cleaning around the house as a reflection of a relationship was interesting. However, I do not think that the male in the relationship leaves dishes out for his female counterpart to clean as a way to show authority; I think that it has a lot to do with laziness and forgetfulness.  The maid service that claimed to "save marriages was a funny source, I thought. Ehrenreich introduced cleaning services later in the essay. I noticed that wages for maids of the service were paid very poorly. On page 65, I did not understand how the services partially paid the maids with public money. I never thought about how cleaning services never actually clean, they just provide the image of being clean. After reading this, I'm not sure that I will ever hire a maid service. I like my home clean!

Response

Who would have thought something that seems as simple as housecleaning could cause such disruption in the lives of so many?  Growing up the only problems I saw with it was debating with my parents over who should have to do what, my brother or me.  The housework is actually fairly evenly split between my parents and if there was someone doing more work it would probably be my father.  I never saw a power dominance either way because it all seemed pretty fair.  "Maid to Order" by Barbara Ehrenreich opened my eyes to the problems caused by homeowners paying, or often times not paying, others to do the domestic work for them.

Its interesting once one realizes that by teaching younger generations that it is ok to hire someone else to clean will only increase the "domestically incompetent," and encourage the use of money to pay for any other tasks needed.  Housework seems like only a small, even non-existent, problem in the day to day life of Americans, however Ehrenreich has shown that it is just a fraction of the whole problem of people relying on others to clean up their messes, and not just in the cleaning sense.  It seems like the world would be a much better place if everyone just cleaned up after him or herself or took care of what ever he or she caused.

Response to "Maid to Order"

In her essay “Maid to Order: The politics of other women’s work,” Barbara Ehrenreich undescores the “gender oppression” (60) that is often yielded as a consequence of housework. She accordingly comments on the equalizing force of housekeeping, in the sense that all women (excluding an upper class minority) must come home to a task list of cleaning regardless of their differences in professions. As Ehrenreich bluntly states, “whatever else women did… we also did housework” (60). Men are not generally confronted with these domestic and social expectations to fulfill cleaning responsibilities, but women are seemingly obliged to satisfy housework requirements even when faced with “jobs, school, [and] child care” (60). While Ehrenreich illustrates both the potentially oppressive and equalizing qualities of housework, she does not explicitly mention the admirable fortitude and ability that are necessary ingredients for women to accomplish these housekeeping duties. The fact that females are capable of successfully balancing their outside lives alongside their burdens of housework is an extraordinary measure of endurance at the very least. Being a writer with a somewhat feminist bent, it was surprising that Ehrenreich did not further expand her descriptions to include this praiseworthy angle of the feminine characterization. The author provides valid arguments in acknowledgement of the exploitation and standardization of women via housework, but she does not extensively develop the perspective of housework as a possible means to showcase the remarkable strength and skill of women in this context.

"Maid to Order" Response

In essayist Barbara Ehrenreich’s thought-provoking “Maid to Order”, Ehrenreich explores the underlying ideology of housework to finally argue that the act of leaving a mess for someone else leads to an eventual “callousness and solipsism” (Ehrenreich 70). While many sociologists and feminists have explored the relationships between women and men and argued continuously about gender power struggles in the household, Ehrenreich takes the discussion one step further by exploring the emergence of the cleaning lady. Having someone clean for you, she argues, is essentially a manifestation of dominance. The emergence of a ‘servant class’ who’s purpose is to “[wipe] up the drippings of the affluent” (59), Ehrenreich argues, says much about our new values. One of her most interesting points, I believe, is the one she makes about the actual physical cleaning. The cleaning, she argues, is not true cleaning but rather to create “the appearance of having been cleaned” (67). The maids in maid businesses such as the one in which Ehrenriech worked are not there to make the house sanitary, but rather to create a set: an appearance of cleanliness and order in which the family can then operate. I found this to be a very thought-provoking argument: this causes us to reconsider the point of cleaning. While we originally would think to clean to sanitize and disinfect, this has become a secondary effect in our primary goal of creating an illusion of order. All in all, I found Ehrenreich’s close examination of the sociological underpinnings of household cleaning to be well-thought out and executed nicely.