Kvinnor, klass och hierarkier i en brytningstid
Av Vedin, Sofi
The aim of this dissertation is to examine how the practices of paid domestic work (including advertising for labor) constructed, maintained, challenged or transformed hierarchies in relations between women in Sweden 1890–1939. The study thus contributes to our understanding of female labor and class relations: a less researched area compared to male work outside the home. Domestic workers were one of the largest female occupational groups during the period. Until the 1920s, domestic workers were subjected to a live-in system, where the employee lived in the employer’s home. The study analyzes over 13 000 work advertisements and nearly 300 questionnaire responses written by former domestic workers and employers, focusing on how class, gender and labor relationships were performed, and everyday practices in the household. The analysis is grounded on theories on practices, performative practices, class, gender, and theories on how work is valued. The study shows that previously established titles and divisions of labor among domestics (such as naming domestics working alone as ‘ensamjungfru’ or assuming ‘barnjungfrur’ only worked with child care) were performative. Both employers and employees constructed domestic work as a calling for working class women, making class relations seem innate. It divided women into categories of important (made to be served) and non-important (made to serve). Domestic workers were subjected to the idea that it was their natural, moral duty to serve middle- and upper class women. As ideas of equality began to emerge in Swedish politics, employers attempted to integrate paid domestic work in a modern society by portraying the class relations as leveled and equal in the advertisements. However, when domestic workers abandoned the live in-system in the 1920’s, their numbers declined in the 1930’s, employers showed a desire to retain the live-in system, thereby preserving the anachronistic features of domestic work