Barbara Ehrenreich's "Maid to Order": Feminism, Race, and Class

Introduction: Ehrenreich's Critique of Domestic Life

"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 examines what life is like for a maid in America from a social perspective in her essay "Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women's Work." The essay highlights the progress feminists made within the domestic sphere and then the regression brought on by maid services. Ehrenreich also introduces the idea that race and class are connected to the concept of domestic service, arguing that poor women of color are often treated by professional women as less than human, perpetuating longstanding beliefs of servitude and dominance. The essay culminates with Ehrenreich examining the role of the mother and the need for children to be taught by their mothers to clean up after themselves rather than relying on maids to do it for them. All of this illuminates the author's view of domestic life and how it not only sets back feminism but also reinforces older, oppressive ways of thinking.

Second-Wave Feminism and the Persistence of Housework

The essay opens with a scene described in an advertisement from a maid service business: "We scrub floors the old-fashioned way, boasts the brochure from Merry Maids … on our hands and knees" (59). This is followed by an account of how maids must deal with working on their hands and knees and the various ways their employers behave in their presence — from the temper tantrums of children who resent their presence after school, to wives sitting oblivious to their existence. There is an almost dehumanizing quality to the way these employers treat their maids. That sense of being treated as less than human was also what many women experienced during the 1960s and 1970s when the second wave of feminism emerged, and it is to that era that Ehrenreich directs her reader.

As women's rights progressed throughout the decades — with women gaining greater independence and entering the workforce — a reassessment of household duties led to a decline in women performing domestic work themselves. Rather than men sharing housework with women, as feminists had expected, women instead allowed men to retain their roles as primary breadwinners while women found ways to be both worker and housekeeper, or simply hired another woman to do the domestic work. These hired women were expected to lack advanced skills and education, serving as a convenient means by which the more economically privileged woman could maintain her independence while still fulfilling her household obligations (60).

Gender Inequity and the Reinforcement of 'Woman's Work'

Yet while maid services offered a practical solution for professional women, second-wave feminists recognized that this arrangement also reinforced the already degrading role women held in society. The use of maids, and the expectations employers placed on them, cemented the preconceived notion that housework is inherently woman's work — that a man could drop a sock on the floor and expect a woman to pick it up, because that was her job and only her job. As Ehrenreich writes, "Housework was not degrading because it was manual labor, as Freudian thought, but because it was embedded in degrading relationships and inevitably served to reinforce them" (61). Women who worked as maids demonstrated to society that women would always occupy the role of domestic cleaner, regardless of whether another woman was working outside the home — because another woman would always be there to clean up the mess.

The arrogance, the hurry, the obliviousness — seen in the angered child, the dropped socks, and the inattentive housewife — all reflect the degree of dominance an employer exercises over a maid. When the behavior that creates domestic toil is consistently generated by a male and the toil is consistently performed by a female, it reinforces already oppressive views of women in society (61).

These views persist even in modern times. Ehrenreich notes that while men have attempted to share some household responsibilities, the burden still falls largely on women. "The inequity is sharpest for the most despised of household chores, cleaning: in the thirty years between 1965 and 1995, men increased the time spent scrubbing by 240% … up to 1.7 hours per week, while women only decreased by 7%, to 6.7 hours per week" (61–62). Such figures reveal a stark contrast between the egalitarian norms feminists envisioned and the lived reality of housework distribution.

Conclusion: Domestic Life and the Unfinished Feminist Project

She closes the essay by reiterating the plight of the maid and the relationship she inevitably forms with the female employer, returning to the idea that domestic life — something feminists fought hard to change — was now back to the way it was before, with women performing and depending on class-based labor, still the ones on their hands and knees. Ehrenreich's essay ultimately argues that the domestic sphere remains a site of unresolved feminist struggle: one where gender, race, and class intersect to reproduce hierarchies of dominance and servitude that the women's movement once sought to eliminate.