Maid to Order/ Question 1

Ehrenreich’s intended audience for this piece is people who are mostly ignorant to the hardships of low wage occupations and don’t appreciate how valuable these workers are. Although her topic is specifically housekeepers, I feel she is trying to speak for many others such as lawns men, garbage collectors; anyone who performs a job that is generally looked down upon but is essential for the maintenance of our society. She makes the correct assumption that most middle class people don’t really think about how difficult and generally unrewarding these positions are even though they are important. They may witness someone performing one of these jobs but most never actually consider how challenging and demeaning they can really be or how different life would be if no one filled these careers. What if no one could be called to clean your house or mow your lawn? What if no one showed up to collect your trash? The majority of the population doesn’t realize how significant these jobs are for our society to run as efficiently as it does.

Maid to Order

1. I think this was geared towards the middle-upper class families who can afford a cleaning lady to clean their houses. Ehrenreich expresses the work one by these lower class women and describes how they work on their hands and knees, lower to the ground, and how it's different down there than it is walking around watching the work be done. The author describes that the work should be done by the owners of the house, which goes to show that the author is speaking from a lower class position, because someone willing to pay another to clean their own house would not be saying this. Through evaluating women who are hired to clean homes and those who are doing the hiring, Ehrenreich's essay points out the labor that it takes for these women and the mentions the fact that it often goes by unnoticed.

Quintin's Response

I believe in Ehrenreich's "Maid to Order," that her audience was to all women even if you did do housework or didn't do it at all. I think she was just trying to get her point across about how women use to work back then in the sixties and seventies. She argued about how women use to clean the entire house, getting on their hands and knees. Also argued that women had problems in their relationship because of the housework. In most cases, men that did have a job, couldn't do anything without a woman that did housework especially, when it came down to doing their laundry.

Danielle's Response

In Ehrenreich's "Maid to Order," she clearly states her audience to be those who were not accustomed to low-wage work; for those who weren't used to getting on their hands and knees to do real work; for those not ridiculed by doing honest work. By giving insight into what and how these women worked, it shows the audience, the ones not used to this floor-scrubbing lifestyle, how these hardened working women lived and succeeded.

Maid to Order- Question 1

I believe this piece was written for men and wealthy people. Men are rarely cleaning and wealthy people have enough money to pay for a cleaning service. These two groups often don't give the respect that is deserved to house wives and cleaning ladies. Ehrenreich had her own personal experience with this when she was a maid. She makes the assumption men and wealthy people do not appreciate the work that work that they do. She said she felt as if she was invisible most of the time when cleaning and she was constantly ignored. She relates the work of maids to sweatshops due to the fact that maids are underpaid.

Maid To Order

1) I feel that this article was to get the attention of all women upper and lower class. Ehrenreich tries to put into perspective for everyone what it is like for these maids. She also tell of how she spent time as a maid to let her audience know she knows first had what it is like to be a maid.

Maid to Order: Response 1

I think Ehrenreich wrote this piece to address women. Ehrenreich wants upper class and middle class women to know what it is like for lower class women who work as maids. She assumes these women do not know what it is like to work as maid and are not aware of all the chores the maid must take care of. Ehrenreich assumes they do not realize how much work it takes to clean and do the tasks associated with cleaning. She also assumes that other people do not realize what working as a maid does to these women. Ehrenreich says these women sometimes go unnoticed while cleaning houses, or just plain ignored, and are looked down upon by many of the home owners.

Q #1 Audience

Within the biographic information, readers learn of Ehrenreich's intent for her audience: "This is a portrait of 'other women's' labor." Women professionals will read this and have a reaction similar to, "What does she mean, the 'other women'? What woman does that make me?" Ehrenreich has decided to shine the spotlight on the women who have not had the same distinction as the women with a job that is more recognized as credible. Ehrenreich speaks for the maids primarily within the reading, but Ehrenreich has experience as going undercover as a "waitress, hotel maid, Wal-Mart employee, nursing home aide". These jobs usually are scoffed at or analyzed critically by others, from the "male exploiters" to other women. Ehrenreich addresses "Maid to Order" to the women who may think they are above the "other women".

Maid to order

1. I believe the audience is for women. And more specifically house wifes. The writer expects the audience to be able to relate to her and see things from her perspective.

Maid to Order

1. Consider what audience this piece was written for. What assumptions does Ehrenreich make about this audience?


It seems that Ehrenreich wrote this chapter for those who hire maids in order to make them more aware of the industry's reality. She does this by writing about the physical and societal affects of hiring maids, as well as an idea of the profession from a maid's perspective, like on page 481 where she shares her description of a ghostlike existence during her experience as a maid, "she would remain completely unaware of your existence unless you were to crawl under that table and start gnawing at their ankles. The quotation, "It's a different world down there below knee-level, one few adults voluntarily enter," implies that she thinks the majority of the audience's understanding of the maid profession doesn't go beyond the fact that maids clean houses. Ehrenreich also seems to stress the fact that the audience is unaware of the affect of a parent hiring a maid or nanny because she provides many examples, of awful things kids have done, like the boy who kicked his nanny for refusing to make sandwiches, and embarrassing things kids have said, like "look mommy a baby maid." She also explains long term effects of hiring maids, such as "domestic incompetence," as well as the increase in "callousness and solipsism" of "the served."

mail to order

1. I believe that this piece was written for all women. I think that Ehrenreich wants to make all women aware of house hold chores. When it comes to women who are a part of the upper middle class who can afford and have cleaning ladies, Ehrenreich assumes that they do not realize the amount of effort cleaning the house takes, therefore she is trying to convey the amount of work that the cleaning ladies do daily. When it comes to women who do all of the household chores, I think the Ehrenreich assumes that they do not know the degradation that is associated with it. She wants to inform these women that since men are constantly cleaned up after by their wives, their messiness becomes habit, knowing that they do not have to take care of it. Finally, I think that Ehrenreich assumes that not everyone know about how demanding their job is and the injuries that come along with it, such as sore knees and backs and even muscle spasms.

Maid To Order Reading Response #3

I found this article very interesting and I hardly knew anything about the house cleaning industry. Barbara Ehrenreich does a great job of using facts and research within her paper. The most surprising statistic that I found was according to Mediamark Research. They reported "a 53 percent increase, between 1995 and 1999, in the number of households using a hired cleaner or service once a month or more". I also did not know that there were about 549,000 domestic workers in 1998. I find this intriguing because I'm used to cleaning up my own house and I am not really exposed to house cleaners; however, my grandparents from both sides of my family do receive that sort of assistance. This author makes house cleaning an important topic through her arguments for and against it along with her many examples of its history and sometimes degrading payroll.
I find her statistics on how men do less house work than women the most persuasive. Even though house cleaning for men increased by 1.7 hours over 30 years still does not compete with what most women normally do. For the most part she is right, women do the most work whether it be cooking, vacuuming etc. I was in Wal-Mart one time years ago with my dad and we heard two men in the store complaining how the store was "too big" and "how could anyone ever find anything in here?". This supports her idea that men really won the "chore wars" in the 70's and 80's.
The least persuasive statistics that I found are of the sanitation used by certain house cleaning businesses. The small amounts of water used in cleaning houses and how they can only use a few rags to clean without cleaning them is pretty gross. I believe that something like this could and did happen, but times have changed, as this article was written over 10 years ago. I think that most companies have most likely changed their standards and things in houses are now actually getting "cleaned". I was shocked when she went into details like..."We scrubbed only to remove impurities that might be detectable to a customer by hand or by eye". This article read well and it was cool to learn how house cleaning has evolved over the years and about her own individual experiences.

Maid to Order

1. Consider what audience this piece was written for. What assumptions does Ehrenreich make about this audience?

This piece was written for people who do not typically think about the work behind cleaning, especially in households. Ehrenreich makes assumptions that the audience is ignorant about the about of work put behind household chores. She talks about the social order of "housework." Ehrenreich looks to tell his audience that housework is an important part of the social life in our American society. She also addresses the work that is unnoticed and the work that should be done by the owners of houses. Ehrenreich assumes that the audience, being the American society, is transforming into a lazy society. Ehrenreich thinks that hiring people to do "chores" does not lead to good morality for house owners. Ehrenreich is trying to influence her audience to not look past housework, and also to look at it as an important job in our society.

"Maid to Order" Blog Response

I believe that this piece was written for the higher class who can afford to hire maids. Although Ehrenreich talks a lot about the changes in women's roles in the household, specifically in terms of household cleaning, Ehrenreich spends a majority of time speaking about how maids are degraded. At one point Ehrenreich says, "An early German women's liberation cartoon depicted a woman scrubbing on her hands and knees while her husband, apparently excited by this pose, approaches from behind, unzipping his fly". This cartoon represents how Ehrenreich feels maids are treated: they are viewed as inferior and are not treated with respect. She also says, "Within a customer's house, nothing was to touch our lips at all, not even water - a rule that, on hot days, I sometimes broke by drinking from a bathroom faucet". Maids are human beings too. They shouldn't be denied basic rights, especially water. So, her message goes out to the people who can afford to hire maids. She wishes for the upper-class to treat their hired help better.

prompt #2

2. Consider Ehrenreich's ethos. What is the central argument of this piece? In what ways does her personal experience build her case?

It is obvius that Ehrenreich is qualified to comment on this subject. She put herself in the shoes of various typically feminine jobs such as a maid solely for the purpose of observing how people perceive her in that role. Thus, her ethos is obvious. Ehrenreich points out that women who are home makers for their career are often seen as lower than and more like property of the men that support them. This is evident in the example she provides of the German cartoon in which the woman that is cleaning the floor on her hands and knees is being gawked at by her husband behind her. She uses her own experiences to show how the men and women that hired her did treat her like property and she shows how degrading that can be. In my opinion, if a woman needs to support their family and has to do a job that is less appealing than others to do so, they should do it.

Maid to Order: The politics of Other Women's Work

1. Consider what audience this piece was written for. What assumptions does Ehrenreich make about this audience?

I believe that Ehrenreich's intended audience is for those people who never really think about low-wage work or the people who hold these jobs that are living paycheck to paycheck. She assumes that many of these people do not know what it is like to struggle to make ends meet. Many of the intended audience probably never had money problems and do not know what it is like to hold a job that requires hard work combined with long hours for little money. Ehrenreich does not only target males who look at housework as a woman's job but also women who are working in high income jobs. The last sentence of the last paragraph states that feminists of generations before Ehrenreich tried to shed light on this problem of the "old-fashioned sense of labor" but they too got caught up in their busy professional lives and could not complete their tasks, leaving it up to the next generations to get it done. This shows that women too are to blame for this "old-fashioned sense of labor" and that everyone including females who are well off need to understand what the hardworking people in low income jobs experience just to make ends meet.

Maid to Order Response

1) Consider what audience this piece was written for. What assumptions does Ehrenreich make about this audience?

I believe Ehrenreich's intended audience for this piece is those who have not thought much about the role of women in society, specifically those who are wealthy and men.  She assumes that her audience has never worked for a low-wage job.  This can be seen by the fact that near the beginning of the piece, she describes what it is like to work on your hands and knees.  Furthermore, Ehrenreich assumes that her audience is not appreciative of women in society and that her audience views women the same way the majority of society did, as houseworkers.  Throughout the piece, she is constantly sticking up for other women who share similar experiences.  This shows that she assumes that whoever is reading her piece cannot appreciate what women went through in order to achieve a sense of equality with men.

“Maid to Order: The Politics of Other Women's Work” -- Question #2

It becomes obvious early on that Barbara Ehrenreich personal experiences prompted the writing of this essay. By reading the background section before the essay ensured me of her ethos and professional history. I believe also that reading the background first skewed my perception of her essay because I learned that Ehrenreich went under cover to live life as being apart of The Maids International as well as other working-class professions like working as a waitress, Wal-Mart employee and nursing home aide. It was interesting still to see her experiences and views on the lives of working-class Americans. She takes a very femenist approach to maid services and housecleaning. She compares housework to the relationships women and men have between one another. She makes radical remarks about her veiws on the issue of women in society though with her research and and well-known journalist skills I suppose she can take any stance she wants in her own essay.

Disney Animated Films

Disney is a corporation like any other; they are driven by their desire for wealth, not their desire to put smiles on kid’s faces. They make movies and other products that appeal to children in order to gain profits from the parent’s wallets. There is no denying this fact and it is a norm in our society. However, to say that their movies promote such themes as gender subordination and racial stereotyping is absurd. Only by completely overanalyzing the plots and characters of these films could Giroux come to such a conclusion. Also, regardless of the evidence, no child has the real world experience or a mature enough intelligence to pick up on any stereotypes that may exist in Disney movies. As a result, I disagree with Giroux’s argument.

Danielle's response to Giroux

Giroux chooses to write about Disney and the underlying messages it has. He introduces the topic by talking about his children, and how they watch Disney movies religiously. Absolutely every child in America owns at least one Disney production. Walt Disney Studios has created the squeaky clean image of innocence and youth. It creates wholesome themes such as the “most perfect place on earth” where everyone is happy and all is well. Giroux talks about how many critics don’t talk about Disney because they are “children’s films” and aren’t to be taken seriously. But he does. He talks about how different Disney movies and how successful they have been, not only on the big screen but with their merchandise and promotions as well. This shows the impact on children’s lives because of the constant contact to these things. Giroux exposes the dark side of Disney. There are stereotypes and prejudices within the movies. There are rigid gender roles in which the women are subordinate to men, racism in which the light or more American looking characters are the “good guys’, and antidemocratic ideals. This is teaching our youth from a very young age that this is what is accepted and what is expected. Giroux concludes by saying that these things are ignored by our society. He wants these cultural values to be taken seriously and for parents to be more aware of what their children are watching.

Disney Blog Post

I was really surprised with this article. I thought there would be some sort of point to Giroux's argument, but it seemed as if he just had nothing better to write about. The entire article was him bashing on Disney, because he had nothing better to complain about. I agree with him when he says that Disney is made to entertain children, because it's true. That is what Disney was made for. To entertain children with fun, sing-along movies. The Disney corporation targets young children and adolescents who like to sit back and watch a meaningless movie. I highly doubt that when children watch these films, they think about the underlying messages of sexism, racism, and corruption. Giroux takes Disney way too seriously. The Lion King is my favorite movie, and I don't finish the movie thinking how racist they are by making the hyenas have a Hispanic accent. I do not like how critical this article was on something that is so harmless and fun.

Disney Animated Films

I disagree with a couple aspects of this excerpt: stereotypes and racism. Giroux believes that Ursula, in the Little Mermaid, the wolf-like monster, in Beauty and the Best, and Scar, from the Lion King, “are tied to larger narratives about freedom, rites of passage, intolerance, choice, greed, and the brutalities of mall chauvinism” all because they are portrayed as evil animals. I completely disagree with this. They are obviously the antagonists in these stories, so it is easier to hate these characters if they look evil. There is no underlying message at all. It is just easier for kids to understand that these characters are evil if they look evil. Next, Giroux states, “Bright, courageous, literate, and politically progressive, [Pocahontas] is a far cry from the traditional negative stereotypes of Native Americans portrayed in Hollywood films”. Yet, for the next couple of pages, Giroux talks about all the different stereotypes and racism in the Disney films. He is not consistent. He does not effectively prove his point when he says that yes, maybe one movie does not have many racist views, but the other one does, therefore Disney is racist. I grew up with these movies, and not once did I notice any underlying stereotypes or racism. Of course, I was not looking for them in the movies, but I got older and I still do not have stereotypical or racist views. So, Disney must have either done a really poor job being stereotypical and racist, or they just didn’t include these aspects at all.

Disney Blog Post

This article was most definitely interesting and Giroux's argument is very convincing; I, however, almost totally disagree with is point of view. Disney is not the only company in the world that produces childrens' animated movies and it is somewhat absurd to say that its goal is to turn children into mass consumers. I also do not agree that it is trying to feed children messages of racism and sexism. These animated Disney movies follow the norm of the culture at the time and for the age group that these films are geared toward, those types of messages would not even register yet; Disney audiences are too young to understand that type of material and would therefore have no use for it. Also, to attack the Little Mermaid and say that not only Ursula, but Ariel herself are bad influences on children (turning them into rebellious teens or that she gears them to dress as she does from Vogue) is ridiculous. All movies, whether they be animated films or adult films, have to have a villain in order for the story line to be remotely interesting. Why should this have to be any different in childrens' movies. However, what I will agree with is the idea of racism in Aladdin; although it may not register to children, the accents in Aladdin, making the bad characters have lower class, heavier accents, is quite unacceptable.
Marie Albertoli

Giroux response

Personally, I dont agree with the author. I feel that he doesnt make a valid point at all becasue Disney, a huge corporation, would not be as successful as it is if these allegations were true. Another reason why this does not make sense is that Disney moives are for little children who do not understand ideas such as racism and sexism and adults do not watch disney movies to often and if they do its not for the purpose of seeing is Disney is racist or sexist. Lastly, he could interpret these movies differently than other people by thinking Disney is purposely trying to include these negative ideas in their movies. Overall I think this author might be falsely accusing Disney, whos provided thousands of movies over the years which little children love.

Children's Culture and Disney's Animated Films

This article talks about the gender differences and discrimination of sex, and race Giroux’s Children Culture and Disney’s Animated Films. This article has a very radical form of thought. Mostly all animated children films look for equality. Looking back at the past in Disney, Walt Disney was Anti-Semitic. I think Giroux tried to find a correlation between this. This is not accurate; Disney movies strive to look into different cultures. Films also look for unity for all people. I can’t think of a Disney movie that had horrible feeling at the end to a different group of people.

Giroux writing response

Although Giroux presents a lot of evidence to support his claims about Disney, I find it a little hard to believe. Disney is a major corporation and is very influential in the world today. Most movies that are aimed toward younger audiences have something to do with Disney. I just don’t think it is possible that such a successful and influential company is based on sexist and racist ideas. Also, Disney was founded in 1923. Women were still oppressed by men and very few people accepted minorities as equals. Disney himself and movies of that day and age did most likely have underlying racist and sexist themes but that is just due to the time period in which it was developed.