Super moms and super nannies
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What these two very different women have in common is that each had a baby and returned to work within five days. No maternity leave for these workaholics in their forties. No lounging around in comfy clothes and slippers, gazing with absolute wonder at the marvel that just popped out of her womb.
Instead, Palin and Dati went back to the office, to their meetings and their Blackberries. And the pundits – male and female, feminist and patriarchal, liberal and conservative - had a field day.
The trade unionists were unhappy. Maternity leave is a conquest of the workers. Politicians should reinforce a message to employers that it must be respected.
They are missing bonding with their baby, regretted mothers.
Career women hailed them for proving that pregnancy is not an inconvenience at the workplace, that women can devote themselves to work just like those without a uterus. No more Slow Mommy Track.
Amidst the sound and the fury in blogs, columns, e-forums and twitter, I did not hear some key questions.
Who is taking care of baby while Mom is in the office? Who cleans house, feeds baby, presses Mommy’s impeccable pencil skirt and finds her matching earrings amidst all the fluffy toys? What support structure underpins their decision?
(And what vitamins are they taking to have so much energy? As a new mom, I could hardly stay awake long enough to finish reading the newspaper and uploading photos of baby before feeding time, burping time, bathing time, and the unmercifully short sleeping time.)
Most women in the world do not have the luxury of Palin’s and Dati’s choice because they don’t have hired help, or affordable or free childcare (yes, we dream on). Most women can’t afford to hire other women to take care of their babies, family, pets and homes. They are lucky if they have a job and get three months paid maternity leave. Only a few rich countries like France, Norway, Holland and Canada give real help to parents.
One hopes that both Palin and Dati hired documented migrants and paid their social security. Just last month, Nancy Killefer, Barack Obama’s nominee for a top white House job, withdrew her candidacy because of failure to pay taxes on a domestic worker.
“Nannygate” scandals became a household word in the USA with Zoe Baird in 1993 and Linda Chavez in 2001, two nominees to high office who were dropped because of hiring undocumented Latina workers and not paying their social security.
Pretty much everywhere, domestic help enjoys the least workers’ rights and benefits. In the USA, “migrant domestic workers are in ‘a vulnerable position in the legal order,’” says a report by the New York University Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice.
Elsewhere, they are near servitude. Read the Human Rights Watch damning reports on the conditions of work for domestic help in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Indonesia and Guinea. (www.hrw.org/en/publications )
Domestic work is an occupational ghetto for migrant women, ethnic minorities, brown and black, Hispanic and Haitian in New York, Filipino in Dubai, Paraguayan and Peruvian in Buenos Aires, Bulgarian in Italy. Dominican and Bolivian in Spain.
The rich world imports care and love from the developing world, explained Barbara Ehrenreich in a brilliant book of essays about the female underside of globalisation. From nannies to maids, nurses, carers of the elderly, sex workers, masseuses and mail order brides, the resource these women have to sell is motherhood, caring and sex.
Affluent women pass the domestic burden to other women – and make headlines if they go back to the office five days after giving birth.
Read more: www.hrw.org/en/publications
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild.
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