The Myth of Being “Like a Daughter”

1. The Myth of Being “Like a Daughter” By GRACE ESTER YOUNG Jennifer Guadarrama ANTH/SOC 3602

2. Domestic Servants in Lima, Peru (1984) • These domestic servants are typically: • Poor women from rural areas • They migrate to Lima, Peru at a young age • Work for upper income & middle income families • Unskilled/Uneducated • Single women with no children • The family’s role in the domestic servant’s live • 1970’s Efforts to organize the domestic service sector Background Information:

3. 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-indeed exploitation-one powerfully legitimized by the church and state. Young’s Argument:

4. The families socioeconomically and ideological characteristics, with a particular focus on its inherent ideology. Part I:

5. Upper/middle income families have a high demand for domestic servants (Increase in service sector) • Boundaries separate domestic servants from the public sphere (class and cultural) • Variations in family’s hierarchal and patriarchal nature • Young girls are taught to fulfill the role of a domestic woker • The female head of the household introduces the domestic into appropriate urban culture • Domestic servant is treated “Like a daughter” • Catholic Church legitimatizes the idiom of duty & devotion to the family • 1970’s Domestics began to challenge their roles within the family Part I

6. The changes apparent in the domestic servant sector as a result of the recession in Peru Part II:

7. 1971-1981 decline in manual jobs incline in informal jobs • Decreases in migration to Lima • Vendor sector requirements own accommodation and capital • Vendors are older, less educated, with children • Many middle income families could not afford domestic servants those who could paid them lower wages • Women from the domestic sector are turning to the vendor sector • Women in the vendor sector are more visible and vocal • More freedom in the vendor sector • Domestic servants have higher demands • Women organizing the domestic service sector ask for rights • Government argues that a domestic servant is not in the public sector Part II

8. To demonstrate that the contour of familial boundaries and the changes occurring on the macroeconomic level in Latin America maintain domestic servants in a marginal position, the nature of which is revealed in the reality of their life cycles. Purpose of this article:

9. Church and government enhance the patriarchal ideal • Socioeconomic chances place domestic servants into the ever-growing urban underclass • In the family domestic servant’s positions are concealed by the familial ideology of dependence & paternalism • Contradiction in the idiom of the family • Organizing efforts focus on educate and raise consciousness continue Conclusion