Table Of Contenti
Making the Woman Worker
ii
Frontis. Domestic Worker Campaign Poster, 2011. By Ivy Climacosa for the Design
Action Collective and Steering Committee for Global Campaign for Decent Work and
Rights for Domestic Workers— Asian Migrant Domestic Workers’ Alliance (ADWA),
International Domestic Workers Network (IDWN), Migrant Forum Asia (MFA),
RESPECT Network Europe, and National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), with
permission.
iii
Making
the Woman Worker
Precarious Labor and the Fight for
Global Standards, 1919– 2019
z
EILEEN BORIS
1
iv
1
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ISBN 978– 0– 19– 087462– 9
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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
A Note on Nomenclature xvii
Prologue xix
Introduction: Making Women, Defining Work 1
PART I: Difference: The Problem of the Woman Worker, 1919– 1958
1. Protection 17
2. Equality 53
PART II: Difference’s Other: Women in “Developing” Countries, 1944– 1996
3. Development 89
4. Reproduction 122
5. Outwork 155
vi
vi Contents
PART III: Difference All: Centering Care, 1990s– 2010s
6. Home 193
7. Women’s Place (in the Future of Work) 229
Appendix 1: List of Key Conventions and Recommendations 243
Appendix 2: Publications of the Programme on Rural Women, 1978– 1988 245
Notes 249
Index 321
vii
Illustrations
Frontis. D omestic Worker Campaign Poster, 2011. By Ivy Climacosa
for the Design Action Collective and Steering Committee
for Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for
Domestic Workers— Asian Migrant Domestic Workers’
Alliance (ADWA), International Domestic Workers Network
(IDWN), Migrant Forum Asia (MFA), RESPECT Network
Europe, and National Domestic Workers Alliance
(NDWA), with permission. ii
1.1 “A Group of Delegates” at the International Congress of
Working Women, 1919. Left to Right, sitting: Mlle. Yadwiga
Lukasiuk, Poland; Mlle. Georgette Bouillet, France; Mlle.
Jeanne Bouvier, France; Mrs. Raymond (Margaret Dreier)
Robins, President of the National Women’s Trade Union League
of America; Dr. Melanie Bornstein, Poland; Mlle. Konstancja
Olszewska, Poland. Standing: Mlle. Victoire Cappe, Belgium;
Mlle. Sophie Dobrzanska, Poland; Mlle. Berthe de Lalieux,
Belgium; Mme. Marie Majerová, Czechoslovakia, and Mme.
Luisa Landova- Stychova, Czechosolvakia. Library of
Congress. 18
1.2 1st International Congress of Working Women, Washington,
DC, October 28, 1919. Library of Congress. 25
1.3 First ILC Session, Washington, DC. Photo from International
Labour Organization, with permission. 25
1.4 Committee on the Night Work of Women, ILC, 1934. At the
back table: Committee Chair Kerstin Hesselgren (Sweden),
Marguerite Thibert (ILO), reporter Milena Atanatskovitch
(Yugoslavia), and Worker Vice- Chair Julia Varley (Great Britain).
Photo from International Labour Organization, with
permission. 37
viii
viii List of Illustrations
2.1 ILC, 1944, Philadelphia. Eleanor Hinder (ILO), Robert
Lafrance (ILO), Bertha Lutz (Brazil), and Marguerite Thibert
(ILO). Photo from International Labour Organization, with
permission. 54
2.2 Mildred Fairchild, Chief of Women’s and Young Workers
Division, 1947– 1954. Photo from International Labour
Organization, with permission. 68
2.3 Frieda Miller, Director, US Women’s Bureau, 1944– 1953.
Photo from Schlesinger Library. 69
3.1 Frieda Miller with Indian women. Photo from Schlesinger
Library, Liberty News. 100
3.2 A student at Dar Atayad, Syrian Arab Republic where the
ILO trained carpet weavers, 1961. Photo from International
Labour Organization, with permission. 106
4.1 Cover, Rural Development and Women in Africa (Geneva:
ILO, 1984). Photo from International Labour Organization,
with permission. 123
4.2 Elizabeth Croll, Women and Rural Development in China
(Geneva: ILO, 1985). Photo from International Labour
Organization, with permission. 140
5.1 SEWA, women marching. Photo from SEWA, with
permission. 174
6.1 Asian Domestic Workers Network, patchwork quilt
demonstration, June 8, 2010, Geneva. Photo by Jennifer
N. Fish, on behalf of the International Domestic Workers
Federation, with permission. 194
6.2 Founding of the International Domestic Workers
Federation, Montevideo, Uruguay, October 2013. Photo
by the author. 226
6.3 Hall with T- shirt display, Second Congress of the International
Domestic Workers Federation, Cape Town, South Africa,
November 2018. Photo by the author. 227
7.1 Domestic workers lobby for an ILO Convention on Violence
and Harassment Against Men and Women in the World of
Work, 2018. Photo by Jennifer N. Fish, on behalf of the
International Domestic Workers Federation, reworked by
Ye Ting Ma, with permission. 234
ix
Acknowledgments
Thirty years ago, when I became aware of the convention and knowledge
making of the ILO, I had no idea that this PhD in the history of American civili-
zation (Brown’s highfalutin name for American studies at the time of my degree)
would become a global labor historian and transnational feminist scholar. Or
that I would travel across the world engaging with other researchers and archives.
It’s been a heady time, layering the new on the old, and I feel so fortunate to have
had such wonderful and smart companions and friends along this journey.
I’ve accumulated many debts in the decade that I have worked on this book.
First and foremost, I thank the staff of the ILO, especially Remo Becci and
Jacques Rodriquez of the Archives and the Century Project under Emmanuel
Reynaud and Dorothea Hoehtker. I also appreciate those from the ILO’s Geneva
Office who took time out of their busy schedules to provide me with information
and answer questions. I’m particularly grateful to Manuela Tomei, director of the
now named WORKQUALITY Department, and Claire Hobden, technical of-
ficer in the Working Conditions branch focused on domestic work. I’m obliged
to those who played a part in this story for talking or e- mailing with me, including
Tomei and Hobden; Renana Jhabvala of SEWA; Dan Gallin, retired leader of the
IUF; Jill Shenker, formerly of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; Lourdes
Benería; Guy Standing; Marty Chen of WIEGO; Elizabeth Tang, Ip Fish, Chris
Bonner, and others with the International Domestic Workers Federation. Chris
Edgar and the Publications branch at ILO facilitated permissions.
Jill Jensen, whose doctoral committee at UCSB I had the pleasure of joining,
introduced me to the possibilities of researching the ILO. When Kitty Sklar and
Tom Dublin asked me to write an essay on the ILO and women’s economic jus-
tice for Women and Social Movements, International, I turned to Jill to become
my co- author rather than just picking her brains as graduate advisors sometimes
do. We’ve continued collaborating over the last decade, and I’m the richer and
wiser for it. I thank other UCSB graduate research assistants, including Heather
Berg, Kit Smemo, Megan Undén, and Nicole de Silva, and graduate students
