Why is it exploitative to hire someone to clean the home (“I’m a feminist but I hired a cleaner”, Focus), which is traditional women’s work, but OK to hire someone to do traditional men’s work – mowing the lawn, cleaning the car, replacing roof tiles, house painting etc? It isn’t just cleaners who are badly paid; some of my neighbours employ male Polish gardeners for much the same wages as cleaners. Many people (it’s not just women) hire a cleaner because they are working themselves and have children who need their parents’ free time.
Domestic cleaning is a respectable job that deserves decent pay and conditions, but these are increasingly a luxury across the economy now. The figures quoted by feminist academic Arianne Shahvisi would be way above the income of many mothers of young children trying to return to work, but unable to do so because they don’t earn enough to break even paying for childcare, let alone a cleaner.
The low pay of women compared with men is a feminist issue. The low pay of cleaners and other workers is a political and economic problem worsened by the spread of the gig economy, but it’s not a feminist issue for female employers. To suggest so seems to be falling into the anti-feminist trap – that cleaning the house is a woman’s job.
Judith Fage
London N20
The rich get richer…
Torsten Bell’s article was almost exclusively concerned with income inequality, which is only part of the picture (“The myths of both left and right stop us seeing the true story of inequality”, Comment). The rich, almost by definition, are those people who can choose what part of their wealth they declare as income for the purposes of taxation. This is something the vast majority of us are not free to do. Wealth inequality in Britain is much starker – and more economically significant – than income inequality. Cue for a more comprehensive examination of the subject in future?
John Kirton
Lancaster
Scouse scepticism
The article by “diehard” fan Hannah Jane Parkinson is at odds with my experience as a Liverpool supporter (“Take it as red”, the New Review). I watched my first match in 1957 wearing a bobble hat and scarf knitted by my mother. I stood in the boys’ pen (apologies to feminists). It is gratifying to note the club’s socially progressive values offering free sanitary products, growing its own food and being involved in LGBT issues. Also the delight of the club shop, with LFC gin and the “magic dust” of LFC branded goods that fans can pay high prices for. They even tried to trademark the name Liverpool.
As for the local area, most of the houses were demolished to make way for a bigger ground, adding to the deprivation. The idea that this is a socialist club is absurd. The writer is under the illusion that joining in the chorus of You’ll Never Walk Alone is to identify with a collective consciousness of scousers. Liverpool FC is an American-owned enterprise that exploits local values.
Tom Allan
Liverpool
Electric cars not the answer
We cannot prevent climate change by adopting electric cars (“Firms plan for £12bn electric vehicle switch”, News). The car will still be built of steel and each tonne of steel produced generates around two tonnes of carbon dioxide. Global production of steel currently runs at about 1.8bn tonnes per annum. It will still require road infrastructure, much of which requires concrete. Each tonne of cement produced generates more than a tonne of carbon dioxide. Global cement production is currently around 4bn tonnes per annum. Steel and cement production account of around 20% of global CO2 emissions. Transport accounts for a further 25%.
The production of rechargeable electric vehicles requires millions of tonnes of lithium. The greatest deposits of lithium are in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. Lithium is now being called “white oil” and one suspects it will do to Argentina, Bolivia and Chile what oil has done to the Middle East, that is, distort economies and disrupt politics.
Part of the answer to climate change, and to cleaner air in our cities, is better public transport, particularly the use of trams and trolley-buses. The electric car is little more than a salve to our consciences.
Chris Waller
Bristol
Dying isn’t as bad as all that
In all the concerns for the health of older people in the coronavirus crisis, it is clear that the “elephant in the room” is death (“Fears of heightened risk to grandparents helping out with emergency childcare”, News).
As a grandparent and a retired GP aged 77, who in theory may be called back to care for the sick, I intend to “carry on as usual”, accepting that I may become infected and the outcome may be death, which comes to us all and at least is likely to be from a short illness rather than dementia and years in a care home.
Dr Nick Maurice
Marlborough, Wiltshire
The whacker whacked
So, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s unelected, dictatorial and overweening underling, intends to convince his boss to “whack the BBC” (“Whack the BBC? Not if we stop you, Cummings is told”, News). Perhaps he should reflect on the precedents of history which show that “whackers” are themselves, more often than not, whacked by those who would defend the whackees. Cummings, if he has not already, will eventually over-reach himself. The day when this stain on UK democracy is removed cannot come soon enough.
Paul F Faupel
Somersham, Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
How to bring Putin to heel
Simon Tisdall gives an excellent but harrowing analysis of the reluctance of EU and Nato governments to impose punitive sanctions on Russia for the war crimes in Syria (“Idlib’s shoddy ceasefire won’t end the war – or the suffering of millions”, World).
He explains why Donald Trump will not stand up to Vladimir Putin but wonders why European leaders won’t. I fear it is because Europe has a growing dependence on Russian natural gas. My book, The Burning Answer, describes how Europe could speedily replace natural gas with indigenous sources: biomethane, heat pumps and shallow geological heat storage. Like a change in US president, that won’t happen in time to stop the slaughter of Syrian civilians. But strong international financial sanctions on Russian oligarchs might persuade Putin to enter meaningful peace talks and drop his pre-condition that Bashar al-Assad, another accused war criminal, remains in power.
Keith Barnham
Frome, Somerset
The meaning of life
I was surprised and disappointed to discover that last week’s paper made no mention of the fact that the day, 8 March, was the 42nd anniversary of the first broadcast of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which, at its end, gave us the answer to life, the universe and everything (including, probably, Covid-19). See you at Milliways!
John Healey
Hull
