per the discussion on The Mommy Shift over at feministe, i just want to say --
i would like to see a major daily newspaper write an article profiling the life of a typical male business traveller, alongside the immigrant women who leave their children home all day so that they can go to work for substandard wages to clean his hotel room, wash the dishes at the restaurant where he eats, mop the floors of the airport where he catches his plane, &c ad infinitum.
yes, we live in a two-tiered class society. yes, it is absolutely wrong that the bulk of the burden for the luxuries enjoyed by those in the middle-class are borne by the service class. yes, everyone should be paid a living wage for the work they do & every working person should have access to medical benefits. these are the points that need to be addressed and brought out for public discussion.
but to choose to focus on middle-class women and their choices to hire nannies, while not addressing any of the other types of low-wage work that immigrants in this country routinely leave their kids at home to go work at is thoroughly misogynistic and reactionary. not to mention the fact that all of the articles i've read covering this matter routinely ignore the men of the house, acting as if it is only the wife & mother who employs the nanny and receives the benefit of having paid childcare for the family.
