Love It or Hate It

The article that I found the most interesting and eye opening was Barbara Ehrenreich's article "Maid to Order". I found her reflections on maids and the outlook on housework extremely fascinating. Ehrenreich's discussion of the two varying views women had of housework made the biggest impact on me.

Ehrenreich writes how others believed that housework was supposed to be the "great equalizer of women", and how it was a "economically productive and significant workplace, an extension of the actual factory, since housework served to 'reproduce the labor power' of others, particularly men". This notion that housework was a beneficial, equalizing "job" was based out of the notion that women were leveling themselves with the men. It also reminded me of the typical 50's housewife image. The women who dresses up in high heels and pretty dresses to do housework and loves every minute of it. This

image could not explain it better.

Women were constantly portrayed as loving housework. Women took pride in keeping a clean home and caring for their husbands.

This happy 50's housewife contrasts with the opposite view on housework. Ehrenreich discussed a more "feminist" approach to housework and the affects it had for women's power. Instead of housework loving women, Ehrenreich reports on other women's views of housework some that included- "housework defined a relationship between human beings" and the theory that if it is constantly a woman cleaning up after a man "you have a formula for reproducing male domination from one generation to the next. Hence the feminist perception of housework as one more way by which men exploit women". Or a more crude image depicting the same view-

It seemed that the feminists directly contradicted the previous "housework loving" women. What interested me about this difference of opinions was that it had changed over time and so I became interested in what the society I lived in thought about housework. I grew up with my mother staying at home to raise me and my sisters while my dad worked during the day. However, once I got older and my mother started participating in more charity work, she hired someone to help out cleaning around the house. I never thought that a "maid's" work was less sophisticated or demeaning than for example my mom's job helping out at a school. But sadly, I did feel that maybe she had become a maid because she wasn't offered a better education or because of the language barrier she couldn't find a higher paying job. As embarrassed as I am to say that, I think that it tells a lot about our society today. Instead of looking at housework as a wonderful exciting thing, or a way for men to "exploit" women; I think that because there are so many women working in high ranking jobs, and many famous women with successful careers, it gives off the image that women can succeed just as far as men. So over time I gradually developed the idea that any woman could be just as successful as a man. Because I developed this idea, I think I was more inclined to believe that it wasn't that maids could not reach the higher paying careers, but instead that they were not given equal opportunity to.

Overall, Ehrenreich's article made me notice what my own society thought about housework and the affect it has on me and my own view of housework.