At the Intersection of Home and Work: Domesticity, Labor, and the Contradictions of Modernity in Ecuador, 1890–1950

Abstract

Abstract This essay uses gender analysis to interrogate the modernization of labor organizations in Ecuador from 1890-1950, with a focus on why domestic servants were excluded in this process. Although labor organizers challenged other forms of paternalism in labor relations, they remained silent on domestic service even though it was the main source of female labor in Ecuador's growing cities. Using publications by labor organizations, laws, and social welfare records, this essay seeks to understand not what life was like for domestic servants, but to explore the contours and contradictions in the relationships between workers, labor organizers, and the state during a critical period of modernization and state formation in Ecuador. I argue that the absence of domestic servants from labor discourses defined and reinforced specific forms of masculine dignity as the core of the modern worker identity. This masculine worker identity made possible the inclusion of indigenous hacienda workers in the labor movement, but women could be incorporated only if they worked in public settings (mainly factories). Domestic servants belonged symbolically to the realm of traditional labor, and their ties to the home placed them beyond the paradigm of class exploitation.