Paid Carework

The “Nanny” Question in Feminism By Joan Tronto

In “The ‘Nanny’ Question in Feminism,” author Joan Tronto addresses the morality and practices of upper-class and upper middle-class men and women who are raising children in two-career households. These households are unique among dual-income households because both professionals in the household have professional jobs in which time demands are excessive and unpredictable. Tronto explains that the two-career households, and others similarly situated, are more likely to use a paid full-time domestic caretaker who either lives in the household or does not. Tronto asserts that these particular families, though of narrow demographic focus, are important for two reasons. Firstly, they are the first families to benefit from the end of the gender-caste barriers. Secondly, their standards for intensive mothering reflect a broader ideology. Tronto discusses the moral uniqueness that exists among the use of domestic servants. The relationship within the household is much more intimate than that in other markets and so hired workers in the household take on a quasi-family member role in which they are involved in all the details of the lives of the families they serve. Tronto begins by giving the workers’ perspective. She cites Hondagneu-Sotelo who reported that job offers of $150 per week for a live-in worker are not unusual in Los Angeles. She estimates that live-in domestic workers earn less than minimum wage and work an average of sixty-four hours each week. Live-out nannies she surveyed averaged $5.90 an hour for approximately forty to forty-five hours each week. Tronto quotes Diemut Bubeck who wrote that "the exploitative mechanism, is the social institution of the sexual division of labor which constructs women as carers and thus systematically 'extracts surplus labor' in the form of unpaid care from them (to hearken back to Marx's definition of exploitation)" (1995, 181). This is especially true for domestic workers. It is hard for these workers to fight back since there work creates a bond between them and their charges. Tronto says this can have several effects on the children. It is possible that they could come to regard all people, regardless of their connection to them, as a means to an end, rather than ends in themselves. Furthermore, because race and ethnicity usually distinguish the employers and the workers, children cared for by domestic servants are being more completely absorbed in a racist culture. But parents, according to Tronto give man justifications for using domestic servants. The well-off women who hire domestic servants believe that they are acting in the best interests of their children. For the upper middle-class, "good mothering" is inevitably tied to children's success in the context of a highly competitive capitalist environment. Tronto ends with advocating for actions to be taken in order to improve working conditions of these workers. According to her, this includes enforcing labor laws that already exist as well as including laws for minimum wages and social security benefits. I think this was a very informative and detailed essay. I don’t like how Tronto seems to demonize the use of domestic workers altogether. However, I completely agree with her that laws need to be more closely observed for the protection of these workers as well as new laws created. Otherwise, I do not agree with Tronto that the children taken care of by domestic workers are more immersed in a racist culture. Rather, I believe being raised by a domestic worker of a different ethnicity or race can positively introduce the child to another race. However, this does have to do with the child and with the way in which the child’s parents treat the worker.

The Place of Caregiving Work in Contemporary Societies By Deanne Bonnar

In “The Place of Caregiving Work in Contemporary Societies,” author Deanne Bonnar discusses the problem of caregiving being pushed to the margins of importance. She says that this has occurred out of the development of the industrialization and wage economy, which values work according to the production and servicing of goods. She also attributes this problem to the early stages of feminist theory, which held that activity in the domestic sphere is less important than activity in the public arena. Bonnar explains that reproduction and care of people has been traditionally female activity in most societies. As such, for the most part, particularly in Eurocentric cultures, care for people has been looked upon as love, duty, or biological destiny and rarely as work. Women, therefore, have rarely been entitled to direct access of economic resources. Socialists and feminists are the only two groups that have addressed this issue up until recently. However, both groups have ignored or devalue the work done in the domestic sphere. According to Bonnar’s account of early feminist theory, it was believed housework would be collectivized or purchased on the market and it would eventually disappear. In reality, it has not disappeared, but rather women are now burdened with dual workloads. This has caused feminists to turn their attentions to household work. This means looking at housework in a new light. Bonnar discusses the problem that homemaking has been narrowly described for its physical roles. “Thus, one sees “cook” listed repeatedly in studies,” says Bonnar, “but rarely “judge,” “negotiator,” “family historian,” “accountant,” “philosopher,” lobbyist,” “lawyer,” “spiritual guide,” “policewoman,” “healer,” or even “counselor.” While housework refers to the care of goods, caregiving for humans is a much more arduous and intellectually consuming job. The market has had a hard time reproducing care of people, because this care is not equivalent to production of goods. Bonnar says that understanding the amount of thought that is involved in parenting and other caregiving activities important for four reasons. Firstly, the familiarity of these activities gives us the illusion that we understand them, though in reality we rarely have a conceptual intelligibility. Secondly, this lack of clarity leads people to assume that the market can easily reproduce these tasks, which would easily end the inequalities existing between men and women. Thirdly, because of the responsibility involved in caregiving, women have limited career choices. Finally, ignoring the requirements of caregiving has allowed it to be labeled simply as “housework.” It is thus not deemed as important enough to be accommodated for with the market and corporate policy development has focused attention only on paid employment and not personal caregiving. Bonnar outlines possible steps that can be taken to overcome this problem. she begins by discussing the modification of the time dilemma. A “system of guaranteed parental leave,” maintains Bonnar, “that permits extended care after birth and occasional leave for childhood emergencies. ” (Bonnar 1990). She also advocates the expansion of flextime arrangements, pointing to Sweden and Israel who have proposed shortening workdays. Next Bonnar discusses the modification of the wage variable. She argues that we need a model that starts with a flat rate and adds increments according to intensity of care, amount of time required for care, the number of people being cared for, and whether or not the caregiver is the household’s only earner. Some feminist have objected to waging caregivers, arguing that it would reinforce women’s traditional roles and intensify isolation that women experience in partaking in domestic sphere. However, Bonnar asserts that could actually increase women’s “mobility, their identifications as a class of workers, their interest in unionization, and their political position.” (Bonnar 8). “The waging of caring work is not ‘buying love,’” Bonnar says, “but buying the circumstances of life that make love possible.”

Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence By Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

In the two chapters from Doméstica that we read, author Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo addresses the domestic work in the United States ad the immigrant population that does this work. She attributes the growth of domestic work, which she limits to nanny and housekeeper work, to the increased employment of women in the U.S. With the negative feelings many middle-class Americans hold for day-care centers, they prefer to have private caregivers in the home. The use of private caregivers gives parents a feeling of control and flexibility. Furthermore, they may believe that their children receive more attention this way. With such phenomena, many immigrants, particularly Latinos, have immigrated to the United States in order to find paid domestic work. The domestic work that Hondagneu-Sotelo discusses is work that is seen as women’s work, which would be done out of biological instinct and love. This belief justifies for many the low pay these domestic workers receive. Furthermore, domestic work carries a stigma of low-status, which further justifies low wages. Whereas in the past Black women had done this work, today it is largely completed by foreign-born Latinas. The legal status of many of these women leads to their increased exploitation, since they are at the whims of their employers. Their legal status also seems to validate their “social, economic, an political subordination” (18). Hondagneu-Sotelo addressed three types of domestic paid care work. The first is live-in nanny positions. This type of work seems to lead to the greatest feelings alienation and exploitation on the part of the workers. It prevents them from forming their own families and confines them almost entirely to their work. The second type of domestic work discussed in this reading is the live-out nanny. These workers tend to make more money on average per hour than do live-in nannies. In fact, they have reported a better situation overall and expressed greater satisfaction than the latter workers. The last type of domestic workers that Hondagneu-Sotelo explores is the housecleaner. These workers, Hondagneu-Sotelo asserts, make the most money out of the three types of domestic workers. They tend to report the greatest satisfaction among these domestic workers. Parts of this is do to the fact that they have the most freedom and are generally not confined to one employer. This was a very important reading. Hondagneu-Sotelo addressed a group of people that goes ignored by most of the public. In America we are all about bettering the workplace for Americans and ending inequalities between genders, but we ignore this vast group of marginalized immigrants. Most of America were immigrants at one point, immigrants are Americans and so to ignore the plight of the most recent immigrants is to ignore the foundation of America.