Exhibits for Conversation Essay

Exhibit 1 – Class Demotion in India

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/photogalleries/wip-week84/photo5.html

This National Geographic image depicts an Indian man being blasted by police water cannons due to his involvement in a public protest in the streets of New Delhi. The more interesting detail about this photo, however, is that the man and his supporters were protesting to try to downgrade their Gujjar ethnicity group from the higher “Other Backward Classes” to the lower “Scheduled Tribes” status within the Indian rural social class system. This caste system is divided into the mentioned groups and the lowest “Scheduled Castes” (formerly know as the “Untouchables” for having undesirable jobs in dirty, unhealthy working environments). The demotion to a lower class standing would grant the Gujjars easier access to jobs, educational opportunities, and healthcare under the country’s affirmative action program. This relates back to Glenn’s perspective of a “racial hierarchy” (which in this case can be extended into an ethnic hierarchy that also determines a class hierarchy), as well as Kessler-Harris’ description of protective legislation. Here, India’s affirmative action policies can be likened to protective legislation in the sense that both are legal means of attempting to help certain groups (yet, while protective legislation aims at providing specific benefits to those groups to insure their wellbeing, affirmative action aims at equalizing the opportunities for those groups with those of majority populations). It is intriguing that both protective legislation and in this case affirmative action can cause conflict within the population despite their seemingly good intentions. Thus, this exhibit helps identify the class hierarchy that can dominate society, as well as the ways in which individuals will try to alter that hierarchy by challenging the legal policies that ironically were established to negate that same type of inequality. Why does affirmative action instigate further class division here? In addition, would it be possible for the Gujjars to have Parrenas’ concept of two class statuses at the same time?

Exhibit 2- Division of Teaching Labor

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/21/AR2006032101545_pf.html

This Washington Post article elaborates on the 2006 decision by the Florida state government to base teachers’ pay on the improvements of their students’ FCAT scores. The FCAT is an annual standardized test given in elementary and middle schools that evaluates the students’ reading comprehension and math skills. The article documents the controversy surrounding the issue of whether the teaching profession should be divided by these means, and the concern that this legislation could disrupt the unity in schools. Can this segmentation of teachers be likened to a division of labor, and can this in turn lead to a socioeconomic hierarchy similar to Kessler-Harris’ gender and class hierarchy? Is it possible to divide schools in the way one would divide other factions of labor, and what are the implications of this emphasized connection between education and the economy? Is education being "commodified" by capitalism in the same manner as was the household?

Exhibit 3- Musuo Matriarchy

http://www.hiddenchina.net/img/ill/singing_mosuo_women.jpg

http://www.hiddenchina.net/web/eng/bilder_mosuo_pictures.html



(Note: if you go to the second link and scroll to the bottom, you can see this picture with more clarity)

These images portray some of the Musuo women of Lugu Lake, which is in the Yunnan province of China. The Musuo females constitute one of the few remaining matriarchies in the world; the women of Lugu Lake hold complete political, economic, and social power within the region. Men’s responsibilities are typically limited to childcare and procreation. In the first image, female authority is symbolized by their position atop the mountain, overlooking their domain and above everyone else. The second image showcases the women as the clear leaders in their community, capturing their supervision and regulation of the men in the background. These exhibits extend on Kessler-Harris’ reference of social ideologies by providing an alternative to traditional social roles. In fact, the idea of a matriarchal society contributes to all of the authors’ commentary on the sexual division of labor, except that in this case, the segmentation is in the women’s favor. How does a matriarchy impact the strength and prosperity of a community? Do the men have fulfillment in this unorthodox role, or do they share the sentiment of most females in non-matriarchal communities, namely that an unbalanced social reproduction of labor oppresses them?

Sarah's Exhibits

1. Slater Mill

Between around 1790 to 1840, this textile mill hired many children to produce textiles.  Indeed, around 1840, about 52% of workers in the carding department were children ages 9-12.  None of the authors describes the role of child labor in American history and how it has influenced women's roles in the family and in the workforce.  I wonder if the significant presence of children in the workforce during the 19th century had a strong impact on women's roles in society, and whether any of the trends in Kessler-Harris, Ehrenreich, or Glenn can be traced back to this.

2. The American Military All-Volunteer Force (AVF)

Currently, women/minorities may volunteer to enter the American military.  This places the women/minorities who do so in a position of high honor and prestige, since Americans value the military and these women/minorities play an active role in defending the country, a traditionally male job.  In addition, those who enter the military gain significant monetary and educational benefits that can further raise their socioeconomic status.  Does this represent a step forward for women that Ehrenreich, Glenn, and Kessler-Harris do not acknowledge when they discuss gendered labor?  Or are there more similarities in this situation to domestic service than might at first appear (i.e., do women/minorities still occupy inferior positions within the structure of the military)?

3. The Roomba

This technology requires really no effort--it vacuums the carpet automatically.  How has this technology affected domestic workers, in terms of the kind of work they do and perceptions of them?  With an increasing number of household chores becoming automatic, how might domestic workers' roles/status be changing?  How is this device advertised (i.e., are there any references to domestic workers)?

Parrenas Response

Parrenas’ article “Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor” expands the topic of women in reproductive labor from reproductive labor within one nation to an examination of it as a transnational system. Her article addresses what she deems as a “three-tier transfer of reproductive labor” (Parrenas, 561): middle-class Western women hire Filipina migrants for domestic work, while these same migrants hire poorer women in the Philippines for the same purpose. I truly liked this article, because I felt that it introduced a new aspect of reproductive labor that our other articles had not considered. Parrenas concludes by arguing that women’s work has not truly been evened out among men, but rather transferred to other women so that Western women can work outside the household: women now participate “…in the transnational transfer of gender constraints to less-privileged women” (577). I believe Parrenas’ article is so intriguing in part because it picks up on many issues Glenn – and our discussion on women in reproductive labor – overlooked. In Glenn’s focus on racial stratification of labor and much on migrants, she neglects to examine these women migrants themselves, and the background they come from. In this way, Glenn ignores an important part of women’s reproductive labor – the women who have began to replace the now career-bound Western middle class. I enjoyed reading this article because of the new perspective it took on this commonly held discussion of women’s work.

Parrenas response

Parrenas essay builds with several of the previous isssues we have talked about in class , discussing reproductive labor, statification by sex and racial divisions of labor. Parrenas builds on this by taking the situation outside of the United States and brings it to internation globalization with upcoming countries requiring the need for reproductive labor. Parrenas main example is the use of Filipina domestic workers migrating for domestic work . With only the privalidged being able to leave there country and actually hiring Filipina domestic workers in their own country to take care of the family that they had just left. I thought the idea of the privialadged Filipinas leaving there own country to become domestic workers very puzzleing and if they were so privalidged and eduacated why leave at all, but just stay at home and remain in the higher classes in their own country

Glenn Response

In Glenn article "from servitude to service work" Glenn describes the division of labor based on gender, and also concentrates on race. Building on the Kessler Harris essay and even citing Kessler Harris several times Glenn says that gender and race are not two seperate catogories but are connected and build off each other when it comes to the further stratification of labor. Glenn also build on social reproduction of labor which has been mentioned before. When Glenn focused so much on race as a reason for the division of labor , I thought that the reason for this was economic class struture with lower classes taking up the divison of labor as opposed to a certain race. With better and higher salary jobs going to those who are qualified to do them

Response to Parrenas

I was particularly drawn to Parrenas’ commentary on the burdens of the “double day” (567) in her article “Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor.” This term highlights the “plague” (567) of many domestic workers, namely the burden of doing paid reproductive labor all day and then returning to their own home where they must take up the same responsibilities again before they can rest. In other words, housework, childcare, and other related duties do not end for the domestic when she leaves her employer’s house (granted that she is not a live-in worker), but instead continue at her own abode. Needless to say, Parrenas characterizes the “double day” as an understandably undesirable side effect for the domestic laborer. However, Glenn makes an equally interesting point that the motivation of these domestics to bear the trials of reproductive labor as a vocation in the first place centers on providing for the welfare of their children. How then does the domestics’ “double day” (which certainly can be comprised of caring for their own children when they return home) relate to this mentioned motivational force of responsibility for their children? Does the “double day” encompass a universal sense of unpleasantness, or is there an psychological distinction for these workers between having to repeat their cleaning jobs and having to repeat their child caring duties? I would be interested to hear Parrenas’ perspective on whether a dread of the “double day” dominates other emotions or, conversely, if the intensity of a mother’s love of her children can alter her perspective on the dual labor that she is forced to perform.

Parrenas Response

After reading Parrenas essay we see that is very familiar with Glenn. She refers to her essay several times especially on the issue of 'racial division of reproductive labor.' (Parrenas 561) This essay is very interesting because she takes Ehrenriech's, Kessler-Harris's and Glenn's essays beyond American territory and relates it to the world. She refers this to as globalization and how this concept "has extended the politics of reproductive labor into an international level." (Parrenas 561) It seems she agrees with Glenn in many ways such as how priveleged women use their money to get themselves out of domestic work by hiring women, specifically "low-paid women of color," (Parrenas 562) so they can focus on other things. This raises the question who takes care of the domestic wrkers family and Parrenas explains that is usually family members who will reach out and support their own. Parrenas refers to Sakia Sassen how globalization has effected this migration of women worldwide. Sassen has said that "globalization has sparked the feminization of migrant labor." (563) The example presented are these Filopina domestic workers. As different nations begin to industrialize and increae their economy they need a big labor force for a cheap price. The global economy has prospered by these women but Parrenas wanrs us that these studies have to be loked carefully because they are "skewed." (564) She says it depends where work is available and what type of job opportunities. Filipino men tend to work in the middle east because they have opportunites in contrustion and tough physical jobs related to that. On the other hand Filipina workers migrate to Asia and Europe where there are low-wage domestic job voids; This extends to the United Sates also for inmigrant women are also rtaking advatage of the domestic jobs here. A big down side is the 'rearing children' (572) concpet caused by this movement across the world. These Filip[ina women and other mothers of different ethnicity sacrifice their niche because of the time they have to put into their jobs. Speaking from experience (my mom being a doemstic house worker herself) it does at times affect what goes on at home. Mostly my younger brothers who need more of a mother figure than me. My twin brother and I going to college has kept uis busy and occupied but for my brothers back home i can see it in their faces when i go back home that it does cause some problems. But playing sports and being involved with other activities is the solution because it fills in that void that my mom sometimes cannot satisfy at times.

Parrenas- Response

Parrenas' essay added an element to the readings about the social reproduction of labor, emotion.  Because of Parrenas' focus on race it can closely be linked to Glenn's essay about how gender and race are interlocking.  Glenn does make some comments about the difficulties that maids faced, for example being away from her home for up to two weeks at a time.  Although Parrenas focuses on Filipina migrant domestic workers primarily a lot of the same aspects can be applied to the domestic workers that live and work in the United States.  Both are often faced with the difficult task of taking care of their boss' children while they must leave their own children at home in the care of someone else.  Parrenas hits on the emotions that are brought forward in the Filipina women.  They either channel their desire to care for their own children into caring for someone else's child or they have to bare the distressed feelings every time they have to do a motherly act.  I think that this inclusion helps the reader to relate more to the domestic worker because you want to feel sympathy for them.  The other essays also had pats where I would feel bad for the those hired to do the housework but none of them made me see the real struggles that they went through.

I think that Parrenas and Glenn's essays work nicely together to show why a women might be more willing to get hired as a domestic server.  They each have interviews from women expressing their devotion to their families.  This devotion is what causes them to wake up every morning and clean up after someone else's family.  If what they are doing today can help their daughters and sons be in a better position in the future then that is a sacrifice they are willing to make.  For me information talking about family and emotions are something that makes me more interested what may really be going on, rather than just getting a bunch of facts.

Parrenas Response

Having had a Filipina live-in domestic worker when I was younger, this article was especially interesting as now I can realize the context and implications of her work. Having said that, unless I did a poor job of reading, I feel like this article didn't really do very much. Sure, it expanded KH's model of racial-ethnic women working for a higher class of white women to an international scale, specifically using the experiences of Filipina women. But apart from the obvious, and concepts that were already brought up in previous works (mainly KH), there were no real new ideas. Domestic work is hard/demeaning, mothers separated from their children are sad, white women not doing their own work is the reason why Filipinas migrate...this is not very ground-breaking.
Aside from that, though, Parrenas emphasizes that Filipinas doing domestic work abroad make more money than professionals at home. I certainly don't dispute that, but I do wonder exactly what percent of migrated domestic workers are professionals. Parrenas does say that 23 out of 46 women she interviewed in Rome had college degrees, and 11 out of 26 women in Los Angeles did. However, this data cannot be extrapolated because her methods for interviewing were not random, therefore her interviewees do not represent an unbiased sample size.
Something that I thought Parrenas was going to come to in her article, but did not, is what are supposed to do about all of this? Is the imbalance of economies at fault for labor migration just as much as gender or racial inequality? If so, what do we tackle? Should this issue be tackled at all?

Parrenas Response

I found it very interesting how Parrenas took the topics of the previous three readings we had and synthesized them all together. She combines the idea of reproductive labor found in the Ehrenreich piece, the idea of stratification along gender lines from the Kessler-Harris piece, and the idea of stratification along ethnic lines of the Glenn piece and applies those ideas to the international arena. In that way, the Parrenas is a sort of culmination of everything we have been studying for the last couple weeks.

I thought the most notable point that Parrenas makes in her essay is the idea that Filipino domestic workers who are working abroad are actually hiring other Filipino domestics to fill the voids that they are leaving at home. Much of my extended family lives in Taiwan, where everyone who is the middle-class and above employs at least one Filipino servant (and yes, they are referred to as "servants"). Unlike Americans who have one worker for the yard, another worker to take care of the children, a third worker for the cleaning, and yet another for the cooking, in Taiwan, this one Filipino lady does everything. Additionally, servants there virtually always live at the home in which they work. Most of the servants with which I have talked possess some higher education and view their current job as temporary. Many of them send the vast majority of their earnings home to support a large family or perhaps an ailing parent. I had no idea that these women must have been at least in the Filipino middle-class, so it would make sense that they employ domestic workers of their own at home, as Parrenas points out. Since the working visa system is very strict in Taiwan, few of these workers are able to stay for more than a couple years. I would be interested to hear what Parrenas would have to say about the short-lived nature of these jobs and whether or not she found similar views of these domestic jobs as "temporary" in her research.

Parrenas Response

In "Migrant Filipino Domestic Workers and the Division of Reproductive Labor," Rhacel Salazar Parrenas explained how women's liberation in the US and Italy has has allowed the women in those countries to pursue careers outside of the home only because of their willingness to make other women, in particular, migrant women assume the role of a "reproductive laborer." 

One interesting thing that I found in the article was that over half of the Filipino women in Rome and Los Angeles that were migrant domestic workers actually had college degrees.  It sounds like you need to be successful to migrated out of the Philippines. It cost one woman 5,000 dollars to get a job without a Visa in Italy. A domestic worker in the Philippines only earns about $179/month, so it would be impossible for the low wage Filipino worker to leave; it has to be someone that at one time was able to earn enough money to save the cost of migration. It is a travesty that these educated women are not at home passing down skills to their own children. The educated mothers have left their children at home to learn from less educated  nannies. This would appear to cause some long term societal problems.

Parrenas Response

In her essay “Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor,” Rhacel Salazar Parrenas extends Glenn’s discussion of reproductive labor into the international sector. She focuses on the specific case of migrant Filipina female workers. She points out a strange type of irony perpetuated by this group of workers: although Filipina migrant workers serve “class-privileged women,” they simultaneously hire their own nation’s workers to work for them. At first, I thought this was odd, since I thought that women put themselves through domestic service so their children wouldn’t have to go through this kind of work. Also, I wondered how they could afford such a luxury since they were domestic workers. Parrenas’ essay revealed that Filipina migrant workers in other countries receive enough wages that they have more than enough to hire domestic workers when they return to the Phillipines. One of the interviewees pointed out the Filipina migrant workers’ plight: “In the Philippines, your work is light but you don’t have any money. Here you make money, but your body is exhausted” (574). It seems that most Filipina migrant workers choose to trade their comfort for money with the expectation of a long term gain in the future.

One other thing I want to mention is Parrenas’ methodology for interviewing Filipina migrant workers. Her methodology for collecting random samples is not totally random since she says that she used “chain and snowball referrals” (565). This puts the validity of her research into question, since this sample of Filipina migrant workers may not necessarily reflect the whole group accurately. I laud Parrenas for taking the time to seek out these workers, but she needs to do the research properly if it is to be credible.

Response to Parrenas essay

An interesting parallel can be drawn from the way in which the migrant Filipina domestic workers respond to their "deterritorialized national identities" and the way in which white women respond to the inequity in their relationship with their husbands. According to Parrenas' essay, "Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor," these migrant Filipina women are stuck in the middle of the international transfer of caretaking, victim to what Parrenas refers to as a "conflicting class mobility" (574). As a result, while considered to be professional women in their country of origin, namely the Philippines, these women are thought of as domestic workers in their receiving country, whether that be the Unites States or Italy. Parrenas explores how these women respond to such a conflicting class mobility; as she puts it, "they cope with their marginal status in the receiving country by basing their identities on the increase in their class status in the country of origin" (574). For example, when returning to their country of origin, these women hire domestic workers of their own in order to stress their status above poorer women. Parrenas uses an excerpt from an interview with Gloria Yogore in order to stress this point. According to Yogore, after working in Rome, she will return to the Philippines where she "will not lift [her] finger and [she] will be the signora" (575).  In a similar fashion, in her essay, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Glenn shows how white women "pushed the burden onto women with even less power" (17). Instead of confronting the inequity in their relationships with their husbands, these white women coped with such inequity by asserting their authority over a domestic worker, a racial-ethnic woman of lesser status. According to Glenn, a white woman "gains privileges from the relationship," rendering her unaware of its blatant oppression. In short, there seems to be a striking similarity between actions taken by the migrant Filipina workers in Parrenas' essay and the white women in Glenn's essay, furthering Parrenas' thesis about the international transfer of caretaking. 

Parrenas Response

In her article "Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor," Rhacel Parrenas expands on many of the ideas that we have seen so far: the stratification of labor along gender, racial, and class lines.  As the title suggests, Parrenas places the discussion in a global context, arguing that studying labor in an international context is essential in today's world of globalization.  At the same time that she widens the discussion, however, Parrenas narrows her focus to one racial-ethnic and gender group: Filipina domestic workers abroad and in their home countries.  Also, unlike Kessler-Harris, Glenn, and Ehrenreich, Parrenas places special emphasis on class, though not at the expense of race and gender.  Her more class-oriented approach is reflected in her terminology: rather than refer simply to "white women," as the other authors do, she talks about "white class-privileged women" (562) and "middle-class women" (569), and she discusses the "conflicting class mobility" (574) of many Filipina workers extensively.

I found Parrenas' discussion of the three-tier system within the Filipina workforce to be intriguing--I had been completely unaware of the dynamics among Filipina workers, and I had not known that Filipina migrants made up such a large percentage of migrant workers in the social reproduction sphere.  In addition, I had not considered the concept of "displaced mothering" (576), to which Parrenas devotes some time for discussion.  I was also glad that Parrenas acknowledged the role of  "nation-based citizenship" (570) in the stratification of labor.  I do have two broad questions about the article, though.  First, often when Parrenas makes claims about the marital or other circumstances of Filipina migrant workers, she cites her extremely small sample size of 72 workers (for if indeed Filipinas migrate in such large numbers as Parrenas suggests, 72 could not even make a dent in the total number).  She rarely, however, cites any general statistics or studies on this matter, which makes some of her percentages rather dubious.  Second, Parrenas seems to use Filipina migrants as a sort of case in point, yet she acknowledges that Filipina migrants are unique in the global labor market, since they migrate in especially large numbers and come from a culture that allows them a high education but few lucrative job opportunities.  Their uniqueness begs the question of what migrants of other nationalities experience and how they fit into the global labor market.  Focusing mainly on Filipinas is fine, but it would have been nice if she had at least briefly tied in the experiences of other migrant workers, either to emphasize or to contrast some of her points.  

Response to Glenn

In her essay “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor,” Glenn comments that as family members spend more time outside the household, “they have less time and inclination to provide for one another’s social and emotional needs” (5). For me, this brought up an interesting comparison between Ehrenreich’s sentiments in her article “Maid to Order: The politics of other women’s work” that “one of the ‘better’ things employers of maids often want to do with their time is, of course, spend it with their children” (70). Although Glenn may not be specifically referring to children in her statement, it is still intriguing that she predicts a weakening of community/familial emotional and social interdependence when Ehrenreich seems to predict the opposite. The same variable – paid housework allowing the employers to spend more time out of the house – seemingly causes a breach of opinions between the two authors. What then would be an appropriate measure to gauge the accurateness of each perspective? Does this assessment vary by region, a theme which Glenn often employs in her essay? Or, do the different backgrounds of Glenn and Ehrenreich provide a cause for their difference in belief?

"From Service to Servitude" Response

Glenn’s article entitled “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor” addresses the role that race and gender have played historically in the work field to eventually debunk them by identifying these two as “socially constructed systems” (Glenn, 31). Glenn argues that historically, race and gender have not been mutually exclusive, static facts of life but rather interdependent and dynamic constructions in the work place. Glenn writes of domestic service in particular, “Whatever the specific content of the racial characterizations, it defined the proper place of these groups as in service: they belonged there, just as it was the dominant group’s place to be served” (Glenn, 14). This article on the surface seems to strike similar chords with the “Stratifying by Sex” essay we read for our last session. In this article, author Kessler-Harris addresses historically how women have been restricted to the domestic sphere in order to keep the industrial wheel running. In their historical explorations, “Stratifying by Sex” and “From Servitude to Service Work” are extremely similar. However, Glenn’s article seems to be more of a push forward for change than a simple exploration of the past. In her concluding paragraphs, Glenn writes, “race and gender are socially constructed rather than being ‘real’ referents in the material world, then they can be deconstructed and challenged…An initial step in this process is to expose the structures that support the present division of labor and the construction of race and gender around it” (Glenn, 35). Kessler-Harris’ article, while heavily implying that a change needs to take place, fails to provide any possible solution. In this way, Glenn’s article seems to me as a reader to be a more relevant and convincing article than Kessler-Harris’ simple history exploration.

Evelyn Nakano Glenn in her essay "From Servitude to Service Work:" continues the running themes of gender and race. Glenn nicely ties the Kessler-Harris and Ehrenreich essays with her own explaining how the categories of gender and race shape reproduction labor. She elaborates more on race, specifically African American, Mexican American and Japanese American, in different regions of the country and how the division of labor is mostly made up of these minority people. I like hoe Glenn extends Kessler-Harris's idea of the gender roles within the household and how these roles extend to the family economically and functionally. Glenn says that "Marxist feminists place the gendered construction of reproductive labor at the center of women's oppression." (Glenn 2) The idea of women doing the majority of the household work benefits men because they are effected "directly and indirectly." (Glenn 2) Men are able to enjoy and relax at home by the services they traditionally produce and this allows them to focus on issues outside of the house like making a pay check. There is an importance in acknowledgment between the relationship of race and gender because it "recognize conflicting interests among women." (Glenn 36) This conflict is tied to the working women because they need help not being around the house as much as they would if they did not work. Here gender plays its role because Glenn explains it is "women of color" (Glen 36) are willing to work: specifically immigrants. Gender and race can been seen as two separate categories but by looking at Glenn's essay and looking back on Ehrenreich and Kessler-Harris there is enough evidence that both complement each other really well.

Glenn Response

Evelyn Nakano Glenn examines the role social reproduction plays in the hierarchy set up between differing races in her essay, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor."  Glenn argues that this division could not take place, however, if there was not a distinct separation between men and women in the working world.  Social reproduction is the idea that men are seen to work outside the home and produce for his family, while women are supposed to take care of the tasks inside the home that make it possible to reproduce the male labor.  This ranking is seen in many aspects of life, where women are portrayed as lower then men.  Glenn provides an even deeper analysis of what goes on because of the gender roles, which prove that the gender and racial subordination go hand in hand.

White women could tell that fighting the standards set up by men would be a difficult task so they went to the only other option they had; to put their tasks onto a lower class women, and in almost every case of a different race.  This argument is helpful in adding to the arguments of Barbara Ehrenreich because her essay "Maid to Order" focuses on domestic work and servitude as well. Ehrenreich focuses mainly on the idea that with factors such as, more time spent outside of the house and bigger houses, the need for hired help was becoming more important.  She does hint at the idea that with the institution of the independents and hired services there is a tendency to then categorize workers into racial groupings.  This is not the highlight of her essay however which is why Glenn's essay is able to build off of it.

I think to fully understand where the interconnectedness of gender and race in the workplace comes from in Glenn's essay it helps to have read Ehrenreich's essay.  There is a foundation built in the idea of social reproduction through a gender perspective that can be applied to the ideas about racial discrepancies about labor.  

Response to Glenn

In "From Servitude to Service Work", Evelyn Glenn argues that race is a key factor in analyzing the history behind female roles in the workplace. Previously, she says, women's experiences were all lumped together without regard to the stark differences between the treatment of "racial-ethnic" women and "white women". In this respect, Glenn has explored something that was lacking in the Kessler-Harris article, namely regional and racial differences. Glenn agrees with KH when she says, "sexual division of reproductive labor in the home interacts with and reinforces sexual division in the labor market" (2). This is very much in the same vein as most of KH thesis, but Glenn goes on to explore why "racial-ethnic women are disproportionately employed as service workers in institutional settings" (3), and is very much adamant that race and gender are "socially constructed, interlocking systems" (3), that can and should be unraveled for the benefit of all women.
Glenn also appears to respond to Ehrenreich by going into detail about women in domestic service, but again here she deviates by concentrating mostly on the experiences of racial-ethnic women, and what that actually means for white women. The thing I found most interesting was that Glenn claims that white women hired racial-ethnic women to do their domestic services instead of clearing up gender differences with their husbands. That makes me wonder that if that had never happened, and white women had continued to be 'oppressed' by males, without having racial-ethnic women to turn to, would white women have eventually revolted against the separate spheres, bringing racial-ethnic women up with them? This drew my attention. However, do we really expect women to go to their husbands and say that they refuse to hire a maid because it reinforces race and gender ideologies? This all makes me realize how interlocked race and gender situations are, and how difficult it is, indeed, to separate the two.

Glenn Response

Evelyn Nakano Glenn, in her essay "From Servitude to Service Work," explains how the division of labor is broken into two categories, gender and race. Glenn's essay is a nice liaison between Kessler-Harris's article "Stratifying by Sex: Understanding the History of Working Women" and Ehrenreich's essay "Maid to Order." Glenn links the two by including the racial divisions in the work force as well as the gender differences in the work force. Like Ehrenreich, Glenn speaks of how immigrants and minorities tend to be the more common in the field of house hold work (maids, home/child care, etc.). However, I feel that the beginning of Ehrenriche's essay provides more of a feminist movement than that of Glenn's. Glenn's essay is almost entirely geared on minorities in manual labor and the common labor race in particular regions ("African American women in the South, Mexican American women in the Southwest, and Japanese American women in California"). 

I was perplexed about how geared toward race that this essay was and how many examples and facts that were given. Thus, I wondered what background and race that Glenn actually was. I did a little research that informed me that Glenn is an Asian professor at UC Berkeley. She is actually an Asian American Studies professor, but still has had many other articles published about racial inequality and gender inequality.