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COPYRIGHT 2003 Bridgewater State College
Abstract
The mistress-maid relationship, grounded in maternalism, provides a glaring example of the class inequality among women. Contextualized in the Third World, this paper examines maternalism both as a complex, hierarchical system that governs the employment arrangement and as a field of negotiation where women exercise agency. Recorded in-depth interviews and focus groups with thirty-one domestic workers and ten female employers were conducted in a medium-sized city in the Philippines between May and August 2000. QSR NUD * IST facilitated the data processing and analysis. This paper describes several forms of maternalism, including "part of the family" ideology, emotional labor, material support, utang na loob system of obligation, and mistress' control over the maid's body, time, space, and relationships. Likewise, it analyzes three types of maternalistic styles, where each type is grounded on a different repertoire of maternalist practices and ideologies. In addition, it classifies several patterns of mistress-maid interaction, and explores the interrelationship between maternalistic styles and interaction patterns.
Key Words: maternalism, mistress-maid, class inequality, the Philippines
Introduction
One powerful, yet often hidden, phenomenon depicting the class inequality among women is the employment relationship between a mistress and her maid. Numerous studies have explored the asymmetrical power relations between women in this employment contract (Cock 1980; Tellis-Nayak 1983, Rollins 1985; Kaplan 1987; Romero 1988c; Hansen 1989; Gill 1990; Barnes 1993; Dumont 1995; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001). (1) Most of these works describe mistress-maid relations as matemalistic. A derivative of paternalism, maternalism is a system of power relations wherein the maid is under the mistress' protective custody, control, and authority. Structurally, it is characterized by mistress benevolence, which is a "false generosity" (Freire 1970), or an "ideological camouflage" (Patterson 1982) that conceals the exploitive nature of the relationship. (2) This relationship is structurally exploitive in two ways. First, domestics' labor power is appropriated to enrich the mistress' class. Second, the mistress deprives the maid control over her body, time, space, and relationships. In maternalistic relations, the mistress camouflages the controlling aspect of maternalism by emphasizing benevolence and "charity".
On the other hand, the maid often establishes or participates in a maternalistic relationship with her mistress because of her own feelings of isolation within the household where she works (Cock 1980; Rollins 1985; Romero 1988b; Gill 1990; Cohen 1991; Constable 1997). Maternalism, as embodied in the mistress-maid relations, reproduces the inequitable class-gender structure, in which middle-class women, subordinated by their gender, delegate the unglamorous domestic work to poor women for low wages.
Maternalism, however, is marked with ambiguities, contradictions, conflict, resistance, and accommodation, as social actors or in this case social actresses, also exercise agency as they work within the system. Thus, the nature of the relationship is not totally determined by the structure; it is also negotiated by the actresses.
This paper veers away from the objectivist notion that domestic workers are helpless victims of the structure, as well as the subjectivist orientation that they are in control of their destiny. Rather, it supports Giddens' (1984) structuration theory that views social action as neither explained by "the constraining forces of the structure" nor by the individual's "freely chosen activities" (Munch 1994). Social action, for Giddens, is explained by the duality of structure and agency. Munch (1994) elucidates Giddens' theory as follows: "The core meaning of this concept is that neither structures nor actions exist per se but are closely intertwined. There is no structure without action, and there is no action without structure."
In this paper, I examine how maternalism is formed, sustained, reproduced or transformed in the mistress-maid relationship in the context of Third World, medium-sized city, without racial difference between employers and domestic workers. Previous studies had emphasized racial difference and inequality as playing significant factor in mistress-maid relationship (Cock 1980; Dill 1983; Rollins 1985; Glenn 1992). In a way, this study is unique in that it is situated in the Third World and there is racial homogeneity among the key informants. Because the idea of race is flattened, other salient issues emerge. In addition, while the difficult working conditions of the Filipino women abroad have been widely researched, not much is known about domestic laborers within the Philippines. While there are a few published studies about the working conditions of domestic workers (Dumont 2000; Palabrica-Costello 1984), scholars have often ignored the employment relationship, particularly with the mistress. (3) Inside the Philippines, poor domestics have been left voiceless and invisible in the confines of their middle-class workplaces. By focusing on the employment relationship between the domestic helper and the female employer, this study pinpoints the class inequality between two hierarchical strata of wage-earning women in a Third World setting.
Given the racial homogeneity of this social group, I explore the various definitions of maids and mistresses about their situations. While the structure of their relationship is basically exploitative, the circumstances under which this relationship is played out are particularistic and negotiated in their day-to-day interaction. I describe the various forms of maternalism, showing how mistresses use beneficence to camouflage their oppressive practices, and demonstrate the circumstances for maternalism to be beneficial or destructive to the helper. I discuss three types of dependency and analyze the co-relation between dependency and maternalistic styles. Finally, I layout several patterns of mistress-maid interaction, and relate them to dependency and maternalism. It is hoped that the structuration theory would help us depart from a dichotomous analysis (i.e., structure versus agency) of mistress-maid maternalistic relations.
Methods
The data from this paper were collected from my in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with ten wage-earning mistresses and thirty-one domestic workers in a medium-sized city in the Philippines, with the help of gatekeepers and through snowball sampling. (4) The interviews and focus groups were conducted in Filipino languages (i.e., Tagalog and Cebuano), with the exception of some employers who preferred English. Employers were interviewed in their workplaces or in their homes, while the focus groups and interviews with domestic workers were held on Sundays in neutral settings, such as multi-purpose halls, parks, and when requested by the informant, in my home. All interviews and focus groups were tape-recorded, transcribed, and entered into a qualitative data analysis software called QSR NUD*IST (Gahan and Hannibal 1998; generalized characterization of the mistress-maid relationship. Palabrica-Costello (1984), on the other hand, had different goals in her study. Richards 1998). (5)
While the interviews and focus groups required only three months, between May and August 2000, my situated knowledge and experience about domestic work in the Philippines is based on my being a member of this society. As an employer's daughter, I have associated with domestic workers all my life in the household of my family of orientation, as well as in my friends' households. I have lived in the Philippines for most of my life, and have observed the lives of domestic workers as an outsider, as I have not been a paid domestic worker myself. In this paper, I draw heavily from my informants' narratives. This paper reflects an intercalation of three voices: the maids', the mistresses', and mine.
Setting: The Philippines
Like many developing nations, the Philippines is a highly polarized society, where class, ethnic, and gender disparities are intertwined. A very small elite group controls most of the wealth and resources while a majority of the people lives in desperate poverty. The elites are mostly descendants of the landed Spanish families during colonization period and the enterprising Chinese migrants who rose from rags to riches. The country has a small middle class composed of professionals and small-scale business entrepreneurs; the rest of the population is wallowing in poverty. Additionally, economic and social development efforts are largely concentrated in the capital region, and least likely in the South where the Muslim ethnic minority groups reside. While there is a popular discourse that women occupy a high status in the Philippines, statistical data prove otherwise. Women are subordinate to men within their class and ethnic groupings.
As a result of the economic polarization, a significant number of the Filipinos--both men and women--seek employment in other countries. The majority of the women are employed as domestic workers, nurses or caregivers. International migration, however, is limited to those capable of paying the migration expenses. Oftentimes, these are college-educated women with some economic assets. Low-skilled, poorly educated young women, on the other hand, restrict their movement from rural to urban areas in the Philippines, where they find paid domestic work (Costello 1987; Lauby 1987). Filipino middle-class, wage-earning women hire much of this labor supply. By passing on to domestic helpers the "dirty work" (Anderson 2000) of reproductive labor, these upwardly mobile women are freed to fill higher-paying jobs outside their households. A typical middle-class household in the Philippines employs one or two live-in domestic workers with monthly wage ranging from US$20-$40, depending on the geographical location and financial capability of the employing household. In sharp contrast, the typical employed female employer earns nine times (or more) the wage of her helper.
Forms of Maternalism
Some feminists analyze maternalism as the mistress' guise to exploit her maid's labor power (Glenn 1980; Rollins 1985; Romero 1988c), while other researchers interpret maternalism in a more neutral if not a positive perspective of patronage (Tellis-Nayak 1983; Ozyegin 2001). I examine maternalism as a continuum of support and control, ranging from "part of the family" ideology, emotional labor, utang na loob system of obligation, to control and exploitation of the maid's body, time, space, and relationships. This analysis extends from previous studies by contextualizing this continuum of support and control within the Filipino culture.
"Part of the Family" Ideology
In this study, the mistress demonstrates maternalism toward her helper by integrating her into the family, using kin terms, treating her like a child, giving gifts, and providing financial, educational, and emotional support. Additionally, the mistress controls the domestic helper's body, time, space, and relationships. In other words, maternalism functions as an ideological camouflage, a strategy that seems to be helpful for the helper and hides exploitation under the guise of "part of the family" idiom. As Anderson aptly states, "[b]eing told that you are 'part of a family' often conceals the real power relationships at work, and this leads to confusion and exploitation" (Anderson 2000). Kin terms are often used between domestics and their employers. For instance, employers describe their relationship with their helpers as similar to mother-daughter connections, that is, they regard the helpers as their own children needing guidance, direction, and/or punishment. Likewise, the maids' initial responses also correspond to the mother-child bonding, which the employers portrayed. This is particularly evident to helpers who are a lot younger compared to their employers, such as those whose ages range from fourteen to twenty. In general, the helpers' responses towards maternalism focus on the positive side, an indication of absorbed loyalty toward their mistresses. Many liken their mistresses to their own mothers with whom they feel emotionally and financially attached, especially when kin terminology is applied to dissociate them from the servant role. However, as the narrative below illustrates, the label "daughter" does not really dissociate the helper from the servant role. In fact, it compels her to obey and to give her full loyalty to her mistress.
Researcher: How did your master and mistress treat you?
Jennifer: They were kind.
Researcher: Did you not have any problems with them?
Jennifer: No. They were very kind. They even called me daughter.
Researcher: They called you daughter?
Jennifer: (Nods head. Imitating her employer) "Daughter, bring me that thing. Please.
The use of kin terms is...
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