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.