The U.S., Great Britain, and France also have a historical legacies of African slavery that factor into this perception. In the U.S., the effective enslavement

The U.S., Great Britain, and France also have a historical legacies of African slavery that factor into this perception. In the U.S., the effective enslavement of African American women as domestic workers with $8/day wages lasted well into the 1960s. A major advance during the 1970s was the ability of African American domestic workers to unionize and push for humane working conditions. During the New Deal era (1930s/40s), social security and other services did not extend to Black domestic workers — which at the time constituted a significant portion of Black women in the workforce. Given this legacy, it is no surprise that people in the U.S. view domestic work with some concern. So for many of us, the concern is not so much around the work (you do what you have to do to put food on the table, etc, no shame in that), but it is the fact that people doing this work have been subject to unchecked sexual abuse, extreme wage discrimination, and a host of other horrendously inhuman working conditions. The text “When Affirmative Acrion was White” by Katznelson is one source among many.