Pan

“White women—feminists included—have revealed a historical reluctance to acknowledge the struggles of household workers. They have rarely been involved in the Sisyphean task of ameliorating the conditions of domestic service. The convenient omission of household workers’ problems from the programs of “middle-class” feminists past and present has often turned out to be a veiled justification—at least on the part of the affluent women—of their own exploitative treatment of their maids.

In 1902 the author of an article entitled “A Nine-Hour Day for Domestic Servants” described a conversation with a feminist friend who had asked her to sign a petition urging employers to furnish seats for women clerks.

“The girls,” she said, “have to stand on their feet ten hours a day and it makes my heart ache to see their tired faces.”
“Mrs. Jones,” said I, “how many hours a day does your maid stand upon her feet?”
“Why, I don’t know,” she gasped, “five or six I suppose.”
“At what time does she rise?”
“At six.” “And at what hour does she finish at night?”
“Oh, about eight, I think, generally.”
“That makes fourteen hours …”
“… (S)he can often sit down at her work.”
“At what work? Washing? Ironing? Sweeping? Making beds? Cooking? Washing dishes? … Perhaps she sits for two hours at her meals and preparing vegetables, and four days in the week she has an hour in the afternoon. According to that, your maid is on her feet at least eleven hours a day with a score of stair-climbings included. It seems to me that her case is more pitiable than that of the store clerk.”

My caller rose with red cheeks and flashing eyes. “My maid always has Sunday after dinner,” she said.
“Yes, but the clerk has all day Sunday. Please don’t go until I have signed that petition. No one would be more thankful than I to see the clerks have a chance to sit …”
― Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race & Class

“Looked at from the vantage points offered by fictional stories, slavery, like the glass viewed from above, at first glance, can appear to be merely trivial, two-dimensional, erotic behavior that is not deserving of any serious attention.”
― Guy Baldwin, Slavecraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude: Principles, Skills and Tools

“The Ashanti, he reminded me, are guided by, and survive through, the forces of kinship and ancestral linkage. "We take care of each other on earth," he said. "If a family member asks for help, I give it. When a family member needs money for school fees or hospital bills, I send it. And my whole extended family loves you as if you are their child. We take care of each other's children. We raise each other's children. My cousins are my brothers and sisters. My aunts are also my mothers. Your aunts are your mothers, especially Auntie Harriet because she is my eldest sister. You will never be alone in this world."

"And do you really believe our ancestors are watching over us?" I asked.

He smiled. "I believe in the power of remembrance," he said. "And I believe love does not die with the body.”
― Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks

“In the early years, it was my fear that drove my need to understand. i did not want to be destroyed. In fact i wanted to be created.”
― Guy Baldwin, Slavecraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude: Principles, Skills and Tools