The author points out the economic necessity of Latina workers in Los Angeles. The presence of these workers makes everything cheaper and allows people to live lavish lifestyles. Hondagneu-Sotelo discusses the importance of nannies and careworkers in the lives of the people of Los Angeles today. She mentions that many had predicted that by now the need for such assistance would be obsolete - why are they now more popular than ever? Extended family care is on the decline as grandmothers nowadays may be employed full time and more and more families are geographically separated. Parents still tend to prefer to have their kids cared for within their own home rather than at childcare centers, so nannies are the preferred option. Whether live-in or live-out, the author explains that the term "nanny" actually means "nanny/housekeeper," as far more than just childcare is typically expected of them. Parents get a two-for-one deal, with their nannies taking care of their kids and cleaning the house.
The author discusses why Los Angeles has one of the greatest concentrations of domestic paid work. Greater inequality tends to generate greater concentrations of paid domestic work, and L.A. also has large concentrations of Latina and Caribbean immigrant women. Mexican Americans have historically settled in L.A. in large numbers, but more recently Central Americans have been joining their ranks. The work available and the demand for female workers in the U.S. contributes to the problem of transnational mothering and the destruction of relationships and the breakdown of families. Mothers trying to be the best mothers they can may be forced to leave their children and go to the U.S. to make money to send home to their families. The author talks about the fact that previously it was mostly white middle to upper class families who employed these Latina workers, but now it is practically everyone. Latino working class neighborhoods will employ Latino gardeners to work on their yards, mothers who are nannying for upper class families may hire their own nanny for their children while they are gone, etc. The author points out that domestic work is not always recognized as legitimate employment, which is an issue for its workers. Even domestic workers themselves may not consider the work they do as "real" employment. This becomes a problem when domestic workers are not protected. There is little governmental supervision or protection for these workers. For undocumented workers, this may be helpful, but for everyone else it is downright dangerous. There are no unions organized to protect the rights of domestic workers and in America anything that goes on inside the home is considered to be "private." The work is not legitimized as real work because it is "women's" work and it is work that women must do regardless - it is considered work of love, not of real employment. The author also discusses how the domestic worker-employer relationship is often very awkward. Some employers feel embarrassed or guilty because these arrangements mimic master-servant arrangements in some ways, which is uncomfortable for Americans. However, she also points out some of the dangers of having a close relationship as well. Maternalism can be used as a mechanism of manipulation and employer power. When employers give gifts to their domestic workers, advice, clothing, etc. or make them feel that they are "one of the family," it encourages workers to do extra work, to stay later, to not complain, etc. Sometimes, as a result of discomfort and/or busy schedules, employers maintain very distant relationships with their domestic workers, which can be equally hurtful. While many domestic workers are not necessarily proud of their job title, they do take quite a bit of pride in the work that they do. When employers do not acknowledge the work that they do, workers may become depressed or feel undervalued. These women work hard and need to receive the recognition they deserve. I have witnessed various types of employer-domestic worker relationships. One of the families I babysit for has an excellent relationship with their cleaning lady, her name is Flavia, and they write her notes every morning she comes, give her gifts on holidays, and encourage her to bring her family with her when she works and to eat whatever she would like while she is working. They are a great family to work for - I work for them as well, of course, and they treat me incredibly well. On the opposite end of the spectrum, another family I babysit for barely ever comes into contact with their cleaning ladies. I do not even know their names, which makes me sad, but the language barrier is a bit tough sometimes. The poor girls are really skittish when they're at the house and clearly don't feel comfortable. At the end of the week, there is simply a check on the table or on the fridge for them - no note saying thank-you, nothing to say "good job!" or "we appreciate it!" I think I may write them a note next week.
The three primary types of workers, live-in nanny/housekeeper, live-out nanny/housekeeper, and housecleaner all have very different job descriptions and entail very different responsibilities and ways of life. Live-in nanny/housekeeper certainly seems to be the worst situation for a woman to be in. The pay is the lowest, the work essentially never stops, and the woman must walk on eggshells at all times because she is always a guest and is never in her own home. However, the author explains that often undocumented workers or women who just arrived may find this beneficial for them to settle in to American culture and have a place to live. Chapter Two describes the lives of several women employed in domestic work in order to illustrate the differences in their ways of life. Live-out nanny/housekeeper can work very well for some women, but also definitely includes the possibility of being taken advantage of. Housecleaners tend to have the best deal, making their own hours and mostly being left alone while they are working. It is important to note that none of these workers are properly protected - housecleaners working for larger cleaning services may only make $5 per hour. Additionally, the U.S. has a "laissez-faire" approach towards domestic workers and does not set up any kinds of contracts or interventions for them. Many live in fear of being arbitrarily fired or somehow punished.
Further notes:
- Domestic workers, while they do take pride in their work, do not like the title of "domestic worker" and do not want their daughters to be employed in the same occupation, and the younger ones hope to eventually get out of domestic work
Chapter 2:
- "being ignored devastated her"
- These women work hard and need to receive the recognition they deserve
- Live-in employees never feel at home, never have their own space, and are often on-call 24/7
- Some don't even have their own living quarters or have to share a room with children or are relegated to the laundry room
- No clear line between work and non-work time
Of the three main types, live-ins make the least (average per hour), then live-out nannies, and housecleaners really make the most money with the best hours (as long as they don't work for one of the service companies and they are able to make their own hours)
- it amazes me that people are able to treat people the way they do when they are living within their homes
- Author mentions that it is mostly women who just recently arrived in America or who are undocumented that end up in live-in work because it provides them with housing, allows them to become accustomed to the culture and the ways of life in America, and middle and upper class suburban neighborhoods are rarely raided by Immigration officials.
- It is far better for the family life of the women to live-out or to do housecleaning - if you have children you are able to care for them yourself and if you have other relationships, such as a husband or boyfriend, you can maintain those relationships
- It was absolutely amazing to see that live-ins hourly rates came out to be three or four dollars an hour.
Bonnar, Deanne. 1991. “The Place of Caregiving Work in Industrial Societies.” In J. Hyde and M.Essex (Eds.), Parental Leave and Child Care. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Deanne Bonner makes some excellent points in this article. She points out the invisibility of carework in our society and yet its adjacent importance to the future of the world as a whole. Se explains, "enlarging the place for this vital human work will take more than tinkering with policy. It will require fundamental shifts in our world view and conscious struggle by people to redefine the terms of our collective life." I agree with her completely on this point. While progressive policies can and will make a difference in our current work-family imbalance, it will take more than policy alone. People must change the way they think about carework and about the people who provide carework in our society. She also discusses that carework has historically been seen as love or biological duty, but never real work. Women entering the paid workforce have found that they now have two jobs. Homemaking labor does not disappear with paid employment, but becomes compressed into the time that men consider "leisure." Bonnar explains that nonemployed married women work an average of 56 hours per week, employed wives 71 hours, and employed mothers of young children work an average of 80 hours per week. Meanwhile, all of their husbands work around 65 hours. These are signs of serious discrepancies in the amount of work men and women do. It is also interesting to note that their husbands all work around the same amount, regardless of the wives' increased labor.
Bonnar explains that we must realize the true value of home work. However, she points out that many studies that look at housework and attempt to quantify it and put a price on it or a wage, while well-intentioned, tend to underestimate the work by ignoring the most challenging parts - the intellectual, managerial, and psychological components. I love that Bonnar describes women not just as "cooks," but states that they should be looked at also with the labels of "judge," "negotiator," "family historian," "accountant," "philosopher," "lobbyist," "lawyer," "spiritual guide," "policewoman," "healer," and "counselor." I would argue also family Public Relations manager and Director of Communications (with other families, with extended family, etc.) My parents have certainly been all of these things to me, and more, and I believe they would both say that this has been their most challenging work of all. The psychological energy along with the physical energy required to run a household is often severely underestimated and ignored. Bonnar points out that even simply preparing food is a project requiring mental and physical work - the parent must know what each family member likes to eat, how they like it cooked, where the cheapest place to buy it is, perhaps their favorite brand, etc. As a result of everything mentioned above, Bonnar argues that you cannot quantify care work in the same way as household chores. For example, for most jobs it really doesn't matter if the person who does the job or specific task changes every week (dusting the table, putting things together on an assembly line, cleaning dishes, etc.) but, it matters A LOT to a child if the person who is providing their care changes on a daily or weekly basis. Therefore, Bonnar argues that human work and household work such as cleaning, cannot really be compared or lumped together and must be looked at somewhat separately. Even though some services within the home can be purchased and outsourced, the mental work and management that goes into everything - including organizing this outsourcing - still must be done, and is typically done by the woman.
In her discussion of women's paid work and the fact some women seem to choose to work in service areas or "feminized" work, Bonnar makes some good points. Aside from the oft-argued point that women are forced into these industries for a variety of reasons, including their increased flexibility so that women are able to do the care work they must do at home, Bonnar points out that it may be less mentally draining for them. Jobs in the service or caregiving sector often require some of the same managerial and emotional and psychological skills that home work does. It is less stressful when women do not have to constantly switch mental gears from work to home, or at least not as drastically. Additionally, the mental work in the paid job may help the mental work for the home job, or vice-versa - bringing skills from work to home and home to work. This is an important point to make, because even in Sweden, where they have made serious attempts to create equality in the workplace and the home for women, there is still a large income disparity and still women in many of the caretaking jobs.
Bonnar discusses the social value of "women's" work and explains, "the closer one comes to direct care, the less one earns." The most disturbing part of this is that most traditionally female jobs are rated lower socially than the title of "Dog Trainer" and people pay more for the care of their pets than they do for the care of their children. She points out that policy has been devoid of serious efforts to enable men to do more caregiving. Also, we very rarely look at the fact that while women are forced into home work, men are forced into market work. In the U.S. especially, we fail to provide adequate time for parenting in general, regardless of gender issues. The raised standard of living has made life better materially for many people, but has also reduced the capacity for people to care for one another. The focus on material wealth is downright disturbing. Bonnar explains the issue that the interrelatedness of human kind overall is becoming dependent on the marketplace, rather than community ties, which is a tragedy for human life overall.
Bonnar's solutions include rearranging the time demand of employment, providing adequate parental leave policies (including extended care after birth, leave for childcare emergencies, flextime arrangements, etc.), as well as suggesting a system for setting wages for human care work. Flextime arrangements seem to make a lot of sense, because they allow employees to set starting and stopping times for their work that coincide with childcare needs. Unfortunately, it is clear that mostly higher professional jobs would be providing this option, because if many other workplaces implemented it, everyone would be asking for all of the same times off and businesses that run from 9 am to 9 pm would not be able to function. She points out that the six-hour workday is being seriously considered in some other countries. I think that this would be excellent. The "ideal worker" mentality and the overworking that goes on in this economy is detrimental to people's lives everywhere and really must be challenged.
Bonnar suggests that we may be able to wage domestic work directly. She explains a few of the current plans for waging domestic work and argues her own plan. She believes that we should wage specifically caregivers, not just anyone doing housework because she argues for a distinct difference between the two responsibilities. She points out that caregiving responsibilities are not equal and should not be paid equally, so they should start out with a flat rate, adding increments according to the intensity of care. For example, infant care is more intense than the care of a ten-year-old, so as the child grows older, the pay increments will decrease. Unfortunately, the cost for such a program, because there are so many millions of people employed in unpaid care work, would be close to the defense budget in the U.S. Personally, I do not think that the U.S. would ever come anywhere close to such a policy, and I'm not sure I would agree with the policy myself. Some feminist arguments against such wage for carework policies maintain that such policies would reinforce gender roles and would add to women's isolation and loneliness within their separate spheres of home and might force women to stay in the home because now they can "afford" to, when they really don't want to. I feel that this may be correct, evidence from previous articles shows that women really do prefer to work outside the home, but many of their husbands claim that it is only because of financial necessity and if they were financially able, they would prefer to have their wives at home. The counter-argument claims that such policy would actually break down gender roles because the work would no longer be seen as "love" and would be seen as real work, so women could more freely choose not to do it and to choose other labor instead. I think that this argument completely ignores cultural norms that are not likely to change with the implementation of one policy. Though men are technically "forced" into market work, I believe that the way most men were raised and taught to connect their identity with paid work, I don't think many of them would be very willing to stay home with kids, even if it were to be paid.
Bonnar explains that half the world works for "love" and half the world works for money. As long as food costs money, this system does not work and something needs to be done about it. She also points out, "people need more than material well being to survive; they need personal human nurture." Industrialized nations are focused on maximizing material production as if that is the thing that matters most, when, in reality, it is not. On this, I completely agree. We need to look at what the world is focused on and ask ourselves if it is really what is most important to living a happy and healthy life.
Tronto, Joan, C. 2002. “The 'Nanny' Question in Feminism.” Hypatia 17(2): 34-51.
Joan Tronto discusses the idea of unintended consequences in the feminist movement concerning the changing family and the use of "domestic servants" for childcare work as more and more women are entering the workplace. She discusses the issue of responsibility when it comes to unintended consequences, which is always a difficult question. She questions the morality of our practices as they exist, arguing that the entire system is unjust. She points out the supposed feminist notion of sisterhood and support for all women. Does this idea hold true with our "domestic servant" system? To supplement her argument, Tronto examines the study we read earlier by Pirette Hondagneu-Sotelo. She argues that there have been two major unintended consequences of the feminist movement for women in the workplace:
1) greater social and economic inequality
2) greater demands for childcare
The social and economic inequality is a result of the newly created two-income households with two powerful incomes. The overwhelming presence of these households has increased the standard of living as well as the inequalities of these standards. Tronto argues that the feminist movement, "rearranged responsibilities in a way that undercuts feminist notions of justice."
Inequality is associated with increased use of domestic servants and the use of domestics has been on the rise in the past 20 years. The quote from an employer at the beginning of this section sums up many of the issues to be discussed. An employer whose nanny asked for a raise replied, "is money just really all that's important to you?" and told her to return all of the Christmas gifts they had given to her - that should suffice as her bonus. These women are not always considered to be "really" working, so the fact that they are working for money because they need money to survive is often overlooked. This example also illustrates the issue of intimate relationships and the fact that the household is different than the market. Purchasing commodities within the household is different than purchasing commodities in the market. The employer and employee are not on equal playing ground - they are not in a public place of work, they are in the employer's personal home. The level of control employers have over their domestic workers is very high, and often "emotionally and psychologically charged." The presence of personal relationships is also a very important part of the system. There are three perspectives of these relationships that form: the caregiver, the care-receiver, and the employer. The caregiver is in a tough place, because she needs to make a living, but she also comes to care about her charges and therefore is not in a good position to fight back or make demands, because any fight she puts up impacts her charges more immediately than her employer. The employer may see the nanny as either an ally or a threat - which makes a big impact on the employer-employee relationship. A mother could easily fire a nanny arbitrarily if she sees the worker as too much of a competition for children's affection. I think one of the most important points that Tronto brings up is the impact on the care-receiver, typically assumed to be the children. Children often develop very close relationships with their nannies, and these relationships have shown to be very positive for many kids in a lot of ways. However, we have to keep in mind that the home is the preparation for the world and look at all of the forces at work in a nanny situation. For example, what impact does it have on children to be in a household where one adult is so clearly subordinated to other adults? Particularly if the nanny is a minority, what does this say to children about minorities and race and ethnicity? Children may also become very used to the nanny being there just for them, solely to fulfill their needs, and may not see people as much as a means in themselves as a means to some ends. All of these relationships need to be examined and the example set for children must be the most positive possible.
Tronto explains, in detail, the reasons why many parents feel that hiring nannies is what is best for their child. The ideal of "intensive mothering" comes into play in a big way, because parents have the greatest control over what their kids are exposed to and what needs are met when they have a nanny in their home to whom they can give explicit instructions. "Good mothering" in today's day and age is "inevitably tied to children's success in the context of a highly competitive capitalist environment." Mothers want to do what will be best for their kids in order for their kids to succeed. Because this is seen as a moral undertaking, any attempts to do what is best for their kids (such as hiring a domestic worker, even at an unfair price) is automatically considered moral and needs no examination. Mothers will do what they feel is best for their children - even if that means taking advantage of a childcare worker. The capitalist system currently determines essentially every piece of all of our lives. The definition of good mothering and of what children need depends on the cultural ideology of the time - currently kids need whatever will make them competitive and successful in the harsh business world. Parents are justifiably anxious about their children's futures and future success. Therefore, the injustice of hiring domestic servants is "obscured by the ideological construction of intensive and competitive mothering."
From an economic standpoint, it needs to be pointed out that a domestic worker is only necessary and beneficial as long as it remains financially beneficial to have the mother working. If she is paying her domestic worker too close to what she herself makes, it no longer makes sense. For this reason, dramatically increasing the pay of domestic workers is not feasible, and remains unjust and exploitative in most cases.
As far as assessing responsibility for this problem, Tronto points out that according to the definition of justice, something is considered unjust if people directly benefit from harming others. Upper middle class working men and women benefit greatly from "hiring women to work as underpaid, exploited, domestic servants." It is essentially the exploitation of one woman in order to benefit another - the working woman is oppressing the domestic working woman in order to break her own oppression into gender roles. This does not fit the definition of sisterhood. Tronto points out the negative terms by which Friedan discusses housework - saying housework is best suited to 'feeble-minded girls' - what does this say about domestic servants? She argues that feminists should have seen these issues coming and they do hold some responsibility for these negative outcomes. Their movement focused mainly on white, middle and upper class women and their liberation and they didn't consider women of other classes and races nearly enough in their goals. Tronto refers to this as the "incomplete feminist revolution." I couldn't agree more, particularly Friedan's statements are rather disturbing. As one writer pointed out in her critique of Hillary Clinton's statement about not "baking cookies all day," if Hillary is not baking the cookies for the White House, some other woman is. If Hillary is not cleaning the White House, some other woman is. We need to value the work of all women and understand that it is serious work that must be done no matter what - and it will be done by a woman.
Tronto clearly ideologically supports the abolition of the "domestic servant" system, but more practically she argues that wages should be raised and working conditions made more standard. There should be more intervention on behalf of these hard working women. The U.S. should provide options in the form of public childcare facilities that are good and can be seen as real options - they should consider the needs of all different children from all different backgrounds.
Ultimately, we need to change the way we think - we can't be in constant competition like this, and parenting and the ideas and goals of parenting need to be reexamined.
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