what happens when you can't say "no"

the image you see above went viral some years ago: it shows a young man on his way to military training and his domestic worker (often referred to as “maids”) carrying his military kit. in most of the world and for most of human history, there’s never been a shortage of people willing to do things. this still persists.

in the places where i grew up, having people live with you to clean your house and take care of your kids is common. there are apartment plans drawn up with sepcified “servants quarters” - often small rooms big enough to fit a bed. i’ve seen some without windows. i’ve been told in tigher cities like Hong Kong, domestic workers sleep under dining tables.

domestic workers are women usually from the phillipines and indonesia. they may children back home whom they see rarely over the years. the money goes a long way. some build houses and send their kids to university and sometimes it is squandered by those at home.

with such a close and private relationship between domestic workers and employers, it is no suprise that abuse happens. horror stories abound and i will not repeat them here but i would argue that even the most benign set-ups are problematic.

service given by someone else is not something to be taken for granted because in doing so one is taking another person for granted. even going to a restaurant or speaking to a flight attendant, we understand the person in front of us is there for the moment and if you misbehave as a patron the service can be denied and you can be ejected from the premises.

i’ve heard people talk to their workers with less care than others talk to an alexa. even if the situation is such that it is almost impossible for a domestic worker to refuse a request, in asking with grace instead of commanding a dignity is shared and upheld. to forget or willingly discard this basic understanding is a violence to both parties. cruelty is a knife that cuts both.

having someone to do everything around a home also infantilises the employer who has forgotten (or never known) how to upkeep the place they live in. in reducing the cost of someone’s time to zero, so is the cost of dirtyness and mess driven to zero. economists would call this a mispricing of negative externalities. another way to see it is a dereliction of reality.

if there is to be domestic labour, i’d like hope it is treated as the luxury it is (even if it may not be priced as such) instead of a basic right without which some people cease to function.

further reading:

• My Family’s Slave, Alex Tizon, The Atlantic