More Rambling Thoughts About The Philippines

My face hurts really badly which makes it hard to concentrate on things, so bear with me here...One of the strangest things for me in employing a maid is negotiating our relationship. I actually have much more experience than a normal American in interacting with live-in help. My grandfather had a housekeeper (Margaret Best and God rest her soul!) for many years. My father's mother, too, had a maid/cook/goddess of domestic arts who took care of me a lot when I was a girl, Annie Washington. My grandfather on his deathbed had Annie swear to take care of my grandmother when he was gone, and this she faithfully did almost all the rest of her life, even though she really wanted to live in the country on her brother's farm. Even when she was 80 years old she could lift my grandmother in and out of the bath like she was a sick child. So, anyway, this is not completely new to me the way it is to most expat women who come here to Singapore and end up hiring a maid. But it's still weird.

You sometimes read in old books about England where there's a would-be social reformer type who insists on palling around with the hired help at the country house weekend party, and somehow just pisses them off, or is tolerated with amused scorn. This can easily be seen as soothing reinforcement of class distinctions (see, they like it this way!), but there is actually something to it. Tena's sister had a bad experience with an employer here in our building who wanted to be her friend. She refused to be called "mam", etc. (I tried to convince Tena not to call me "mam" when she first started working for me, but she point-blank refused to call me Belle and since she has a much more forceful personality than I do I gave up.) The thing is, if you are friends with someone, you can't send them out to get the dry cleaning for you. Or have them iron your shirts, or do the dishes, or change your babies' diapers. Or, to the extent that anyone might do these things every once in a way for a good friend who was sick or had a new baby, it would be with the understanding that the other person could ask you to return the favor sometime. And since you are never, ever going to iron your maid's shirts, pretending that she's just a pal who happens to want to pick up the living room for you is a weird thing to do. It's an irritating, patronising thing to do. In the end this person decided that Tena's sister didn't have the right personality, because she required too much direction, and having lured her away from a perfectly good job with Chinese employers (which paid more!), she turned around and fired Elsa after 9 months or so. This person is actually rather nice in many ways, really funny, and perhaps it's not her fault she found herself tempermentally unsuited to employ a maid, but it was still a kind of shitty outcome.

Now, this is not to say that you might not eventually become friends with your maid, just as a boss in another setting might become friends with an employee. In the sense that I plan to keep in touch with Tena even after we move to the states, and keep helping her family out if we can manage, I do consider her a friend now. And, indeed, she's often the only adult I talk to during the day. She is a fan of salacious gossip, and together with Auntie Lim at the shop downstairs (who is the Gillman Heights nerve center) she basically knows everything that happens around here. She has seen me at my lowest ebb, moping around on bed rest like an unhappy beluga whale. I was the only one here to hold her when she found out her father had died. (In typical Tena fashion she turned down my offer to send her home, asking that I pay for her sister to go back to the funeral instead, because she (rightly) thinks her little sister is a weaker person who couldn't stand it otherwise.) Again, it's stupid to say your maid is "just like a member of the family", unless you have some sort of orphaned cousin staying at your place whom you treat like cinderella. But she is certainly something a lot like a family member. I remember well when Zoe was just learning to talk and she was making up a story about "a mommy lion, a daddy lion, a yaya lion, and a baby lion!" Maybe the rich South African lions import domestic lionesses from Zimbabwe or something.

So, all that said, it was interesting to go to Tena's place where I could be her guest. Of course she still introduced me to everyone as "my mam"; this is the flip side of "my maid". She was both proud of things in her town she wanted to show off (the beach, the food) and sort of triumphantly irritated by various negatives (people trying to squeeze me for money, feckless brothers-in-law, corrupt and inefficient government). "Now you know the truth about my country!" she said with satisfaction, as I fumed in the airport, where we were being shuffled from desk to desk in various bullshit transactions designed to squeeze just a few thousand pesos more from the departing overseas workers. She still says that now, when her relatives call for money. "Now you know the truth about my country!" She thinks they are all "money face", but she is also pround of herself. She's like the one-woman engine of her whole family. She dreams about winning the Singapore pick 4 lottery so she can buy back the land her improvident father sold to pay gambling debts. More realistically, she wants to build a house on her part of the remaining land; she's been inspired by various places she's seen in Thailand and Bali on our trips. That's something I'm confident she will do, and I look forward to visiting her there.

Comments

[Yan]

"The thing is, if you are friends with someone, you can't send them out to get the dry cleaning for you."

This seems a better support for the view that hiring servants is morally inappropriate, than for the view that being their friend is professionally inappropriate or just impractical.

I realize, of course, that this is a strong view to take, and there's no _essential_ difference between the relationship between employee and employee in this case and others.

But I can't help thinking the difference if not essential is still profound. I can, in principal, be my boss' friend, since there's usually a relatively clear delineation between work and non work relationship. I am hired to do specific work during specific hours--work I that freely control and work I do in service are distinct. I have a very distinct workplace and home--the two do not easily become confused.

The separation of personal lives is, I think, the critical issue here. I don't have to pretend my boss or employee is not a human being, because I'm not intimate with them for their humanity to interfere with my work. But I cannot imagine having an employee living in my home and being able to function professionally without, either consciously or unconsciously, pretending or acting as if they are not a human being.

I wonder if a comparison might be made to the question of the moral status of sex workers. Defenders say there is not in principle a difference between this form of labor and any other, but it again seems that even if this is true, it is not convincing. There still seems to be a degree of dehumanization (intentional or otherwise) that is unavoidable and ethically inexcusable.

I cannot fully articulate my reasons for this suspicion. It has something to do, perhaps, with the distinction between owning someone's labor vs. owning their person. I cannot help seeing sex work and houseservant work as a kind of renting of the person, rather than of an exchange of money for their labor.

[belle waring]

Yan, I do see what you mean. I personally think being a sex worker is a degrading occupation, and in my experience many of the women and men who end up in this profession have been sexually abused or coerced in other ways. but I also strongly support legalized prostitution, both because I think it reduces attendant harms and because I think people should generally be free to do what they want. for me to pay four or five times as much money to get part-time help much less of the time, just so that I don't have to participate in a relationship with a live-in helper...that might be the right choice for some people. but it would be a choice that person would be making with respect to her own feelings and preferences, not the interests of some hypothetical employee who, in actuality, would like to have a job. the thing is, Tena is the person best placed to assess her own interests and opportunities. I think it is an indictment of her country that this is the best option for her, but as long as she judges that it is, and so long as we keep paying her triple the average salary and treating her with respect, I think this is a good option for our family and a least-bad option for her. I am complicit in a terrible sacrifice she is making, of time with her own children for money for their education and construction of a house for her to live in when she retires. but it's not up to me to say she is making the wrong choice. still a lot of complex issues, though, not least of which is how to teach your children to do things for themselves, pick up after themselves. also to respect Tena and what she does. one way I try to do this is to give Tena the same deference I give John in the following sense: if Tena says "no you can't do x", even if I disagree, I try to back her up regardless. later I might say to her in private, I actually think it's ok for them to do x, but I try not to undercut her authority in that sense.

[dsquared]

why is there some big moral requirement against "confusion" between working and domestic lives? This seems like quite a slender reed to bear the weight of a fairly fundamental reorganisation of the world economy.

It strikes me that a lot of the stigma against having servants is the creation of people who've not got much experience of telling other people what to do. It is really not that difficult to think of someone else as a human being who is employed to do what they're told.

[dsquared]

(I reiterate btw, my own philosophical position that if you end up having to choose between employing a maid, and fundamental principles of human autonomy, what you should give up is the desire to be considered a Nice Person by leftwingers.)

[Andrew John]

Like Belle, I live in Singapore, and like her family, we employ a housekeeper. My feelings about this tend to vacillate between two positions.

1. As a trained economist, I recognize that we are entering into a mutually beneficial contract. Our housekeeper is an intelligent mature individual who feels that the option of working in this position in Singapore is superior to her previous clerical position in the Philippines. This is a simple employment relationship where part of the compensation consists of room and board. We all do our utmost to manage this relationship with appropriate dignity and respect.

2. Holy cr*p, we have a f*cking servant.

Which is to say, I do experience some dissonance, but more and more I am coming to the view that this is my problem.

[Carlos]

Yan's comment looks much like what they call on the parenting blogs a "drive-by": some outsider comes in and passes a moral judgment on a parent who has made a difficult but reasoned decision. The outsider's judgment is not intended to help the parent. The outsider's judgment is intended to make the outsider feel superior to the parent.

Yan's confusion is exactly that: Yan's confusion. Yan can't distinguish between slavery and employing a maid. Does this have anything to do with Belle and Tena? Not really.

[Yan]

Belle, I suppose it's true that this form of work is usually truly advantageous to the employee, and it's certainly true that the person taking the job is best qualified to decide if it's in their interests.

I wonder if the ethical framework applied makes a difference? On a purely utilitarian model, I think one can say that employeeing servants on not only acceptable but morally laudable because it can increase the good of the employee. So perhaps my worries come only with a commitment to a different ethical model?

dsquared:
I'm suggesting that the confusion of work and domestic spheres makes it impossible to know how much of the employees life is under one's authority--thus, impossible to distinguish buying their labor time from renting their person, where the latter seems to me (as a wacky lefty) morally problematic.

As for whether this justifies a fundamental reorganization of the world economy. Well, there's no essential moral weight in the organization of the world economy per se. That is, the fact that the world is run that way doesn't mean it _ought_ to be. So unless you have some moral justification of the present system, there's nothing my moral claim needs to "outweigh." It wouldn't be the first time a moral issue was at odds with economic concerns. Slavery, obviously, was an economic issue for the south. And clearly, the recognition of womens' rights has pretty profound economic and social consequences. This is not to compare the seriousness of these cases, but to point out that it can be appropriate to endorse a moral position that would change the way we do things. Morality is, surprise, often inconvenient in that regard.

I only expressed a suspicion. I'm not by any means certain that employing servants is morally wrong. I am pretty sure it is a _difficult_ case, and thus worth subjecting to critical reflection (by everyone, not just those considering employing servants).

So, Carlos is right, it is first and foremost _my_ confusion. But I do think it's something we should all be a bit confused about. I think it ultimately depends on the issue of ethically problematic forms of "objectification"--the question of how to determine what counts as reducing someone the status of an object, vs innocuously treating someone as a thing. That's an extraordinarily difficult question, even in other issues where the question comes up, such as sexual objectification.

Carlos seems like the kinda guy who would not only have endorsed Socrates' conviction, but resented the fact that Socrates stole from the public the pleasure of executing him.

[Cala]

Belle, I think you have the analysis correct; a servant isn't just a good friend who happens to love your kids so much she takes care of them. And I think you're right to keep some sort of separation.

The flip side of you not doing her shirts is that you *pay* her. You don't expect her to do it for free, or out of some kind of servile love, but because you have a contract. It's a closer contract than an average job, but it's a contract between her as a person and you.

Yan, I took dsquared's point that most jobs involve telling someone else what to do, and most of those don't involve treating the other person as a means. Undermining that aspect of the world economy seems to be impossible. Maybe we could all be self-employed, but I'm not seeing that happening. And if you accept that people can pay other people and tell them what to do, then your objection to having a nanny or a maid can't be that you're paying someone to tell them what to do.

I can see why Carlos would think it's a drive-by. Paying a maid a good wage and treating her fairly is anything like prostitution?

[Tearfree]

What Andrew said. I can't really come to terms with the fact that I have a cleaning woman, but I don't really try any more.

One thing I have learned though is never, ever get involved in finding other jobs for your cleaning woman.

I passed my cleaning woman's name on to a friend who actually asked her to do windows (this is not metaphoric) and it all got very, very messy.

[Rich Puchalsky]

This is probably unnecessary -- but based on a long-ago thread, I feel like I should mention that Yan is not me.

[dsquared]

I'm suggesting that the confusion of work and domestic spheres makes it impossible to know how much of the employees life is under one's authority

I see. But come on; how difficult is this, really? We can put a man on the moon but we can't talk to our cleaners?

[Thrillah in Manillah]

AH don't worry your pretty head, dear. Be a decent Western Imperialist, like Hubby Holbostein: hire maids, but forbid them from turnin' any tricks in yr cabana n' you'll be fine.

[Doctor Slack]

Yan: But I do think it's something we should all be a bit confused about.

I think the real issue that many have with the idea of domestic hired help is that it puts class stratification on display in a way that we are not prepared for. I'm not totally unsympathetic to your suspicion that the domestic arrangement could uncomfortably blur a line between "employer" and "master," but the potential flip side is that our discomfort might simply signal a desire to remain insulated from the realities of class while still (we hope) benefiting from them.

To put it another way, if the only complaint we can manage about class arrangements in a society is that they're visible, it's not much of a complaint -- especially not when, further out of sight for most of us, "globalization" is driving what could be fairly called the modern equivalent of a large-scale slave trade.

Carlos seems like the kinda guy ...

Not worth your time, trust me.

[Carlos]

This is a bit tangential, but I find argument via passive-aggressive dictat, as Yan has done several times in this thread, strongly indicates bad faith on the passive-aggressive party. Annoying.

(It's not as annoying as some anonymous goober telling a feminist that she isn't allowed to have opinions he doesn't like about the male sex drive. Doc Slack once did this to Belle -- ten thousand words of rant -- and I enjoy reminding him of it. Perhaps one day he'll apologize!)

But I do like the quote, Yan, especially the modest implicit comparison of yourself to Socrates. Obviously, you entered this discussion to convince, not to feel superior to people who disagree with you.

[Phred]

AH Doc Slack's annoying, but not nearly as much as thou art Carlos De Goober. Plus he's occasionally capable of producing wit and reason, unlike you. Why don't u head back to like yr Tamale.com site, puto; maybe you can get some more lessons in marxist bitch-assism there. Andale andale!

[Yan]

dsquared,

It's true that I can talk to my housekeeper and we can agree on the boundaries. But my concern leaves open the possibility that there is a moral demarcation that doesn't depend on what I or my employee find acceptable. We could both voluntarily discuss, deliberate, and enter into a nonetheless morally inappropriate relationship.

Dr. Slack may be right that discomfort about domestic help involves a kind of defense mechanism against confronting the reality of class divisions, but I think that much of the discomfort is instead moral in nature--a (possibly mistaken) moral worry that this practice is inappropriate.

In any case, I think Slack's point brings up a key issue here--to what degree the moral question depends on questions of social justice. My worry was about an inevitable element of objectification that might be structurally determined by the relationship (thus not evoided by the voluntary good will of all participants). It may be that ther real problem is that the fact that such jobs are desirable to many is symptomatic of social injustice on a larger scale. This would explain the moral discomfort I mentioned, while allowing for the possibility that the moral problem is not the practice as such, but the broader economic inequalities that make taking such jobs relatively beneficial and desirable.

Carlos,

I'm not sure where the charges of bad faith are aimed exactly.

The comparison of myself to Socrates was on the relevant point: I initiated a moral inquiry, and was charged with not minding my own business.

I'm alot like Socrates in other ways, too. For example, I initiated the inquiry out of a sincere interest in knowing the answer and out of a sincere uncertainty about what the answer is. I've also worn sandals before and I too am an expert in the art of love.

[Doctor Slack]

I can live without endorsements from the ToS, but I'm pleased to see we've all found our preferred levels of mutual dislike. That's heartwarming.

Quoth Carlos: Obviously, you entered this discussion to convince, not to feel superior to people who disagree with you.

Unlike you, who so totally entered this discussion to convince!See, it's the rampant projection that makes you so amusing when you get in these little moods.

It's also funny how you assiduously avoid linking to that old thread when you want to blather about its contents. Maybe one day you'll figure out how suspicious that looks.

[Phred]

It's far from an endorsement, Doc; you're another spineless, effete liberal (SEL) really, regardless of a few gripes against the PC-marxist vermin, but even a fairly rational SEL trumps tamale boy.

[Doctor Slack]

Yan:

In any case, I think Slack's point brings up a key issue here

That's kind of you, but I think Belle already brought up the issue of "social justice on a larger scale," in fact in almost exactly the same way that you arrive at.

When I mentioned anxiety about confronting class division in an immediate way, I didn't mean to imply that there's no moral reasoning going on here. What I'm getting at is that that class anxiety is probably a sublimated element of the whole process. (And likely not the only one. For example, many of us have negative associations related to received pop culture and popular historical images -- sometimes accurate, sometimes not -- of societies in which servants are common and unremarkable. I suspect that's a powerful element of my own discomfort, over and above my more intellectual engagements with issues like slavery, caste and social hierarchy.)

But yes, I do think that a critique of the idea of the domestic servant is much more interesting in a broader social justice context. I also think we shouldn't get too comfortable in assuming that "objectification" is always either inevitable or unmanageable, as some others have already mentioned.

[Doctor Slack]

It's far from an endorsement, Doc

Whew.

[Phred]

Rilly, Doc, your attempts at liberal sensitivity are rather nauseating. Many chambermaids, domestics, houseboys are better off working with the booj-wah-zee than what, in the fields, or garment districts, or in some state school learning their Marxista ABC's. The dirty secret of slavery--even American slavery--is that the slaves were better off in captivity--not for all of course. There was certainly some tragedy; but ah wager life in the west african bush was probably nearly as miserable as life on the plantations. And of course arabs have been trafficking slaves from Africa and indonesia since, what, the pharoahs. I imagine it was horrible for the natives picked up by brit. or yankee or earlier spanish slavers; but then the african tribes--especially on coasts, on congo-- themselves traded slaves. Read some ol' Capn. RF Burton for a few insights into what the powerful african chieftains were like, and the arabs for that matter; nothin' like being honored with a cannibal feast.

[dsquared]

We could both voluntarily discuss, deliberate, and enter into a nonetheless morally inappropriate relationship.

"Inappropriate" is a bit of a red-button word for me, as I only ever hear it in business contexts, and only ever in the context of someone who wants to say "wrong" but doesn't want to say what's wrong. What's wrong?

[Carlos]

(I see the whole fan club is out. Wow. All we need is some Xeni-hating and maybe that condescending biographer of Jay Gould.)

Yan, it's possible you might not be aware of your rhetorical pattern. Here are the assumptions I find in bad faith. I'll pose them as questions (non-Socratic) for you to mull over.

a) why should your personal confusion translate into a universal moral problem?

b) why do you think your confusion gives you a privileged position in this conversation?

c) why do you think comparing an actual, complicated relationship between two real people (one of whom is our host) to slavery and prostitution is a worthwhile analogy?

That'll do for a start. I don't expect reasonable answers from you, because your past snark I think pretty clearly shows why you're here, but hey. Prove me wrong.

[Yan]

a) I suggested the possibility of a moral problem and I expressed personal confusion about the problem. But I did not assert the existence of the moral problem on the grounds of my personal confusion.

b) I don't know where specifically you got this impression, but perhaps there's some purely accidental truth to it. I might have a priveleged position in the inquiry in relation to anyone who sees no possibility of a dilemma. You know, the Socratic "wise enough to know I don't know" bit. But I don't think I implied this anywhere, because I don't believe it's true. Everyone else has responded as though they take seriously the possibility of error, offering counter views and reasons for holding them. Well, almost everyone.

c)This is a misunderstanding of the comparisons and the point being made by them. The comparisons were apt in their context. I suspect you realize that and have made this point in bad faith, but if not, I'll be happy to elaborate.

[Gary Farber]

I think it's very kind of Belle to provide posts so various other people can snipe at each other. I'm sure it makes her feel warm and fulfilled.