Maids and Other Women in the Labor Market

            I found both the Ehrenreich and Crittenden articles very interesting.  Recently, I read Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed for a class, which details an experiment that she undertook to try to earn a living working in unskilled labor jobs for a year, only to find that it was really nearly impossible to earn a living under the conditions she found.  She worked in three different locations around the US, taking different positions at each, such as a waitress, house cleaner, or employee of Wal-Mart.  While she had varying amount of success in each, her conclusion was that working at minimum wage did not produce very livable conditions.  Regardless, her views on maid services and the gender division of housework were very interesting.  One quote that particularly stood out to me was “The micro-defeat of feminism in the household opened a new door for women, only this time it was the servants door.”  I never really had considered the employment of a cleaning service or a maid to be the result of fighting between married partners, but rather a means of convenience.  Especially in households where both the husband and wife work, it is often worth the cost of a cleaning service so that members of the family can come home to a clean house without the large time investment required to keep it clean.  I find it sad that something so simple as cleaning can be the reason for a marriage to end, so several of the ideas along those lines, such as the fact that marriage counselors recommend it often, surprised me greatly.

            In Gender and the Economy with Grapard, I spend a lot of time talking about the “Mommy Tax.”  There are many issues that Crittenden touches upon which show the problems in our working society.  The idea of lost wages from having a baby is one thing, but the inability to return to the marketplace is completely different.  Women who exit the labor market in order to have a baby and then care for the child have severe difficulty returning to a job that is anywhere close to the same track that they were on prior to pregnancy.  Additionally, in many cases, younger women are discriminated against because it is assumed that they will leave their jobs to have kids, leaving the company with a job to fill down the road.  Some countries have done a better job addressing these concerns, and the US needs to be next to help women have fair treatment within the labor market.