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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#351

Post by zem »

lacampbell wrote: post #160
achou wrote: post #141

Truly remarkable story. One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear. All of the work in…

An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom. Are you insinuating that in a traditional nuclear family, where a father provides all the money for housing, food, clothing and sundry - the mothers house work constitutes "uncompensated labour"? And that this is the basis of capitalism? What's your humane socialist alternative? Collectivising the childre…

well, who has more economic freedom in the traditional nuclear family? the humane alternative would be to figure out some way to let housewives have their own money, based on the labour they do, not have to depend on their husbands' whims for it. the problem isn't staying at home to take care of the kids, it's that that role gives you less societal advantage and autonomy than the "going out and getting a job" role.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#352

Post by colechristensen »

zanny wrote: post #279
colechristensen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like ... slavery-lite. Fundamentally what's the difference between Lola's role and a common role of a wife a hundred years ago?* And second – a dangerous question – is it necessarily wrong? I ask not to lead one to believe to think that it isn't, certainly there are aspects which are unquestionable immoral, but is there room for such a social construct? More importantly, answering why not in a robust way could m…

There never wasn't room for unpaid domestic labor, insofar as cultural acceptance of the role. The economy has stagnated the incomes of so many people for so long most cannot afford, on a single salary, to provide living arrangements for such a job plus children. There is no room in a civilized society for bondage and servitude through violence. Eudocia in this story was never given the choice until she had lived the…

>There is no room in a civilized society for bondage and servitude through violence.

Absolutely, I think the point I'm trying to make is that slavery or something a whole lot like it has existed long since explicit buying and selling of human lives ended. To make an inappropriate cultural reference, many different situations "just sound like slavery with extra steps"

> a product of an environment that gave her no reasonable alternative

I think a whole lot of poor people in America and the world beyond don't really find themselves it conditions much different than this sort of slavery. Coercive violence and lack of choice not excepted. The illusion of choice and freedom that a tiny wage give doesn't necessarily make liberty real, it just makes slavery a little more difficult to recognise.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#353

Post by colechristensen »

Mz wrote: post #265
vacri wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fine Article mentions a number of times where Lola was not allowed freedom of movement. She had no freedom of movement, no pay (or ability to direct money), no personal life, no say in what she did, and was kept in place by fear. It certainly wasn't the common role of a wife a hundred years ago to be kept from a dying parent, for example. The nature of her labour is not what made Lola a slave; it was the circumst…

I am not readily finding citations, but I recall one of my history professors stating that the veil was heralded as a vast improvement for women in terms of freedom in some parts of the world because, historically, women in a lot of places left the house twice in their life: Once to get married, a second time to get buried. The veil allowed them to at least leave the house. I don't think you know as much about the hi…

How did my grandparent comment strike you?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#354

Post by sudhakarrayav »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #270
Mz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen career women kind of jokingly say "I need a wife." I was struck by the fact that Alex's mother, whom some people here are vilifying, managed to have a serious career like a man because she had Lola at home to do all the "women's work." This is mostly being overlooked in discussion and I didn't know how to bring it up myself. I appreciate you remarking upon it.

As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking. Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if there are others who feel this way, espe…

Me too. My wife (housewife) and I was discussing about swapping jobs as we both envied the other's

Re: My Family’s Slave

#355

Post by int_19h »

naiveattack wrote: post #112
wavefunction wrote: post #94

I downvoted you for bullshit

I invite you to point out a flaw in my observations. Sometimes it's good to be able to rationality ground your morality instead of merely feeling it. Guess which one will hold up when actually challenged in real life.

Any attempt to rationally ground morality is going to boil down to some set of axioms that are just taken for granted: this is good, that is evil.

Sometimes people try to get around this by choosing different words - for example, a popular adage is that rational morality is "do no harm, except to prevent greater harm". The only problem with it, of course, is that you then have to define "harm", and it something fundamentally just as subjective as "evil" (as evidenced by the fact that the same thing can be harmful or not depending on consent - i.e. on the subjective determination of a person).

Re: My Family’s Slave

#356

Post by rsync »

MockObject wrote: post #327
Mz wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might look into the insane stuff that has happened to housing. That is possibly a better explanation for why it now takes two incomes to try to keep a roof over our heads.

I hear repeatedly that "real wages have been constant since 1970". What started happening around then? Labor follows the same supply demand curves as any other commodity.

"Labor follows the same supply demand curves as any other commodity."

Yes, it does. The demand dropped.

What you hear about real wages is in reference to the US and other parts of the global north. Those manufacturing jobs moved to the global south and now there is less demand for them here.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#357

Post by Banthum »

achou wrote: post #141

Truly remarkable story. One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear. All of the work in…

Money is just a medium of exchange. An exchange without money is not 'uncompensated'. That makes it sound like she's living in a slave shed and has to come into the house every day to cook and clean.

The housewife and the traditional father consume the same products. They go on the same trips, eat the same meals together, live under the same roof, drive the same car(s), watch the same TV, sleep in the same bed, etc. Her work is just as compensated as his.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#358

Post by nyolfen »

wyclif wrote: post #290
achou wrote: post #141

Truly remarkable story. One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear. All of the work in…

The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income This is the primary reason these domestic labourers are so common in the Philippines and in pinoy culture. Also, many men's involvement in their children's lives is non-existent or minimal. A lot of men get their girlfriends or wives pregnant and dump them quickly. So there's also a huge number of single moms in the Philippines. It's a m…

do you have any suggested reading about this topic? it sounds interesting

Re: My Family’s Slave

#359

Post by infinite8s »

Mz wrote: post #52
lordnacho wrote: post #20

I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago. I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid. It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc. Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansio…

My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning. OH, puhleez. This is so much worse than theories of "codependency," as if a woman with young kids being financially d…

> That is still reality in a lot of places in the world. We don't want to hear it, but there is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to afford middle class morality. There are parts of the world where large numbers of people have no hope of anything resembling a middle class American lifestyle.

Not only that, they likely don't even have hope of anything resembling a poor American lifestyle.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#360

Post by colechristensen »

emodendroket wrote: post #261
colechristensen wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not have been the nominal role of a wife, but shared characteristics of that life were not uncommon.

It also shared characteristics with the life of an animal that were not uncommon. I think the comparison risks trivializing what is described.

I'm not trying to trivialize slavery but force a recognition that's there's a hair's breadth difference between many instances of being a domestic slave and very many instances of being a housewife. One is demonized and the other is celebrated.

The way you hear a minority of Bible-enthusiasts talk about the role of a wife is in _no way_ different than the slavery described in the article.

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