The Invisible Woman: The Non-Existent Rights of Domestic Workers
I remember the shock I felt when I learned that the historic 1935 National Labor Relations Act – you know, the one that gives workers the rights to organize? — left out a large portion of workers in the United States: domestic workers. Ever hear about them? These workers, mostly immigrant women of color, are the people who clean our homes and hotels, take care of our elderly family members and raise our children. They do the work that’s expected of your stereotypical housewife, and they get paid for it (albeit, generally very little) — and like the wives and mothers who do this work for free, they are virtually invisible in the economy.
Invisibility is a huge and complicated question for feminist and undocumented activists alike. Women feel invisibile and unappreciated for the countless chores they are expected to do simply because of their female identity; domestic workers don’t have the same rights behind them as industries with the right to unionize behind them. Undocumented immigrants must make themselves invisible for fear of the consequences of being found; their invisibility is both forced upon them by stripping them of basic humanity (“illegal alien” implies a less-than-human status) and protected, swallowed inside of them and hidden, with constant fear o
