From where I sit, as long as you pay her well and treat her with the respect due another human being, what you're doing is as value-neutral as any other financial transaction. Same goes for hiring someone to chop and deliver one's firewood, or hiring a mechanic to change the oil in one's car.
Certainly there can be complicated emotional and power dynamics at work when one woman hires another to do housework. But I don't see anything inherently problematic in the practice; I don't think it's necessarily exploitative. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.
I've been meaning to blog about that Lilith piece since it came out; thanks for the reminder, maybe I'll actually get something written about it sometime soon!
From where I sit, as long as you pay her well and treat her with the respect due another human being, what you're doing is as value-neutral as any other financial transaction. Same goes for hiring someone to chop and deliver one's firewood, or hiring a mechanic to change the oil in one's car.
Certainly there can be complicated emotional and power dynamics at work when one woman hires another to do housework. But I don't see anything inherently problematic in the practice; I don't think it's necessarily exploitative. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.
I've been meaning to blog about that Lilith piece since it came out; thanks for the reminder, maybe I'll actually get something written about it sometime soon!