Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers

Labor and Social Change

by Judith Rollins

Between Women is the result of forty in-depth interviews, interviews enhanced by the author's own experience as a domestic worker for ten employers in the greater Boston area. The reader is quickly drawn into the world of domestic workers as the author allows the women to speak for themselves whenever possible. Clearly relevant to labor studies, women's studies and black studies, at its essence this book is a study of the social psychology of relationships of domination. Yet, while focusing on these relationships, the author never loses sight of the larger social structure and how it affects and is affected by employer-domestic dyads. The opening chapter provides an overview of domestic service in the Western tradition, most notably a detailed history of servitude in the South and northeastern United States, with brief attention to a few non-Western locales. Then, what follows is a description of the conditions of work—the physical labor, hours, compensation, and problems—with the focus on the women and the major dynamics of their relationships. Unlike many works on domination, this book gives as much attention to the effects on the minds and lives of the employers as it does to the effects on the domestics. And it is this exploration, in particular—of the demands, reactions, preferences and perceptions of employers—that reveals how this labor arrangement functions ideologically as well as materially to support the class, gender and racial hierarchies of this country.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Womens, Sociology

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[CMC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really delves into an adequate, in-depth discussion of the interpersonal relationship between women in the domestic service sector. The only thing that really prevented me from giving it a five is that by the end of the book, I felt like some of the ideas were overtly repetitive. Otherwise, it's a great read and I think it's just me being picky.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

While ethically problematic in her methods (and she offers something in the way of an explanation, but not a good enough one), Rollins has produced a fantastic study of everyday relations and the subtle push and pull between women and their domestics at a particular moment in this country's history.