CHENNAI: It’s not just the virus that can mutate or get updated — even discrimination can. New forms take shape even when the entire world is facing a pandemic. It is ironic that the International Domestic Workers Day this year, observed today, falls amid the lockdown. For the virus has managed to add another layer of class-based stigma to our already fragmented society.
Several house helps who have resumed work are now faced with unreasonable demands, taunts, and are even being look upon as “carriers” of the virus from shanties to apartments. Selvi, one such house help, is confused and perplexed. Her employers expect Selvi to bathe once before entering their house for work. But, they will not provide their own bathrooms.
“I work at five homes, one after the other. As I go to their homes after having worked elsewhere, they expect me to shower before entering, but I am not allowed to use their bathrooms. Where am I supposed to go and bathe?”
Even in the era before the virus, bathrooms of employers were out of bounds for the domestic helps. Those working in apartments are among the lucky few, as they are allowed to use the common bathroom on the ground floor, reserved for watchmen and drivers provided they agree to it. If not, for half a day or more, these women have to resist the urge to relieve themselves.
Sushma (name changed) works for homes in Bharathi Nagar of Vyasarpadi. “The women in those houses unlock the doors and sprint to the other end of the room every morning, as if we come laden with the virus. It’s funny and humiliating at the same time,” says Sushma. “They have not asked me to stop coming, yet, but keep making snide remarks.”
The worst, she says, is being told: “Please don’t give us the virus, there are small children here.” Earlier, some of them used to give her some coffee and tiffin at the end of work. That, too, has now stopped. “The fear is that I may contaminate the utensils.” Domestic helps residing in parts of the city where cases are high have been told not to come to work by their employers.
Domestic helps residing in parts of the city where cases are high have been told not to come to work by their employers. They also are not paid for that period.
“Just because we are from the slums, they think we might automatically have the virus,” says Pushpa of T Nagar. “My employers keep insisting that I wear a mask at all times. But none of them do the same.”
Pushpa says one of her employers wanted her to stop working in all other houses but theirs, because they had elderly people at home. However, they were not ready to compensate Pushpa for the lost income.
“The virus has amplified existing casteist and classist practices in our society,” says C Lakshmanan, associate professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. The secretary of a city-based resident welfare association ostentatiously approves these practices because “prevention is better than cure.”
“We only try to safeguard ourselves, but we also make sure we are not hurting the feelings of others.” Selvi’s husband Gunasekaran was a daily wage labourer.