Intersectionality and female domestic workers' unions in Brazil

Abstract

The paper uses the concept of intersectionality to explore the central role played by the categories of race, class and gender in the biographies of female domestic workers in Brazil. While showing how these categories are implicated in the inequalities and subalternization experienced by these actors, the paper also reveals how female domestic workers have appropriated them to promote themselves politically as a professional class. Adopting a historical viewpoint, the second part of the paper shows the formation of a public agenda for female domestic workers' unions and their negotiation with class-based, feminist and black movements in Brazil. It concludes by showing that unionized domestic workers have developed an original form of feminism that combines aspects taken from all these movements. • Intersectionality and disempowerment among domestic workers in Brazil • Domestic workers in the workplace • Intersectionality and production of democratic mobilization • History of domestic workers' unions in Brazil • Interviews and the ethical listening to domestic workers' voice