It’s not false. Underwear is not an overcoat. They are not in the same category, either social or psychological.

I’m not defending the logic of alienated labor as long as it’s out of sight. When alienated labor is Maria doing dishes in your kitchen, it should be harder not easier to ignore. But there is more and more explicit personal servitude in our culture. As there are more and more people who willingly define themselves as servants, and as servile.
I don’t like “bottoms:” male, female or other.

Liberals worry about the poor and treat the servants like shit.
Conservatives don’t give a shit about the poor but treat the servants well.
In the south they let niggers live next door as long as they don’t get uppity. In the north they let them get uppity as long as they don’t move next door.

It’s all the same.

I’l put it this way: delivering my socks and underwear to the woman who cleans and sorts them by had, strikes me personally, as a bit off. I won’t do it. Tossing my uniform in the laundry bin at the shop or taking my tux to the dry cleaners does not.

I think this is a very important point. I agree that most people feel this way. Imo, though, this is a kind of false consciousness. It is a way of hiding from ourselves the extent of our dependence on and exploitation of the labour of others.

However, I do agree with you about the specific, dehumanising aspects of domestic service you cite.

To be invisible and in plain sight, to be “socially dead”; to be used by someone directly and merely as a machine or an object is draining.

It’s just that I think that there is continuum between these roles and roles outside of the home which involve some of the same harms, such as cleaners in an office or maids in a hotel.

There are a lot of jews on the upper east side. But while I was walking down 84th street in the early 90’s (on lunch from a job site) I passed two well dressed old women leaving a building. One commented to the other:
“They’re letting a jew in the building”

It’s still an issue.

Perhaps you could say I do my own laundry for reasons associated with my lack of interest in paying for sex. Now child care, there’s a complex case. The Unnatural History of the Nanny. I wish I’d kept my parents’ copy. An interesting topic.

I’m not saying domestic service is “worse” I’m saying that the de facto intimiate relations that are required to be defined as impersonal are stress producing and indeed exhausting, To be invisible and in plain sight, to be “socially dead”; to be used by someone directly and merely as a machine or an object is draining. I’l put it this way: delivering my socks and underwear to the woman who cleans and sorts them by had, strikes me personally, as a bit off. I won’t do it. Tossing my uniform in the laundry bin at the shop or taking my tux to the dry cleaners does not.

An another note returning to the discussion of Doormen I mentioned above: I looked through the book today and it was as I suspected. Aside from the mannerisms of social scientist as naif [is this supposed to imply objectivity?] he has no knowledge of the history of th city and history in this case specifically is context. He makes some vague reference to the racial mix among doormen, but that’s it. The upper west side was built, literally to mirror the UES where wealthy Jews were not welcome (and were not even recently judging from my experience) Also my experience is that the racial mix amoing the population of doormen on the UES is majority ethnic white. I’ve asked around and others I’ve worked with are of the same opinion. I’m willing to be the author’s data would show the same thing, if he bothered to run the numbers.

Not true. As has been pointed out, poorer families don’t and can’t hire cleaners, even if both spouses work. (What you are saying could only be true if all families in the less than £25 000 bracket had only one partner working. That just isn’t true: a family with two partners working at close to minimum wage, for example, could have an income of less than £20 000.) Also, have you thought about the case of poor families where one partner works and the other is incapacitated in some way? None of these people can afford to employ a cleaner and I think they would look on anyone who can as being very fortunate indeed.

Not true. As has been pointed out, poorer families don’t and can’t hire cleaners, even if both spouses work. (What you are saying could only be true if all families in the less than £25 000 bracket had only one partner working. That just isn’t true: a family with two partners working at close to minimum wage, for example, could have an income of less than £20 000.) Also, have you thought about the case of poor families where one partner works and the other is incapacitated in some way? You seem to me to be generalising far too much from a very small sample of relatively well off people.

Not true. As has been pointed out, poorer families don’t and can’t hire cleaners, even if both spouses work. (What you are saying could only be true if all families in the

What seems important to me is that such work can take place either inside or outside of the home. It seems to be a feature of modern society that much of the work (preparation of meals, laundry, care of children) which would in the past have been performed by domestic workers (servants) inside of the home is now performed by workers outside of it. That’s one reason why I said there isn’t a sharp line to be drawn between work which is done in the home and work which is done elsewhere. (But I do think, as I said, that domestic workers are in practice more likely to be exploited than others and that live-in domestic workers are a special case who suffer especially grave injustices.)

There is a distinction but I think it’s not as large as you would like. “The body” and relations to it are personal or intimate. That changes things. I wrote about all this above. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this (and I’ll join you in doing the same with Abb1)

I do my own laundry down the street, and it’s a bit of a principle I think. It could just be embarrassment, my everyday clothes are pretty ragged.