Family matters: Primary gender socialization and gender-based violence in paid domestic work in Bolivia and Peru

Abstract

As noted by Heidi Tinsman, in the 1990s, the scientific literature tended to overlook the structuring impact of the working-class gender regime on paid domestic work in the Americas. This tendency has barely been reversed since then. This article, based on an ethnographic study in Bolivia and Peru, closely examines the sexual division of labor, gendered socialization, and gender-based violence dynamics in the birth families of domestic workers in both countries. It reveals striking similarities in the forms of exploitation and violence these women typically face, not only in their birth family but also in their employers’ households and (for those who marry), in their conjugal family—all mutually sustaining each other. Paying particular attention to sexual and gender-based violence, this article proposes a feminist critique of the family as a space of solidarity and protection. It then places these phenomena in a broader context, shaped not only by patriarchal norms but also by racism and class-based oppression. Viewed through this intersectional lens, paid domestic work can be theorized as a regime of gendered and racialized “appropriated labor.”