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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2021 and 19 March 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cam Hist. Peer reviewers: Tsweeney617, Audkal.
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If 'Manservant' is going to redirect here, then this page should explain what a manservant is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.150.230 (talk) 14:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Considering that domestic workers are paid from the after-tax income of their employers, and their employers are unlikely to divert 100% of their discretionary income on their domestic worker's pay, I think we can easily come to the relevant conclusions, unless the domestic workers work very short hours per customer at high pay per hour. -- The Anome 22:59, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Could someone add Francis Barber to the famous servants list? Historically important guy as servant, friend, and inheritor to Dr Johnson, and one of the earlier black people in Britain to be identified by name. ¬¬¬ R Clyne
I've just added some external links to domestic worker advocacy groups and to a paper about domestic workers. Because currently I don't have time to do this myself, could someone go over those external links and perhaps add information from those links to the wikipedia article? Thanks :) Allentchang 01:23, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Even if only one domestic worker is hired, some employers require that domestic worker to wear a "uniform". But it's not called uniform if there is only one worker.
With such a vast income disparity in China, the word "even" is appropriate, because of the irony that many poor chinese women work as domestic workers in western countries, sending money back home to the children they've left with relatives in China, while at the same time rich Chinese are importing workers from other countries. SchmuckyTheCat 23:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Cut from intro:
Whose POV is it that domestic service must "perform a useful social role" or that it should not "perpetuate divisions and restrict social mobility"?
Not that I'm of the opposite viewpoint, mind you, it's just that the POV is unsourced. If there is to be critical evaluation of the concept, our readers deserve to know WHO opposes or favors it, and WHY. --Uncle Ed 00:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
This is an epitaph inscribed on an 19th century civil servant's tomb in Old Highgate Cemetery, Highgate, London. I cannot remember the name of the civil servant, but it may still be of interest to the readers of this Wikipedia entry on servants, or domestic workers:--
Truly trust
The trusty servant
Truly trusting
In a trusty master.
Unknown 11:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I found this phrase in the introduction most intriguing: Maids often are expected to work at least fifteen hours per day. I think that it would be better to contextualise where this happen. Even in Brazil, which is a third world country with lots of inegalities, domestic workers are protected by laws and can't work more than 40 hours a week., and have right to a paid day-off. SaintCahier 08:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
In one of his movies, Steve Martin's character becomes livid whenever he hears the words "cleaning woman." This is an example of how many such phrases ("the maid," "the help," "scrubwoman") have become vaguely comical, as well as outdated and possibly offensive. ProfessorAndro (talk) 14:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
One more example, a British middle class term for women domestic cleaners, is “ladies who do”, which in Britain has now become outdated and nowadays is little used, as it is probably slightly derogatory of cleaners in general, and is no longer “PC”, as they say.
Unknown 12:05 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Some notes from a programme I just watched that people may wish to introduce to the article.
Hope it's of use to somebody. --bodnotbod (talk) 19:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I removed the following at the top of Domestic work and international migration: [ [ File:Mu Mansion servant's room.JPG|thumb|Servant's room in the Mu Mansion located in the Old Town of Lijiang, Yunnan
This was added in (I think) the 3 Dec edit, and it is malformed (no closing ] ]). It deleted several sections. I am unsure how (or if) to restore the image in a style-conforming way. Please consider this a first step merely to restore hidden content. Please re-edit! (Spaces added to [ [ and ] ] to defeat Wiki-ization.) Laguna CA (talk) 07:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to make some revisions to the Domestic Worker page. I would like to contribute to this page by including information that looks at domestic workers through a sociological lens. I also intend to focus specifically on domestic work in terms of the effects it has on the lives of women. There are several different directions I can see that I can potentially take this contribution and I would greatly appreciate some help in deciding the best direction to go with it. One of the areas I am interested in editing is the section that is currently titled Current Situation Around the World. I would like to expand and possibly reorganized this section to include more regions and/or countries around the world and would like to include specific legislation in these countries that has affected the lives of domestic workers in those countries. In order to maintain neutrality throughout the article I would like to include both positive and negative social effects of domestic work. For example I would like to include information on how domestic work can potentially serve as a dead-end sector that limits social mobility for women. I would also like to include that domestic work can serve as an important sector for women to have access to and have the power seek economic independence through employment. Another section of the article that I am interested on expanding is the section currently titled Domestic Work and International Migration. I am interested in expanding this section to include more information on migrant domestic workers and would like to include some trends on domestic workers migrating to and from certain countries seeking employment and what effects that has on the sending and receiving countries. I have found several readings that address specific migration trends such as Rhacel Salazar’s article on Filipina migrant domestic workers and Shirlena Wong’s article on migrant domestic workers in Singapore. I would love some advice on how to use my ideas in the best way possible to improve the quality of this page. Thanks! Victoria.delgado (talk) 09:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
This article accomplishes several goals such as tone neutrality, depth, and navigation ease. However, a few easy adjustments would greatly improve this article. The tone is excellent. It is clearly neutral and treats the subject objectively. The introductory paragraph sets a proper scope which is addressed in the article, sets a proper tone, and establishes a logical progression to the paper. The lack of citations and a picture do take away from its impact, however, because it doesn't seem fully trustworthy and it feels empty. Citations and a relevant photo would improve this section. The most pressing issue with the article is its organization. The sections seem a bit disjointed. Re-organization would improve readability and the logical progression of the issue. I propose that the section on "Domestic Worker Jobs" be moved to immediately after the section on the contemporary situation of domestic workers because it provides a scope of what is meant by domestic work in today's terms without breaking the flow of the introductory paragraphs. It also follows logically after a cursive look at the history of domestic workers. Accommodations should be moved to immediately follow the section on jobs because it describes the context and situation of contemporary workers. The article should not progress to new ideas, such as the trends in domestic work or its social effects, or subsections of domestic workers, such as children, until a broad overview is provided to contextualize and establish a frame of reference for domestic workers. Information on domestic children workers should then follow because it is about a subsection of domestic workers today which is the same topic that is being addressed by the earlier topics. Trends should follow this because, once children are discussed, the principal information about domestic workers has been provided.
The second major issue with this article is the lack of citations and the inconsistency of citations. Some sections are very well cited so the claims are easy to track. Other sections are devoid of any citations despite claims or assertions of history or the state of being of these workers. Specifically, citations should be added to the following sections: the introduction, "History," "Current situation around the world," "Domestic work and international migration," and "Accommodation." Overall, the article is very good. The sections on child labor, domestic workers and international migration, and the current situation for domestic workers are great. The information is interesting and delves into several areas. Citations are good and a global perspective is given. The comparison provides depth. The child labor section is particularly good due to the photo and strategic use of data. If possible, please expand. Domestic work and international migration is also fantastic because it mixes data with explanations of the issues. Good citations. The discussion of gender norms and inequality in the domestic work section is terrific because it touches on a deeper sociological issue than is presented previously in the paper. Provides depth and pushes the reader to think and to consider the information through a new lens. Data is good but more would be better. The history section needs quite a bit of work, however, because it is too short, only focuses on England, provides few bits of data, and seems to establish an arbitrary time frame. Integrate more data about domestic workers such as their population size, their regions of origin, age, sex, and legal rights, throughout the article but certainly as early as possible.
The pictures are great. Keep them. Great work! Needs more citations and the sources section needs to be cleaned up so it is easier to navigate. Overall, good article. DanSCohen (talk • contribs)
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:33, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what happened (maybe the college project mentioned above?) but, if the self-congratulatory tone above about what a good article we have was ever justified, it certainly isn't now. We've got multiple long, uncolumned & uncurated lists (incl. a further reading list with unexplained and seemingly random entries); poor > nonexistent formatting; overlapping and duplicative sections placed at random down the page; and a completely unsourced and minimalist "history" section barely even covering Britain. We have such helpful sentences as "In India, domestic workers are known as maidservants, manservants, drivers and cooks." It's quite possible that the solution here is to revert if we've got a good page in storage, but what we've got is certainly nothing to be congratulatory about.
What I came here looking for (and found nothing relevant about at all) was what explained the rise and collapse of domestic workers in the West. I can guess the first part (ag. advances & limitation of women's ability to perform industrial work > lots of available help) but we should source and quantify it across multiple areas and identify how skewed the gender ratio was. The second part remains a mystery: it seems to have shifted following WWI and then collapsed following WWII, but we've got no accounts here on why, how quickly, or to what extent. This source at least covers Chicago, but we need much more given how important this was for all of Western culture. (Treatment of how the pattern differed in the Middle East, East Asia, and Africa during their industrialization & transit back into service economies would obviously be great as well.)
(As a side point, manservant still redirects here and still remains unexplained. Help the OP above out.) — LlywelynII 12:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
The photo of a woman ostensibly in Columbia identifies her as a "domestic worker," but she appears to be working in some sort of office or other institutional setting, rather than a home. Not sure that qualifies as a domestic worker. Eperotao (talk) 16:08, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
It is important to remember that not everyone who worked (or currently works) for the very wealthy in a household was considered a domestic servant. Secretaries, librarians, tutors, private chaplains etc. would never have been ranked with the domestic staff. They were (and are) considered employees and had accommodations separate from the servants. -Ad Orientem (talk) 12:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
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I added a couple extra tags to the article, because I found that it mainly focused on supposed disadvantages of workers, while giving very little neutral descriptions of the subject or of possible advantages. This is throughout almost the whole article. Some time ago, the sections were rearranged and new sections added, further adding to this neutrality focus problem. Amazingly, the entire section on history (which was never nearly adequate) was entirely deleted in the last few years, and I can't find the info anywhere. As it is now, this article sounds like a position piece against domestic work, and does not give much information to someone interested in learning more about what it is, and especially how it was in the past. Eric Schiefelbein (talk) 12:13, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
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I was wondering what the word "retainer" actually meant, when used to refer to a servant. This seems to be the page where the answer ought to be, but it's not here. Or anywhere else that I've been able to find so far. --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I have created a section to describe domestic work situation in specific countries, in the hope that this can draw such content, and leave the rest of the article focused on general and global aspects.
Further discussion is welcome here.
We might also address how to accommodate / distinguish the employment of domestic workers from within and beyond a country's borders. Should that be a major division in this article, or does it not matter whether the worker is from the same or another country? Or is it a minor issue? Onanoff (talk) 10:06, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Additionally, I'm surprised that there is nothing about the UK in either the History or By Country sections, given the extent to which this was both historically significant, and how much it has featured in media/culture both past and present. Iapetus (talk) 10:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello Everyone, I am part of a history class at the University of Oregon and one of our projects is updating a Wikipedia article that connects to our class. I was hoping to re-organize the overall history section and possibly add some things from further back, but what I would most like to add is some information in the United States section about Native Americans who were trained to become domestic workers. This is currently all I plan on doing but if it changes at all I will be sure to update this talk page. Thank you all for your help. Cam Hist (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
In the USA, the term "menial" workers includes a much larger group than domestic workers. Janitors, data entry clerks, mail sorters, etc. fit the bill.
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