Empregadas domésticas: experiências do exercício da atividade

Abstract

The present master’s thesis aims to understand the motivations for the activity of housemaid of women migrated from the countryside to the capital of Alagoas, a brazilian state. The routines and experiences of the housemaid exercise of the activity are investigated from the self-recognition that these women have about themselves. The main hypothesis is the motivations that drive migration are the economic aspect, the dimension of positive social status through legal recognition of job and the countryside opposition identity. The main hypothesis is partially confirmed because other factors appear along empirical research. Interviews were conducted as the main collection technique with the content analysis. Along the interviews, housemaid narrate about the daily work of their functions and report the distances and approximations experienced in the relations with the contractor, the boss, crossing aspects related to the stratifications of class, gender etc. The issue of gender discusses female underemployment, the underestimation of practices in the productive sphere and the typical service of women. In a second moment it is approached how the domestic maids recognize themselves socially from the activities that they perform. At this point, it is the prejudice that stigmatizes the category of job. Experiences are described from humiliations suffered to the occultation of the occupation in order to deny the Professional category. The reports also show the situation of poverty faced in the countryside and the need that has driven the migration to Maceió-AL. Historical and political aspects, considered in the analisis, have contributed to the current situation of domestic employment. The barriers and the possibilities of insertion in the labor market after the migration are understood from the narratives that report the schooling as main aspect for the lack of option in another category of work.