The Myth of Being “Like a Daughter” By, Grace Esther Young Presented by, Savannah Schulze

1. The Myth of Being “Like a Daughter”By, Grace Esther YoungPresented by, Savannah Schulze

2. Main Points • Small group of dedicated women is organizing domestic servants in Lima, Peru • These women migrated at a young age from their rural, poor families to work in moderate and upper income, urban families • Their efforts to organize this sector are discouraged by: • 1. structural aspects of the relationship of the domestic servant to her family • 2. invasive ideology of the family sphere, which is endorsed by collective institutions

3. Objective of Article • The journey young women make from the rural to urban context is made possible through the medium of the family as a socioeconomic and ideological form • She argues that the idiom of the family as inclusive, just, and as a “natural” age-based division of labor and power, serves to structure a relationship of inequality and exploitation-powerfully legitimized by church and state

4. Efforts to organize the domestic servant sector began in the early 1970s • During a period of sustained economic growth and stability of the Peruvian economy • The macroeconomic changes occurring in Peru serve to restructure the nature of the domestic domain • As these changes occur, creative strategies for organizing the sector are demanded

5. Domestic Servants in Peru • Having moved from their families of origin, domestic servants walk a fine line in their new patron families • Find themselves both members and nonmembers in familial boundaries • This article demonstrates that the shape of familial boundaries and the changes occurring on the macroeconomic level in Latin America maintain domestic servants in a marginal position

6. From Family of Origin-Patron Family: Socialization and Marginalization • Central to feminist analysis of the subordination of women is the relationship of the public, or politicoeconomic, sphere and the family • Dichotomy-relevance with regard to the domestic servant is in framing a discussion of the interdependence of the two realms • Sacks and Rapp suggest that the dichotomy of the public and the private spheres is specific to class-stratified, state organized societies

7. More on Using Dichotomy • These formulations provide a framework for analyzing the interplay of the constructs of gender with the dominant ideology of the family • But lack an analysis of the relations of authority within the domestic sphere that would bring insight to the particular location of the domestic servant as a worker in the private domain • This insight is necessary to understand the transition the domestic servant makes between families, and her situation in the patron family

8. Looking at the Domestic Servant • Many rural, young women migrating to Lima have traditionally found work in middle income homes • The growth in demand for domestic servants in Lima from 1940 to the mid-1970s was in part due to the growing number of middle income women entering the white-collar service jobs • Lower-income women found employment in the unskilled end of the service sector, such as domestic service

9. Boundaries • The urban families that young women enter are framed by boundaries that separate them from the public sphere • Boundaries of upper-class, urban families are extremely secure in Peru, middle class urban families tend to be flexible • Flexibility due to macroeconomic changes • The boundaries that separate the poor, rural family from the public sphere, are very penetrable • Many parents prefer that their girls stay at home, they can not support them • Their poverty encourages them to leave their own familial confines in search of work

10. “like a daughter” • In the private sphere one’s work is of a voluntary nature, given in love and devotion • The public sphere is ruled by economic laws of wage labor, business cycles, and profit motives • Once inside the private sphere, with its stress on duty and respect, and on work as a voluntary contribution, the young woman becomes “like a daughter” in the patron family

11. Family’s hierarchical and patriarchal nature • Varies somewhat across class and cultural lines, but also facilitates the domestic servant’s transition • Authority vested in father: varies among families depending in part on the economic status and on individual family member’s economic roles outside the familial sphere • The status of women in the domestic sphere often varies also • In the Peruvian highland peasant communities boy babies are preferred to girls, she is expected to contribute economically to the family from a young age, whereas middle-and upper-class children are removed from these demands

12. Variations in the familial hierarchy are apparent in the type of relationship the servant develops in the patron family In an Upper class family distance is maintained between the domestic servant and her patrones The middle-class family tends to incorporate her and, in particular to encourage her to further her education Relationship with patron family

13. Peruvian Context • In the Peruvian context, girls and women are identified with the domestic sphere and men are “in the street” • The young woman passes from the paternalism of her own familial environment to the paternalism of her new working environment • From the time she is very young, she has been directed to fulfill the prescribed role of mother and wife in the domestic setting

14. The Senora • The domestic servant’s entrance into her new family is through the senora’s role to bring her into the paternalistic arms of the patron family • Patron family becomes a civilizing agent to transform her rural customs into appropriate urban ones • The senora is the primary person guiding her, and teaches the domestic servant the nature of service in her particular family • Within the patron family, the servant often becomes like one of the children

15. Within the Patron Family • Ambiguous division between the “real” children and the domestic servant • A domestic servant might be treated very affectionately, and takes on a status of step-daughter or god-child in the family where she worked • May stay with the family for many years, her basic needs are met and she may develop intimate relationships with family members

16. Marginal Position • The ideology of the family with its stress on the commitment of close kin, as well as on duty and devotion within the protected boundaries, conceals the marginal position the domestic servant occupies in the private sphere • The domestic servant’s labor provides important material benefits for the members of the family, particularly the senora • The domestic servant is an important status symbol for the senora, as she provides for her leisure

17. “real” children • Though she may be told she is a member, the domestic servant will not be allowed to follow the cyclical development of “real” children • She entered as a child, she remain as a child, negate own needs as an adult woman • She can not expect to live in a place apart from the patron family, senoras prefer a live in maid • If she has children she will not be retained • Domestic servants are single, young women without responsibilities of children and who live in the families in which they work

18. The dependent, paternalistic relationship the domestic servant develops in the patron family is reinforced by the church Catholic church emphasizes duty and devotion to the family Schools that recruit and train young women to become domestic servants are administered by the Catholic church Reinforced by the Church

19. Domestic Servants Meet Informally • As a means of confronting their dependent and insecure position, domestic servants began to meet informally, in the early 1970s • They gathered in neighborhood parks during their free hours on Sundays to talk about their situation • Through sharing information, a slow process of consciousness-raising began as they discovered that, they all were subject to very similar conditions in their patron families • They began to identify with one another, as workers in homes, and as rural, Indian people

20. Economic crisis in Peru in 1978 Trend toward segmentation of the female labor force apparent before the crisis has been exacerbated by the crisis The period 1972-1981 brought a continued decline in the number of manual jobs available to women in the formal labor market With the collapse of the textile industry-a female-dominated sector of manufacturing Although the number of jobs for women in the formal labor market decreased, overall, women’s economic participation has increased since the crisis Greatest increase has come in the sector “not specified” or women in the informal sector Women from the poorest sectors of Lima who enter this sector Economic CrisisDomestic Service V.S. Vending

21. The lack of opportunities for poor women apart from those in the unskilled end of the service sector or in the informal sector is substantiated in a study of women in the Lima barriada (shanty town), Villa Salvador 47% of them work outside the home, majority in the vendor sector 2/3 of them began working outside the home during the period of the crisis 66% had worked in services, primarily domestic service in their early years in Lima, upon forming families they began working within the domestic sphere of their own families The majority of those who reincorporated themselves into the labor market did so during the crisis and as vendors Supported Study

22. After the Crisis • Due to the lack of employment opportunities in formal labor market in Lima, the historic trend of people migrating to Lima has changed • For the first time since 1940, a smaller percentage of Peru’s population migrated • For those girls and young women who continue to migrate to Lima, domestic service remains one of the few available employment options

23. The vendor sector is not an attractive alternative They must have their own accommodation, which is rare among young women Their own families, whether in rural or urban areas, are unable to support them In order to enter the vendor sector, the servant must have a certain amount of capital Although the women who work in both sectors are migrants from the rural, highland areas of Peru, their age, education level, and familial status are different Venders in Lima tend to be older, less educated women with the responsibilities of children The mother can keep her children near while she works and can choose her own hours Vendors V.S. Domestic Servants

24. Peruvian Vendors

25. Fewer Jobs Availablefor Domestic Servants • While young women continue to look to domestic service for employment, fewer jobs are available • Increasing numbers of families are unable to hire them • The recession has negatively affected the earning power of the middle income sector • The decrease in demand for the services of domestics has precipitated a drop in their wages

26. Other Employment Opportunities • The decrease in demand and decrease in wages is forcing some women to look to other employment alternatives • Few opportunities are available to them apart from the vendor sector • The absorption of these women into the vendor sector, then, is a result of their expulsion from the domestic service sector

27. Impact on Culture • The vendor sector has had great impact on the cultural conception of the domestic servant sector • While there are fewer migrants coming to Lima, many of those migrants who have already made their homes in Lima are very visible and vocal force in the life of the capital • People line the streets selling their wares on the black market

28. Freedom in the Streets • Senoras tell of increasing numbers of maids leaving the servant sector to become vendors • They state that maids now seek their freedom in the street • Labor officials and economists report that the informal labor market is the cause of a decrease in the supply of maids, despite a high demand for their services

29. Problems with Maids Today • Before “the women laughed at the girls bumpkin ways without fear that anybody would be offended”, now conversation centers on a perceived change in maids • Senoras relate that it is no longer possible to find a “good” maid • They claim maids no linger act like family, lacking respect for those for whom they work • Maids will inherently steal from her patron family • They make excessive demands on them for higher wages, for meat every day, for the use of the color television, and so on

30. Conclusion • The dependent, paternalistic relationship the domestic servant develops in the patron family has characteristics of feudal economic forms as well as those of the modern capitalist world • Collective institutions, both the church and the government, enhance a dependent paternalism

31. Conclusions… • As the Peruvian socioeconomic reality changes, the domestic servant is increasingly placed outside the patron family and is becoming part of an ever-growing urban underclass • Domestic servants’ organizing efforts continue to focus on a slow and steady process of education and consciousness raising as a means of finding a collective solution to their situation, and providing support to one another