Secretaries versus Secretaries versus Secretaries
The occupational category of secretary has various meanings in Brazil, all quite different one from the other. In a game of Balderdash, everyone would be right!
Secretary: The first, and I guess most traditional, definition is someone who is hired to assist in the administration of an office: open and reply to correspondence, answer phone calls, file, make appointments, and keep things in smooth running order. Clearly we have this definition in North America as well.
Secretary: Also refers to appointed senior-level politicians who are responsible for a Ministry or Secretariat; as in the Secretary for Justice or the Secretary for Labour and Employment. Kind of like the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
And finally, Secretary, particular to the Northeastern part of Brazil, refers to one's maid or other domestic help. Now, this is the one that puzzles me. My extrapolation is that people refer to their domestic help as secretaries to avoid undervaluing the person's work. On its own, this seems nice enough and a reasonable way to increase self-esteem. On the other side of the equation, however, people routinely pay their domestic help -- in particular live-in domestic workers -- a pittance. It is estimated that 5,000,000 women (and some men) work as domestic labour in Brazil. Ten percent -- or 500,000 -- are under the age of eighteen, some as young as twelve. Wages are incredibly low, with a live-in often making the equivalent of CAN$150 a month and working conditions are not always optimum. Obviously this is not true in all cases, but this is one case in which generalizations aren't always too far off the mark.
Secretary: The first, and I guess most traditional, definition is someone who is hired to assist in the administration of an office: open and reply to correspondence, answer phone calls, file, make appointments, and keep things in smooth running order. Clearly we have this definition in North America as well.
Secretary: Also refers to appointed senior-level politicians who are responsible for a Ministry or Secretariat; as in the Secretary for Justice or the Secretary for Labour and Employment. Kind of like the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
And finally, Secretary, particular to the Northeastern part of Brazil, refers to one's maid or other domestic help. Now, this is the one that puzzles me. My extrapolation is that people refer to their domestic help as secretaries to avoid undervaluing the person's work. On its own, this seems nice enough and a reasonable way to increase self-esteem. On the other side of the equation, however, people routinely pay their domestic help -- in particular live-in domestic workers -- a pittance. It is estimated that 5,000,000 women (and some men) work as domestic labour in Brazil. Ten percent -- or 500,000 -- are under the age of eighteen, some as young as twelve. Wages are incredibly low, with a live-in often making the equivalent of CAN$150 a month and working conditions are not always optimum. Obviously this is not true in all cases, but this is one case in which generalizations aren't always too far off the mark.
At the moment, I have a woman who comes in twice a week to clean and scrub the mould off my furniture. I still think that twice a week is a bit much, but it's too late to go back now! In any case, Claudia makes more money working for me twice a week than she used to make as a live-in nanny caring for new-born twins in the same building. This is one of those cases in which the math just doesn't add up, no matter what names you use.
posted by Karen @ 9:20 p.m.
1 Comments:
Agradeço a tua visita ao meu blog e espero contar com as tuas idas lá mais vezes. também andaei por aqui!
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