Bananas, Beaches And Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics

In the 21st century, domestic workers represent a major employment category: Of 53 million such workers worldwide, 83% are women. Thousands migrate to perform this work. Activists, who are domestic workers, are building transnational alliances to ensure the recognition of their rights. These workers are often abused. Enloe cites the example of a Filipino woman who signed a contract to become a domestic worker in Qatar. However, her employer paid her below the contractual amount, fed her a single meal of leftovers each day, gave her no time off, and required her to clean three homes. Unable to quit, she escaped to the Overseas Labor Office in Doha, where 56 other Filipino workers were taking refuge. Clearly, such abuse was commonplace. International politics shape the lives of domestic workers and are, in turn, shaped by them and those who enable this work.

In the 19th century, single, middle-class women in Great Britain with no marriage prospects were encouraged to emigrate to colonial possessions and serve as governesses and nannies, which were considered respectable positions. Domestic servants were in demand in these locations. By 2010, the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that 43.6 million women worked in private homes as domestics. Among the world’s most vulnerable workers, these women often find their rights ignored. Political actions sustain this sexist labor system.

For women employed in farm or factory work, the double day is a familiar experience. After they finish their paid work, they are expected to do unpaid housework at home. However, this experience is relatively new for middle-class women who have more options to cope with it. One option is to hire other women to do their housework and take care of their children. Countries import women to meet the demands of the middle class and tout its expansion. These countries seek to keep workers coming and control those in domestic service. Countries that export women become dependent on the money they send home and therefore are reluctant to stand up for the rights of these workers abroad.

Race and class often complicate relationships between female employers and employees. Domestic workers cannot count on support from feminists in their host country. Among employers is a hierarchy of domestic workers, with nannies and au pairs (often white) at the top. In the middle are women who provide elder care and non-live-in cleaners who might also provide some childcare. At the bottom are live-in maids, who are always on call and a subset of whom are trafficked. When one is taken across a border against her will or “under false pretenses, then compelled to work for little or no pay” (326), deprived of all autonomy, and forbidden to leave the job, that person is trafficked, or a forced laborer. This includes some 20.9 million people (55% of them women). Also at the bottom of the hierarchy are employees of cleaning companies. All on the hierarchy are paid low wages and potentially harassed. It is challenging for domestic workers to organize and unite since they work alone in different countries with unique laws about labor organization and are often immigrants in a difficult legal situation.

In 1984, 18,000 Sri Lankan women took paid jobs overseas and sent earnings home, which were Sri Lanka’s second-largest foreign exchange earnings. One such woman, who was made to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, described the exploitation at an international gathering in 1985. Speaking as an organizer, she was one of many starting to make domestic work visible as an international political issue. Organizing efforts continued through the 1990s and 21st century as activists reached out to labor, immigration, and women’s rights groups. These domestic workers overcame countless obstacles, such as fear of deportation, language barriers, and limited leisure time. New framing with broader categories of rights won allies, but domestic workers used clever tactics to ensure that their cause was not subsumed and exposed the “complex web of local and international complicities that produce today’s exploitation of domestic workers” (333). In the US, activists have focused on state legislatures in attempting to repeal laws exempting domestic workers from protection. The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) exposed the myths supporting these laws, such as the assumption that the home is not a workplace.

The NDWA made alliances, lobbied legislatures, and surveyed domestic workers. The survey revealed that 20% were unfed, most had no pensions or social security, 65% had no health insurance, and many feared deportation. In 2010, New York passed the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which established rights to a 24-hour period of rest each week, time-and-a-half overtime for hours exceeding 44 for live-in help and 40 for others, and the right to file legal charges for racial or sexual harassment on the job. The International Domestic Workers Network embedded itself in another union and succeeded in getting the International Labor Conference of the ILO to adopt Convention 189 in June 2011, which was the first international treaty to address domestic workers’ rights. It included rights to organize, a minimum wage, a weekly rest period, transparent work contracts, and retention of passports. While many countries have ratified the treaty, the US and UK have not. The formula for “making and keeping domestic workers’ labor cheap” relies on 11 pillars, all of which are weak (341). The work is said to be women’s work, for example, and minimum wage and labor rights legislation exempts domestic work. Female activists are challenging this formula.