Intersectionality and female domestic workers' unions in Brazil

Gênero, raça, classe: opressões cruzadas e cconvergências na reprodução das desigualdades

“…Werneck também situa a luta das mulheres negras no Brasil pós-colonial tomando como exemplo a fundação do primeiro sindicato das trabalhadoras domésticas por Laudelina Campos Melo, que foi integrante da Frente Negra Brasileira e membro do Partido Comunista, em Santos, em 1936. Bernardino-Costa (2014, por sua vez, destaca a atriz e trabalhadora doméstica Arinda Serafim, integrante do Teatro Experimental do Negro (TEN), nos anos 1950, na promoção do debate público sobre trabalho doméstico remunerado e estímulo para que as trabalhadoras buscassem treinamento para a ação política em defesa de seus direitos.…”

Vulnerable Women in a Thriving Country: An Analysis of Twenty-First-Century Domestic Workers in Peru and Recommendations for Future Research

“…Perhaps, as in the case of Brazil, employing the very intersectionality of the conditions that has served to marginalize them historically would be one important step. This means mobilizing in the context of union membership and along the lines of gender, ethnicity, and class in order to pave the way for a heightened sense of collective agency and power (Bernardino-Costa 2014;Blofield 2009Blofield , 2012. To some degree this is already occurring, but there is still a long road to travel in ensuring that the larger unions with which each of the worker syndicates described here are associated recognize that the struggle must also include gender and ethnic concerns.…”

“…8 Not least important has been the role of civil society organizations, unions, and the empowerment of domestic workers through their association with these organizations (Bernardino-Costa 2014).…”

“…At the same time, she describes how they also experienced class-based discrimination based on their low-income status in contrast to other women, namely their employers. The more recent work of Bernardino-Costa (2014) showcases the intersectionality of race, class, and gender, examining these in the context of two different power relationships in Brazil: one that highlights how the intersectionality of race, class, and gender has played out in the households where domestic workers are employed, serving to disempower and oppress them; the other in the empowering and mobilizing role of the same intersection of conditions in the context of their political organization. Regarding the intersectionality of these conditions in the context of their place of employment, Bernardino-Costa argues that class does not operate in isolation but rather in combination with race and gender: "If it is true that child domestic labor is an option for poor girls in Brazilian society, it is more so for girls who are poor and black" (2014,75).…”

Standing in the intersection : using Photovoice to understand the lived experience of black gay college students attending predominantly white postsecondary institutions.

“…A brief review of the literature published within the last year revealed that an intersectional lens has been applied to a wide variety of social issues, such as migration and immigration, poverty, school bullying, labor relations, issues of privilege, oppression and equity, community organizing and transformation, intimate partner violence, and chronic disease prevention and intervention. Most recently, the study of intersectionality or mutually constitutive identities has gone global, as evidenced by the prevalence of published works set in European British and Latin American contexts (Bernardino-Costa, 2014;Grineski, Hernandez & Ramos, 2013;Lepinard, 2014;Mirza, 2013).…”