¶ … feminists of my generation tried to bring some of it into the light of day, but like busy professional women fleeing the house in the morning, they left the project unfinished, the debate broken off in midsentence, the noble intentions unfulfilled."
Barbara Ehrenreich
The daughter of a miner from Butte, Montana, Barbara Ehrenreich takes a look at what life is like for a maid in America from a social perspective in one of her essays titled, "Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women's Work,." It highlights the progress feminists made with the domestic sphere and then the regression brought on by maid service. Ehrenreich also brings in the idea that race and class are connected to the maid concept and poor colored women are often treated by professional women as less than, perpetuating longstanding beliefs of servitude and dominance. It culminates with Ehrenreich examining the role of mother: the need for children to be taught by mothers to clean up after themselves instead of relying on maids to do it for them. All of this highlights the author's view of domestic life and how it not only regresses feminism, but also reinforces old ways of thinking.
The essay starts out with a scene described in one of the ads from a Maid Service Business. "We scrub floors the old-fashioned way, boasts the brochure from Merry Maids ... on our hands...
This is followed by an account of how the maids had to deal with being on their hands and knees and the various ways their employers behaved while in their presence. From temper tantrums of children not wanting them there after school, to the wives sitting, oblivious to their existence, there is an almost inhuman approach these people have towards the maids, treating them as less than human. Less than human is how many women felt during the 1960's and 1970's when the second wave of feminism emerged, which is where Ehrenreich directs the reader.
As women's rights progressed throughout the decades with women gaining more independence and will to work outside the home, a reassessment of the duties of household work led to a decrease in women performing household duties and instead acquiring the services of maids. Instead of men sharing the housework with the women as what should be done and was expected by feminists, women instead asked for men to maintain their position as worker and for women to find either a way to be both the worker and the cleaner or hire another woman to do the work for her. These women were expected to lack intelligence and be a means to provide for the better off woman, a way to have independence at the same time fulfill her household duties (60).
Yet, while this provided a solution to those that wanted…
