Male Domestic Workers, Gender, and Migration in italy

pursued to protect their male identity both a century ago and today, the article
analyzes how working in a feminized sector may affect masculinity.

Keywords
domestic service, gender, masculinity, migration, ethnicity, Italy, facial hair

Introduction

‘‘A Beautiful Woman’’

At the beginning of 2009, the Italian mass media reported a scandalous news item:
Giuliano Soria, an affluent and renowned writer and university professor, had been
arrested. He was accused of embezzlement and sexual violence. The victim of the sex-
ual abuse, and his accuser, was his male domestic worker, a Mauritian, aged 28, called
Nitish. Nitish had submitted to the magistrates videos made with his mobile phone,
showing his employer in underpants as he tried to fondle him, told him ‘‘I’ll fuck you’’
and maintained that he was ‘‘a beautiful woman’’ and should work as a transvestite to
earn more. The videos also showed Soria calling Nitish ‘‘nigger’’ (negro di merda)
and maintaining that people like him were born to be slaves. Nitish was not regularly
employed, was forced to work day and night, was paid less than the minimum wage,
and reported many other abuses. He also reported that his employer had misappro-
priated funds destined for the Premio Grinzane Cavour, a literary prize founded and
presided over by Soria. Consequently, the Italian magistrates started to investigate
Soria and eventually arrested him on March 12, 2009.

This shocking story seems an appropriate introduction to this article. Indeed, it is

about a male domestic worker who is an international migrant, is racialized, and has
to fight to defend his masculinity. In fact, the cases I’ll go on to analyze are not as
dramatic as that of Nitish. Yet it is precisely male domestic workers, gender, migra-
tion, and ethnicity that this article deals with. I will deal with these issues from an
historical perspective which ranges from the late nineteenth–early twentieth century
to the present, though it also provides readers with some information on previous
times. I will focus on the Italian experience, while also dealing with other contexts.
Italy has recently experienced a revival of both domestic service in general and male
domestic service in particular. This revival is mainly linked to its transformation
from a country of emigration into one of immigration. The Italian experience is,
therefore, a particularly stimulating vantage point from which to analyze gender,
ethnicity, migration, domestic service, and the intersections between them.

Structure, Sources, and Methods

In this section, I will shortly describe the structure, sources, and methodologies of
the article. In the next, I will offer a short review of the existing historical and socio-
logical literature on male domestic workers.

Sarti

Thereafter, I will focus on the past. I will devote a section to a group of Italian

domestic workers who, in 1907, fought to have the right to wear moustaches (which
at that time was forbidden). I will study this protest mainly through a newspaper pub-
lished by the protesting domestic workers themselves. The analysis of this particular
case and its contextualization, thanks to the existing historical literature, will give
me the opportunity to investigate how, at that time, the male identity of menservants
was perceived and constructed (although it would be more correct to say,
‘‘negated’’). At the same time, it will allow me to investigate how male domestics
perceived their own masculinity. Having recourse to the results of my previous
research and the available literature, I will devote two further sections to the histor-
ical reasons for servants’ de-virilization.

After that, I will devote three sections to the changing gender composition of

Italian domestic workers from the nineteenth century to the present. These sec-
tions—in contrast to the previous ones, characterized by a qualitative analysis—will
mainly use a quantitative approach. The first will be mostly (though not exclusively)
based on Italian population censuses. I will show that in the period under consider-
ation the changes in the gender composition of domestic workers were anything but
irrelevant, even though domestic service was always a largely feminine occupation.
Moreover, I will ‘‘deconstruct’’ the census categories, showing how they mirrored
changing ideas about the proper place of men and women in society as well as the
gendered dimension of domestic service.

Although over decades domestic service had experienced a growing feminiza-

tion, a (slight) tendency toward re-masculinization began in the 1950s. This ten-
dency became more relevant when, about from the 1980s onward, domestic
service experienced a ‘‘revival’’ and became a job mainly performed by interna-
tional migrants. In the next two sections, I will, thus, provide readers with some
information about the quantitative dimension of these recent phenomena using data
from both the Italian population censuses and the national security data bank. Given,
however, that many domestic workers were, and are, not regularly employed, this
data will inevitably be approximate.

I will then focus on the present. I will go back to a qualitative analysis to investigate

how international migrant men employed today in domestic service (in a largely
female sector thus) perceive themselves. Moreover, I will analyze which strategies
they pursue to protect their male identity. As a source, I will use in-depth interviews
with male migrant domestic workers carried out as part of a research project between
2004 and 2006, which involved 598 women (87.7 percent) and 84 men (12.3 percent)
employed over the whole of Italy, who worked as live-in or live-out domestic workers,
babysitters, or elderly carers and emigrated to Italy at different dates from about fifty
different countries.

To make the personal experiences of those interviewed as acces-

sible as possible to readers, I will quote abundantly from the interviews. In addition, to
treat such unsystematic material

as systematically as possible, I will list in the end-

notes those interviewees who share the same (or similar) opinions and/or feelings as
the person whose speech is reported in the text.

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

In the final section, besides some concluding remarks, I will mention some

important questions which emerge from my research and which, in my view, should
be addressed by future research.

The structure, sources, and methodologies of this article mirror my identity as an

historian with sociological interests. Thanks to its long-term analysis and to the use
of a wide range of different sources and methods, it aims to provide the reader with a
multi-perspective look at the themes under analysis. This seems to me the best way
to address the complexity of social phenomena.

Male Domestic Workers in the Eyes of Historians and Social Scientists: A
Short Review of the Existing Literature

Historians have been looking at servants, both men and women, for centuries (Sarti
1997a). In Europe, until at least the end of the eighteenth century, menservants were
indeed numerous and when, from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries
(though with differing timescales, depending on the context) domestic service
became more and more feminized, historians focused not only on the growing
female presence but also on the decreasing male one (e.g., Sarti 1997b; Casalini
2002). Nevertheless, the implications of a servant’s condition with respect to mas-
culinity have only rarely been addressed (e.g., Casalini 1997, 100; Sarti 2005a).

Unlike historians, for a long time social scientists have generally ignored domes-

tic service. There are only a few scholars interested in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America (e.g., Boserup 1970), who have concerned themselves with this theme and
only a few focused on male domestic workers (e.g., Tranberg Hansen 1989), prob-
ably because in those contexts male domestic service was still common when they
carried out their researches. As for scholars interested in Europe and the United
States, with few exceptions (e.g. Coser 1973), they have begun to consider domestic
service only since the 1980s and 1990s, but their interest has grown rapidly, fueled
by the so-called resurgence or revival of paid domestic work.

It is difficult to sum-

marize the approaches to be found in the growth of recent studies. Nevertheless, this
resurgence is often linked to the so-called feminization of migration as well as to the
feminization of survival.

Because of these approaches, attention has been focused on female domestic

workers whereas male staff have been overlooked, as Manalansan (2006, 236-40)
has also stressed. Such an outcome was not entirely predictable. Evelyn Nakano
Glenn (1986, 106-9; 1992, 9-10) recalled that in California until 1880 and Hawaii
until 1920, firstly Chinese and then Japanese men were the majority among domestic
workers.

Even Glenn, however, concentrated on the racial division of reproductive

work among women, so much so that she did not cite gender in noting that, in the
United States, ‘‘where more than one group was available for service, a differen-
tiated hierarchy of race, color, and culture emerged’’ (1992, 10). With respect to
California, the male identity of Asian domestics—present in sizeable numbers even
in the twentieth century—has been taken into account by some scholars (Le Espiritu

Sarti

1997, 33-6). Yet most studies of domestic service focus on migrant women, transna-
tional mothering (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 1997), (mainly female) global care
chains (Hochschild 2000; Parren˜as 2001), and complex relationships between
female employers and female migrant workers, whereas only a few works look at
male domestics. Most of the latter refer to Asian and African countries, as was the
case with earlier studies.

In the last few years, however, a growing interest in male

domestic workers employed in Europe, the United States and Australia is notice-
able.

One reason for this is that, at least in some countries, migration has brought

a greater number of men to work as domestics.

Another reason is the growing scho-

larly attention to the different ways of constructing and performing masculinity.

To underline the interest in studying men is not at all to deny the crucial role

played by women in migration flows, in sending remittances home, in weaving the
webs of transnational families (e.g., Lutz 2008b). Neither does it mean denying that
the market for domestic and care work is largely fed by women. Rather, it means
analyzing the history and the present state of domestic service from an unusual per-
spective, in the conviction that multiplying vantage points makes possible a better
knowledge of reality. This is exactly what this article aims to.

Past

The ‘‘Mark of a Man’’: Moustaches, Domestics, and Masculinity

In spring 1907, a newspaper entitled Il Domestico (The Male Domestic) was
published in Turin, Italy. The first words of the issue can only surprise: ‘‘Servants,
coachmen and grooms ask to be free to grow moustaches.’’ The writers seem to be
aware of the astonishment that their request could provoke. Indeed, they continue
thus, ‘‘They [i.e. servants, coachmen, grooms] might perhaps have other reasons
to feel put out and complain, but they put forward a moral question. It is a question
that touches their dignity as men and as citizens: they no longer want to carry on their
faces a professional sign, a remnant of servitude, a mark of inferiority.’’

At that time, in many European countries, male servants were not allowed to

wear beards and/or moustaches. ‘‘The deformation of the face’’—explained one
author (Molajoni 1904, 20)—‘‘is imposed by that convention called etiquette.’’
Actually, etiquette was not without political implications. It recalled the eight-
eenth century fashion for shaved faces and the hierarchical society of the Ancien
Re´gime. During the Risorgimento (the process of Italian unification), wearing
beards and moustaches had been a sign of liberalism, even of belonging to revo-
lutionary groups. In the conservative Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, some people
had even been imprisoned for not having shaved faces (Cecchelli 1930;
Levi-Pisetzky 1995, 305). Although playing an important role in the Risorgi-
mento, the Savoy, who became the royal house of unified Italy, did not reject the
fashion of shaved domestics, and their choice prompted upper class families to
keep it as well (Molajoni 1904, 21).

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

Etiquette was not without implications for the male identity of menservants

either. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in many European countries,
beards and moustaches were considered ‘‘the mark of a man’’ (Molajoni 1904,
20-21). Not surprisingly, the absence of facial hair might be associated with homo-
sexuality (Milhaey 2007, 133-35); or—more precisely—with the role of the young
and passive partner within a pederast couple.

The authors of Il Domestico (1907)

were aware of these implications. They wrote ‘‘If the habit of moustaches is a sign of
virility [...], if wearing them increases self-worth. If removing them sends out a sign
of inferiority [ . . . ]; if we personally have the same moral rights as other creatures,
our desire is legitimate, the request is holy.’’ Precisely because of their clean shaven
faces—they complained—they were always treated disdainfully.

The (Historical) Background of Servants’ De-Virilization

We can wonder why domestics were de-virilized. The servant is someone who has a
master or mistress and is in a dependent position. In many European regions (espe-
cially Central and North-Western ones), for centuries, quite a high proportion of the
young served in a different family from their own. In the master’s family, many of
them accumulated resources to establish their own families and/or were trained and
educated until they were adult, left service, and got married (life-cycle service). In
other words, there was some overlap between youth, domestic service, dependency
on a master, unmarried status, and the stage of life devoted to learning a job and/or
accumulating resources to marry.

As long as hegemonic masculinity implied (eco-

nomic) independence and married status, male servants were prevented from reach-
ing it. Therefore, those who did not succeed in quitting service might feel frustrated.
Significantly, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London—where apprentices
were often indistinguishable from servants and ‘‘the beard made the man’’ (Fisher
2001, 155)—‘‘the presence of a beard advertised the completion of apprenticeship
and the acquisition of freeman status’’ (Johnston 2007, 1). However, life-cycle ser-
vice was far from universal and there also were adult men employed as servants who
were (respected) heads of their own families (Sarti 2005a).

The very fact that servants were dependent on a master did not automatically

imply that they were treated with disdain. Certainly disdain toward them was com-
mon. Yet it was (in part) counterbalanced by some praise of the servant condition:
think for instance of Christ, who went on the earth ‘‘not to be served, but to serve’’
(Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). Moreover, in medieval and early modern times, to
serve an important person was considered an honor; young servants might serve
in a family of a similar status of their own; and adult domestics might be respected
men, as previously mentioned (Sarti 2005a, 2005b). Conversely during the French
Revolution disdain toward domestics reached an unprecedented climax: servants
were often seen as the opposite of the free and independent citizen who was the hero
and product of the Revolution.

Sarti

This model had gender implications. If the ‘‘true man’’ of the French revolutionary

era was the proudly independent citizen, the servant who chose to serve a master
seemed half a man, comparable in many respects to women and minors. Significantly,
like women and minors, domestics were denied the franchise in all revolutionary con-
stitutions except 1793s, which was never enforced (Rosanvallon 1992; Sarti 2005b,
2005c). The constitution of 1795, furthermore, began a tendency to merge the identity
of the citizen with that of the head of the family

; later the Napoleonic Civil Code

(1804) would equate citizens worthy of the name with the father who owned property
(Mulliez 1990). This may have represented a further attack on servants’ masculinity,
given their often low wages and the difficulties they could face when they wanted to
marry without leaving service (Sarti 2008).

The French situation had changed by the beginning of the twentieth century. Male

domestics had been enfranchised in 1848. Moreover, at that time marrying without
leaving service was not particularly difficult for them (Cusenier 1912, 267). Never-
theless, they were not full citizens, because they would be excluded from municipal
councils and juries until 1930 (Rosanvallon 1992). In addition, among them the pro-
portion of those married was lower than the male economically active population as
a whole—54.6 percent against 60.6 percent in 1911 (Recensement 1911, 30).

Furthermore, masters were still likely to try to prevent them from getting married
(Chabot 1977, 134-35). If in the eighteenth century scholars such as Hume or
Moheau considered the high number of servants a hindrance to population growth
(Sarti 2008, 419), in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the anxieties
of the French over demographic decline led them to blame domestics for this drop
(Milhaey 2007, 132). The fact that they were prevented from wearing moustaches
(Cusenier 1912, 193) is a further piece of the puzzle, confirming that they were gen-
erally not perceived as ‘‘real men’’ nor allowed to be such. In late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century France moustaches were indeed the virile attribute par
excellence (Patrick 1998) and the absence of hair was considered a sign of homo-
sexuality (Milhaey 2007, 133-35).

Back to Italy

What had this French model to do with Italy? Why have I devoted such attention to it
instead of to others? In fact, the pattern of citizenship elaborated during the French
Revolution was exported across half Europe by French troops. In Italy, all the so-
called Jacobin constitutions (apart from Bologna’s of 1796, never enforced)
excluded servants from the vote, whereas the Napoleonic Civil Code was in force
for some years. After the Napoleonic era, there was a specific exclusion for domes-
tics only in the short-lived Constitution of the Reign of the Two Sicilies of 1820.

They were generally excluded from the suffrage because they were not rich (or edu-
cated) enough to vote according to the existing laws, not because they were servants.
However, a tendency to perceive, and culturally construct, the servant as a minor is
also to be found there. ‘‘I have neither ever allowed the merest person to touch their

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

caps to me in the street, nor to stand when I was sitting down, unless they were a
servant of mine,’’ the Italian historian and Member of Parliament Ercole Ricotti for
instance maintained, thus deeming servants unworthy of the respect due to others
(Manno 1886, 161). In part, this had to do with the long-lasting influence of the
French model, whereas in part it was the outcome of a much older pattern that had
itself been partially absorbed by the French model (Sarti 2005b, 2005c).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in Italy the march toward a greater

equality among men was progressing: the franchise for all adult males was to be
introduced in 1912 (Law 30 June 1912, no. 666). In such a context, the interdiction
of moustaches was probably becoming unacceptable. Interestingly, the 1907 Turi-
nese protest against this ‘‘facial mutilation’’ soon developed into a movement for
a more general improvement of the ‘‘servant class’’ which also aimed at having more
domestics enrolled into the lists for local elections (Unione Miglioramento 1907).

In fact, some years before the Turinese protest, a similar one had taken place in

Rome and many cardinals had allowed their servants to wear moustaches (Molajoni
1904, 20-21). In Turin, the Mayor permitted (or, rather, required) municipal valets to
grow moustaches (Domestico 1907). Conversely, private domestics achieved only a
limited success, and their movement only survived a few months (Domestico 1907;
Unione 1907). Thus, on the whole Italian servants continued to undergo a sort of
symbolic castration. It is not clear when this usage declined. In 1900, in the entry
domestico (domestic) of an important Italian encyclopedia of legislation, one reads,
‘‘there are some families which oblige their servants to shave completely, which
they cannot enjoy; but we believe, however, that, subject to any agreement to the
contrary, servants can refuse to obey such an injunction without being held, solely
on this point, to be defaulting on their contractual obligations’’ (Bruno 1900). These
ideas may have spread. Up to now, in Italy, after the First World War, I have not
found any further discussion on the subject. The interdiction of moustaches for
domestics may have been disappearing. Yet clean-shaven faces were then becoming
fashionable again, thus making the issue in any case less problematic.

From Past to Present

The Gender Composition of Italian Domestic Workers:
Statistical Data and Cultural Change

Male servants who at the beginning of the twentieth century were banned from
wearing beards and moustaches were symbolically de-virilized. At that time, this
probably meant that they were ‘‘feminized’’ rather than ‘‘infantilized.’’ As shown
in the previous section, in several regions of preindustrial Europe, there was an asso-
ciation of the servant with the young. Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century,
for males life-cycle service had disappeared or was disappearing, whereas all over
Europe domestic service was becoming a typically feminine job (Sarti 1997b).

Sarti

According to Italian census data, between 1881 and 1901, the number of male

servants fell by more than 200,000 to about 80,000, reducing from 2.1 percent
to 0.8 percent of economically active men (Sarti 2004, 35) and from 32.9 percent
to 16.8 percent of domestic personnel. After growing again to 19.2 percent in
1911,

from 1911 to 1951 the percentage of male servants decreased unstoppably

(figure 1).

The fact that the few menservants still at work were deprived of such a masculine

attribute as moustaches shows that this sector was not only populated by a growing
number of women but also conceived as a feminine environment, unsuited to men.
The feminization of domestic staff was indeed the outcome of changes both in think-
ing and in the gender division of domestic and extradomestic work (Sarti 1997b,
2005b, 2006). The popularity of women as servants par excellence proceeded more
or less in step with the figure of the housewife coming to the fore. Maids did for pay-
ment what housewives did for nothing. This made it difficult to consider them as
‘‘real’’ workers. Moreover, the housewife came to the fore in parallel with the male
breadwinner (Sarti 1999). Thus, at a time when the importance attached to the capac-
ity, for men, of supporting their family through their labor was growing, many men-
servants performed activities similar to (if not identical with) those carried out for
free by housewives. Domestic service performed by men clashed with the models
of masculinity then developing. Certainly male domestics performed it for a wage
and often to support their family. Yet this did not clarify the ambiguity (for instance
they were frequently dependent directly on housewives).

The feminization of the sector was interwoven with a significant change in think-

ing: many people who for centuries had been considered servants stopped being

1871

1881

1901

1911

1921

1931

1951

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

1861

% of men among
domestic workers
% of men in the
category ‘Domestic
service within families
and institutions’

Figure 1. Percentage of men out of the total of domestic workers, Italy 1861

2001.

Source: Population censuses. Note: On the classification of domestics in Italian censuses, see
Sarti 1999 and 2005d, appendix. The 1991 census aggregates data so that it is impossible to
identify those who work as domestics; both for 1991 and for 2001, only the data relating to
‘‘Domestic services within families and institutions’’ such as care institutions, jails, convents,
and so on are available. Thus, these data are used here to construct a comparable series for
the period 1951

2001 (in the 1951 census, this category is called ‘‘Generic services’’).

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

considered as such. This transformation especially affected menservants. Italian
census categories provide an example of this change. In 1871, ‘‘private employees,
stewards and butlers’’ were included in the sixth category, ‘‘domestic staff.’’ In
1881, they were classified in the seventh category, ‘‘private employees and staff
in service’’ [my emphasis], whereas in 1901 private employees were classified
among ‘‘professions and liberal arts.’’ This classification sanctioned the tendency
toward the separation of servants from private employees that had been in the air for
a long time and in the nineteenth century had become increasingly accepted (Sarti
2005b).

Some decades later, the Fascist regime, which presented itself as virile, stimu-

lated the ‘‘emancipation’’ from domestic service of some groups made up mainly
by men, such as doorkeepers. In the 1931 census, doorkeepers were no longer
classified in the same subgroup as servants and in 1936’s they were put into
another class, ‘‘security staff.’’ These ‘‘statistical games,’’ which resulted in a
more feminized representation of domestic personnel, reflected important changes
in the organization of work. In the late 1920s, indeed, the right to collective nego-
tiations was introduced for doorkeepers. Their first national contract was signed in
1929. Instead, domestic workers (increasingly made up by women) for a long
time were prevented from collective bargaining: their first national contract came
about as late as 1974 (Sarti 2001, 2004). To conclude, because of changes both in
thinking and social organization of work, domestic service was transformed into
an almost exclusively female job. According to census data, in 1951, women
made up 96.1 percent of the workforce.

International Migrations and ‘‘Revival’’ of Domestic Service

During the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, domestic service was
characterized by growing feminization, ruralization, and proletarianization: domes-
tic workers were increasingly women from poor peasant families. Moreover, at least
from the late nineteenth century onward, there was a trend toward externalization
and the number of charwomen increased. Finally, the percentage of domestics in the
economically active population, after reaching a peak in the 1880s, underwent a
decline, which briefly reversed only in the 1930s. Although in 1901 there were
450,000, from 1951 to 1981 their number dropped from 377,000 to 183,000 (Sarti
1999, 29).

Since the 1970s

1980s, Italy has swung from a country of emigration into one of

immigration. The arrival of foreigners has meant a reversal of the aforementioned
trends. Thanks to immigrants, the supply of staff has become cheap and abundant.
This has made possible a ‘‘revival’’ in domestic service. I have analyzed elsewhere
the reasons for this revival, and I cannot illustrate them here (Sarti 2005d, 2005e).
However, the number of domestic workers registered with Italian National Insurance
(Inps) increased (but in nonlinear fashion) by 216,000 in 1991 to 597,281 in 2007
(figure 2). Among them, foreigners went from 5.6 percent in the decade

Sarti

1972

1982 to 77.7 percent in 2007.

Yet those registered with Inps are only a part

of the workforce, because many domestics are not regularly employed. Significantly,
the peaks in the numbers of registered ones largely coincide with amnesties for undo-
cumented immigrants (especially in 1996 and 2002) or with relatively high quotas,
among the annual authorized immigration flows, reserved for domestic workers (as
in 2007). The percentage of families having recourse to domestic workers shows a
growing though irregular trend: 9.2 percent in 1996, 8.4 percent in 1999, and
11 percent in 2007 (Sarti 2004, 18; Colombo and Sarti 2009, 91).

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

Domestic workers (total)

Foreign domestic workers

Male domestic workers
(national and foreign)
Male foreign domestic workers

Figure 2. Domestic workers registered with Inps (Italian National Insurance, absolute
figures), Italy 1991

2007.

Source: For 1991

2007: Inps database. As the Inps archive is constantly updated,

consultations at different times may give slightly different results. I have used here more
updated data than in Sarti (2009).

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

Many immigrants, moreover, come from urban backgrounds, belong in their

country to the middle class, and are highly educated (Parren˜as 2001; Sarti 2004,
2005d, 2005c; Colombo 2007). In addition, live-ins have become quite common
again.

The ‘‘New’’ Male Domestic Workers

The arrival of foreigners has also reinforced the tendency toward re-masculinization
which had begun in a small way in the 1950s. Then it was probably due to the fact that
the reduction of domestic workers—who had shrunk from 1.9 percent of the econom-
ically active population in 1951 to 0.9 percent in 1981 (Sarti 2005e, 100) —
had increased the relative weight of the staffs of the most affluent families, which had
traditionally included more men than those of families of other social groups (Sarti
1997b). Significantly, according to census data, between 1951 and 1981, the number
of male domestics stayed rather stable at around 14,000.

According to Inps data, there were still about 13,400 regularly employed male

domestic workers in 1991, but in a few years this figure jumped to about 43,400
(in 1996). There was also a very strong increase in the percentage of men among
regularly employed domestics: they grew from 2.8 percent in 1985 to 17.3 percent
in 1996. This change was due to the growing presence of foreigners: between 1992
and 1996, the percentage of men among Italian domestic workers swung around
2.5

3.5 percent, whereas among foreigners it was never less than 25 percent and

in 1996 was over 30 percent (figure 3).

This relatively sizeable proportion of men is probably due to the fact that for sev-

eral years domestic service has been the most accessible channel for many workers
to legally enter Italy or to regularize their position. Between 1991 and 1995, as a
dispensation to the immigration law, a government circular (no. 156, 29 November
1991) established that non-EU citizens could enter and work in Italy only if, before
emigrating, they had requested an authorization to start ‘‘an employer

employee

relationship in domestic work.’’ For two years, they were not allowed to work in any
other sector. Significantly, between 1992 and 1995, between 44 percent and 69 per-
cent of all work permits were granted to domestics (Sarti 2004, 19, 24-5). According
to Inps data, the number of men reached its peak in 1996, which was certainly linked
to the amnesty for undocumented migrant workers that took place then.

From 1997, however, the percentage of men among regularly employed domestic

workers has begun to decline again.

Why? Even after 1996 domestic workers have

had an opportunity to enter Italy legally or to regularize their position. For instance,
in 2000 as many as 69 percent of the people who were authorized to emigrate to Italy
for work were domestics (Sarti 2004, 25). In 2002, a huge amnesty was reserved for
domestics and dependent workers.

To understand this decrease, it is important to

recall that—if men also take advantage of domestic work to enter and/or find a first
job in Italy—they seem able to leave it more quickly, and in greater numbers, than
women (Colombo 2007). But what seems even more important is the change in the

Sarti

country of origin of migrant domestics. Gender composition differs, indeed, accord-
ing to nationality. Among domestic workers from Asia, men are more numerous than
among those from elsewhere (e.g., Bartolomei 2005). Recently, the share of Asian
domestics has been dropping, whereas a growing proportion is coming from Eastern
Europe (Tables 1 and 2).

We can speculate whether men coming from countries where male domestic

service is common—as is the case with many Asian and African ones

—work more

easily as domestics in Italy. The relatively high percentage of men among Asian peo-
ple employed in domestic service in Italy seems to confirm this hypothesis. But the

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

% of men among foreign
domestic workers

% of men among domestic
workers

% of men among Italian
domestic workers

Figure 3. Percentage of men among domestic workers registered with Inps (Italian National
Insurance), Italy 1991

2007. Source: see figure 2.

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

low percentage of men among African domestics contradicts it. Other sources allow
us to go deeper into this issue.

Present

‘‘Where Have I Ended Up?’’ Male Home Helps and Elderly Carers
Fighting for Masculinity

‘‘Where have I ended up? I have never worked in a house in my life! I’ve never
handled a broom!’’ said the Mauritian Vishnu to himself after accepting a job as a
domestic: ‘‘because my mother did everything, didn’t she?’’ He did his best, though,
and learnt quickly: he cleaned, cooked, served at table, looked after the garden,
drove the car, did the shopping, the washing, the ironing, looked after the dogs

. . . . But he was ashamed of the work he did, ‘‘only my mother, my sister and my

close relatives know what kind of work I do here [ . . . ] I don’t tell everyone [ . . . ]
that here I [ . . . ] do the washing. Because in Mauritius it’s women who do this kind
of work.’’ This interview is taken from a research carried out in Italy between 2004
and 2006, which involved 682 migrant domestic workers and carers: 598 women
(87.7 percent) and 84 men (12.3 percent).

Of these male domestic workers, 43 per-

cent were Asian, especially Sri Lankan; 24 percent Latin American, 19 percent
African (mostly from the islands of Mauritius, whose population is mainly of Indian
origin) and 14 percent Eastern European. About a quarter of them came into Italy
illegally. The other three-quarters arrived legally but usually on a tourist visa. How-
ever, when interviewed, more than three-quarters had a valid residence permit or
card. When interviewed, thirty-nine were employed as home helps (but six of them

Table 1.

Percentage of Men Among Regularly Employed Foreign Domestic Workers of

Differing Origin (Italy 1991, 1998, and 2005)

Area

1991

1998

2005

North America

8.0

10.5

21.4

Central America

7.6

5.7

South America

8.7

13.8

9.7

Western Europe

16.0

10.7

13.4

Eastern Europe

14.9

17.0

5.1

North Africa

13.4

17.1

17.7

Central Africa and South Africa

19.2

12.4

16.7

Middle East

30.2

29.6

14.9

Philippines

25.5

27.1

25.1

Asia: other areas

62.6

54.8

50.9

Australia

0.0

15.8

13.8

Total

24.8

23.0

12.8

Source: Inps database (the data for 1998 used in tables 1-2 was retrieved at a different date compared to
the data for 1998 used in figures 1-2 and is thus slightly different).

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also had another job); twenty-five as carers (also including two men already
classified among home helps), three as domestics, two as gardeners (one also employed
as car driver) and one as a cook. Others were out of work or not employed in domestic
service any longer. Male domestics are indeed not concentrated in traditional male
fields of domestic service (car driving, gardening), nor in the field of elderly care.

One of the questions to the interviewees was about their last job in their home

country: those cited by men range from violinists to policemen, from fishermen to
engineers . . . but no domestics. Another question was about the jobs of their fathers.
The only male interviewee whose father had been involved in domestic service at
home was a Filipino whose father was a chauffeur and who thought that domestic
service is ‘‘really a females’ job’’ (434, Philippines, 38). Furthermore, there were
three young Sri Lankans (two of them brothers) whose fathers were employed as
domestic workers after emigrating to Italy.

Thus, for almost all interviewees, male

domestic work does not seem to have been a family tradition, which might have been
the case for people arriving from countries where men domestics are common.

Neither does it seem to be considered a ‘‘normal’’ job. Some of the interviewees

even denied that, in their homelands, male domestic service existed,

while most of

them said that there (almost) only women performed it,

even migrants from coun-

tries where male domestic service is quite common. This is the case of Tony, from
Kerala, an Indian state where male domestics are numerous (Bartolomei in this vol-
ume). Significantly, he admitted that this is the case only when the interviewer asked

Table 2.

Place of Origin of Regularly Employed Foreign Domestic Workers (Italy 1991,

1998, and 2005)

Area

1991

1998

2005

Men and
Women

Men

Men and

Women

Men

Men and

Women

Men

North America

1.2

0.4

1.4

0.7

0.0

Central America

3.5

1.1

4.3

1.4

2.0

0.9

South America

5.5

1.9

14.3

8.6

14.7

11.2

Western Europe

5.3

3.4

2.8

1.3

0.5

Eastern Europe

4.5

2.7

14.2

10.5

53.5

21.1

Central Africa and South
Africa

16.0

12.3

10.4

5.6

3.9

5.1

North Africa

8.5

4.6

7.6

5.6

3.9

5.3

Middle East

0.3

0.4

0.2

0.3

0.4

Philippines

44.3

45.7

33.8

40.00

14.3

28.2

Asia: other areas

10.9

27.5

26.1

6.8

27.2

Australia

0.0

0.1

Total

100.0

(N)

(35,740)

(8,852)

(103,441)

(23,795)

(347,623)

(44,430)

Source: see table 1.

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

him a more precise question on the subject (39, Kerala, India, 32).

Tony had

attended school up to the fourth class of secondary school, whereas domestics in
Kerala are often illiterate. Seventy-five percent of the male interviewees about
whom detailed educational information is available, attended school for at least
13 years and/or have a degree. Moreover, most of them do not seem to come from
the social classes from which domestics are recruited in their homelands. One of
them, Juan, a former policeman from Peru, even employed domestics himself before
emigrating (36a, Peru, 40). Thus, they possibly think of men like themselves, when
they affirm that men, in their homeland, are not involved in domestic service. By
ignoring or denying the existence of male domestics, they reveal that they share the
idea that male domestic workers are not really men and support a conception of
masculinity which backfires on them.

We can speculate whether the interviewees did know, before emigrating, which

job they were going to perform in Italy. In fact, only about a fifth did. Among those
who knew and probably accepted their professional lot—in one case even training in
cleaning at home before leaving! (125, Peru, 30)—none is traumatized and many do
not consider domestic service as a specifically female job and/or have a quite good
opinion of it.

For many others, the impact of domestic service has been painful,

often precisely because they perceived it as a female job: they felt frustrated or humi-
liated

; sometimes—particularly among Indians, Sri Lankans, and Mauritians—

ashamed.

Many accepted it only because they had no alternative: ‘‘At the begin-

ning I felt very . . . I felt uneasy, because I perceived [domestic service] as a work
for females, I felt that I was at a low level, then I said: to starve or to work? It has
been hard to become integrated into this job, I feel humiliated, but unfortunately you
have eventually to work’’ (313, Mauritius, 45). ‘‘I feel bad,’’ the 32-year-old Sri
Lankan, John, tells the interviewer who asks him about how he feels doing a female
job. But ‘‘here there is nothing to do’’ (366, Sri Lanka, 32); ‘‘I don’t like cooking,
cleaning, caring for an elderly person, do I?,’’ replies another Sri Lankan to a similar
question. ‘‘Yet it is difficult finding a job’’ (232, Sri Lanka, 42). There is some res-
ignation: ‘‘We always say: ‘If I must work, I work’’’ a further Sri Lankan maintains,
who however conceals his real occupation from his parents and relatives.

‘‘By now

I am used to it, but accepting doing a female job has taken years, I would say, years,
years,’’ the 42-year-old Mauritian Rama explains (461, Mauritius, 42).

Several interviewees believe that the Italian labor market does not offer many

opportunities to migrant men,

particularly to the newly arrived and undocumented

ones,

and especially in the South,

where unemployment rates are higher than in

Northern regions. In fact, almost 50 percent of the interviewees live in Southern Italy
(whereas only 35 percent of the Italian population lives there; Istat 2009). This
conviction stimulates both resignation and pragmatism: ‘‘I immediately accepted
working as a carer,’’ an engineer from Byelorussia said. ‘‘I don’t want to wait any
longer—I said—this is OK, because [ . . . ] for women in Italy there is a lot of work,
for men very little, even for Italian men’’ (522, Byelorussia, 31). Other interviewees,
too, think that in Italy women have better chances.

Since female migrants largely

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work in domestic service and private care, this opinion reveals that they consider
domestic work a job for women, but not for men, showing in this way, too, that they
share quite traditional views of gender roles. Interestingly, these ideas are not shared
only by men: the mother of the Peruvian Ricardo tried to discourage him from join-
ing her in Italy, where she worked as a carer, telling him that ‘‘there is only work for
women’’ (223, Peru, 37). A carer from Somalia even refers to the fact that, in his
country, people consider Italy a good destination only for females and organize their
migratory strategies accordingly (435, Somalia, 45). The Nigerian Peter informs us
that some fellow countrymen of his refuse to work, in Italy, as domestics because
they do not want to do women’s work (279, Nigeria, 42). Ivan, 55-year-old, a former
carpenter from Ukraine, also refused, at the beginning, to work in domestic service
‘‘like a woman.’’ Yet he eventually had to accept working as a live-in elderly carer,
although after some time he told his (female) employer that he did not want to clean
like a woman and was able to convince her to hire a charwoman: a strategy to limit,
at least, the challenge to his male identity (111, Ukraine, 55).

Thus, it seems that many men (not all, as just seen), because they lack alterna-

tives, accept doing in Italy a job they would never do in their own country. For their
part, Italian men largely avoid domestic service. They leave it to women (fellow Ita-
lians and, increasingly, migrants) as well as to migrant men. In other words,
migrants—more so than nationals—may experience a subversion of what they per-
ceive as the ‘‘normal’’ gender division of labor. Migration implies a more or less dra-
matic ‘‘displacement’’ not only of their body but also of their social identity: ‘‘When
you leave your country and go abroad you become small,’’ the Ivorian Oswald
comments (424, Ivory Coast, 35). This displacement may affect class, profession,
status and gender. It has an ‘‘objective’’ dimension (profession, wage, etc.) and a
‘‘subjective’’ one, to do with both how migrants are perceived by individuals in the
destination country and how they perceive themselves. Many domestic workers in
my sample feel that working in a feminized sector may challenge their masculinity:
they are accustomed to associating their gender identity with a set of behaviors and
attitudes that they consider normal, not to say natural, for men; yet in the migratory
context, they experience a subversion of this normality, find themselves associated
with something that they consider feminine (and inferior), and fear being down-
graded to an inferior, feminized masculinity. Thus, they try to elaborate strategies
to cope with this subversion.

Recalling the few choices left to migrant men in the Italian labor market might be

such a strategy, suggesting that one’s ‘‘real’’ identity is to be found at home. Another
strategy consists of emphasizing the differences between one’s country and Italy.
Some interviewees affirmed that normally in their homeland the wife works at home
and the husband outside, whereas in Italy both work outside, which makes it neces-
sary for both to do domestic jobs. As the Ecuadorean Paco explained, ‘‘In my coun-
try, for example, housework is for the wife and the work outside is for the husband
[ . . . ] both in the city and for the peasants it’s normal like this [ . . . ]. Here in Italy it is
different because everybody works, wife and husband work, it’s all different. Here

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

. . . there is understanding, dialogue, between husband and wife . . . they give each

other a hand, whoever gets home first from work prepares the meal’’ (234, Ecuador,
52). To be thrown into a context where the gender division of work appears different
from the one Paco is used to solves any contradiction with his role. Obviously, this is
not always a solution: another Ecuadorean, Antonio, is impressed by the fact that
some Italian men do cooking and wants to learn cooking himself. Nevertheless,
he does not feel at ease with his job as an elderly carer (457, Ecuador, 37). Moreover,
only a part of the interviewees share the idea that the gendered division of labor, in
Italy, is different from that they experienced in their own country (e.g., 14,
Mauritius, 37).

Lacking information about the differences between Italy and one’s country may

instead help in making paid domestic work acceptable. Go back to Paco (234, Ecua-
dor, 52). Of peasant origin, in Ecuador he always worked ‘‘in the field’’ and cannot
say whether men, in his country, work as carers: there may be some in Quito and in
large cities but he does not know for sure. Thus, not only the discovery, in Italy, of a
different gender division of work but also the doubt about the existence of men
working as carers in Ecuador contributes in making possible, for him, a fairly easy
acceptance of his job.

Interestingly, several interviewees, particularly carers, reject the idea that their

job is a woman’s, maintaining that old men need a male helper: ‘‘The women do the
women. And the men do the men,’’ the Moroccan Ali maintains (and in his words
‘‘do’’ means ‘‘care for’’; 408, Morocco, 48). Thanks to this presumed gender specia-
lization, in Ali’s eyes the job of carer can be done by men and women without cre-
ating any particular problem. Yet Ali cannot ignore that this division of gender is not
respected. He nonetheless neutralizes the potentially disquieting implications of this
fact by associating it with the peculiar features of the Italian context. He also hurls a
veiled accusation of immorality at the old men helped by women carers: ‘‘They don’t
want a man, they want a woman to give them a massage here, here . . . .’’

Other strategies for making domestic and care work compatible with male iden-

tity are to maintain that men might be better than women.

According to the Ukrai-

nian Ivan, a taxi driver back home, a man’s physical strength is needed to move the
person being helped; consequently help for old men is not a ‘‘woman’s job’’:
‘‘I don’t think this job, like the one I’m doing now, is one for women. I don’t think
it a job for women because there’s a need to lift the gentleman. The gentleman’s a bit
heavy, that’s no job for a woman, eh.’’

Caring for an old person is ‘‘upgraded’’ to a

job for ‘‘real’’ men.

Other interviewees instead thought that both men and women should do domestic

chores and did not feel awkward about getting involved in activities of this type.

Such is the case of Julius, a 50-year-old Rumanian nuclear physicist without a resi-
dence permit who was working as a carer. In his view, his work ‘‘isn’t something spe-
cially for women. It’s easily done with a bit of good will.’’ Pressed by the interviewer
who shifted the talk onto the division of domestic work within the family, Julius
declared, ‘‘I have been married for 26 years and I have never said, ‘These are the things

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to do, these are the things to wash, my wife washes them, leave them there for 30 hours
until my wife arrives to wash them.’ No, never. I have done it, I have done the washing
and the ironing. [ . . . ] there isn’t a job which is special for my wife, no.’’ Julius’ will-
ingness to take on all household tasks within his own family and to learn the job of
carer do not imply a positive judgment on such a job, which implies ‘‘disadvantages
of a psychological nature.’’ It is not by chance, thus, that he does not think of it as a
stable job but as ‘‘something temporary’’

(as do many other interviewees). Thus, his

discomfort is not linked to the female features of the job but to other factors.

Simi-

larly James, from The Congo, an elderly carer with a higher degree in sociology,
replies that he feels bad, when the interviewer asks him how he feels doing a job
mostly performed by women. Yet it is clear from his words that these feelings are
mainly due to the cleavage between his education and the low level of his work rather
than to problems with his male identity: ‘‘I have such an anxiety . . . I feel, I feel that
I can do something else, I have studied, I have studied many years . . . to end in doing
this kind of job for 500, 600 Euros, is frustrating’’ (394, Congo, 36).

However, keeping in mind acquaintances who have succeeded in moving to bet-

ter jobs may help maintain quite an optimistic attitude: the Ivorian Oswald said that
he did not like being a domestic. Nevertheless, he was rather positive: he had a mas-
ter’s in marketing, had also studied philosophy in his country, and was studying
political science in Paris; he was aware that both the ambassador of Ivory Coast
in Italy and a lawyer he knew were former domestic workers. He, thus, hoped to
be able to have a successful career (424, Ivory Coast, 35).

Looking Ahead: Some Concluding Remarks and a Short
Research Agenda

This article has offered a long-term analysis of male domestic service in Italy.
A 1907 protest by male domestics to have the right to wear moustaches (which at
that time was forbidden) has given me the opportunity to investigate their discomfort
while performing a job that implied a symbolic de-virilization. To understand why
domestic service was culturally and socially constructed in that way, I showed that in
many different regions and historical periods (though not always and everywhere) a
variety of partially different reasons contributed to a similar result, that is making
domestic service incompatible with ‘‘adult’’ (respectable) masculinity. Whereas in
many regions of preindustrial Europe adult men employed as servants might suffer
from a degree of ‘‘infantilization’’ because of the association of domestic service
with young people, later, when it became a largely female job, they might suffer
from some ‘‘feminization.’’ In both cases, they were banned from adult (respectable)
masculinity. Discomfort because of performing a job perceived as female is indeed
common among migrant domestic workers employed, today, in Italy.

To deepen our knowledge of the status and self-perception of migrant male

domestic workers, many other issues should be addressed besides those I have
focused on in this article. First, the attitude of Italian employers should be analyzed.

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

In fact, in Italy (contrary to what some interviewees believe), the gender division of
unpaid care and domestic tasks is quite rigid. Moreover, until recently paid domestic
work was performed almost exclusively by women. Indeed, domestic service under-
went a long-term feminization, which went on until the 1950s. From the 1950s
onward, a slight tendency toward re-masculinization began but it remained minimal
until the 1980s, when the arrival of migrants brought about a more substantial pres-
ence of men.

It is, thus, surprising that within a few years some middle and lower middle class

families have shifted from hiring either no, or only female, domestic workers, to hir-
ing male ones. The interviews analyzed above focused only on domestics. Neverthe-
less they provide us with some clues to the attitude of employers. Francisco refers to
the fact that his employer would have preferred a woman (245, Ecuador, 45), but
Roberto says that his employer was looking for a man (325, Ecuador, 28) and Pedro
maintains that he was hired without any problem (328, Ecuador, 32). Moreover,
Vishnu was recruited on the day of his arrival, whereas he was looking for a fellow
countryman on the intercom of a block of flats! (18, Mauritius, 31). Thus, there are
Italians who do not have any problem in hiring men, or even prefer them to women,
particularly if they are looking for a carer for an aged man.

It seems indeed that domestic work has become, in many Italians’ minds,

immigrants’ work,

whether the immigrants involved be illiterate or graduates,

male or female. The important thing seems to be their availability to carry out
such a job, and for not too high a salary. Significantly, a Sicilian girl, interviewed
on gender roles, listed both women (in general) and Filipino men among people
who can do care work.

Yet there are important exceptions to this presumed rule.

Italians seem, indeed, to prefer white (or not too dark) people to black ones. Thus,
care and domestic work, though ethnicized in the sense that they are considered
jobs for immigrants, are not racialized in the commonest sense of the term,
because black people are not socially and culturally constructed as workers who
are good for menial work. This is not due to lack of racism. On the contrary,
some Italians feel uneasy at having black people very close to them. People who
use the services of recruitment centers quite often make it clear that they do not
want black domestic workers, especially if they are looking for a carer.

There

are, indeed, not many Africans among domestics (table 2) and in my sample too,
there are only a few, if we exclude Mauritians (who often look like Indians).
Racist employers, therefore, probably avoid hiring black domestics, even though
this may not always be so, as shown by the case of Giuliano Soria mentioned
above. Possibly because of this ‘‘pre-selection,’’ dark-skinned interviewees refer
to only a few episodes of racism within the households of their employers,

while they relate many frightening cases that took place in other places.

More-

over, Italians are often suspicious of Muslims. Ali refers to the fact that when he
looks for a job, people frequently reply contemptuously: ‘‘He is Moroccan!’’
Potential employers exclude him because of his nationality and (presumed) Mus-
lim faith (408, Morocco, 48). These issues become particularly interesting in the

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context of the current economic crisis which seems to be pushing both unem-
ployed Italian women and men to enter paid domestic and care work.

Another question that should be addressed is the role of foreign male domestic

workers as far as the gendered division of labor is concerned. As long as they
perform tasks traditionally carried out by Italian wives and mothers (or maids),
do they allow their female employers to assume (traditionally) male roles and
to access traditionally male jobs? And what about their male employers? Does the
presence of male domestics performing traditionally female tasks confirm their
‘‘dominant’’ masculinity, or does it have other consequences? The agenda of
issues to be analyzed also includes the families of the domestic workers. In my
sample, 61 percent of the interviewees are married or live with their partners.
Does their job affect their own families? As shown above, some interviewees
claim that, at home, they do not respect the traditional division of roles. Yet most
of them say that this was the arrangement in their families before they started to work
as domestics,

or make it clear that working in domestic service has not changed their

opinion on the gender division of work. Only a few seem to ‘‘take home,’’ at least in
part, their (new) abilities as domestics.

Many maintain that family members must

help each other, but generally believe that women have the main responsibilities for
cleaning and caring.

Some of them, however, have more traditional opinions, and

consider their job as a ‘‘normal’’ job for a breadwinner with no consequences on the
gender division of roles at home. ‘‘My wife does everything, I don’t do anything when
I’m at home,’’ Vishnu, for instance, said (18, Mauritius, 31). This is evidently a clear
strategy to defend his challenged masculinity.

To sum up, thus, while many issues need to be addressed in more detail in fur-

ther research, this article has clearly shown that—a century after the battle of the
Italian domestics to defend their masculinity by claiming the right to wear mous-
taches—not only are there still both female and male domestics (even live-in), but
also many men who feel that working in the domestic sector challenges their male
identity and who, consequently, enact strategies to preserve it. Although some
interviewees accept their lot with degree of resignation as a consequence of
migrants’ lack of choice, others stress the differences between their own country
and Italy to make acceptable, abroad, what would not be acceptable at home. Still
others actively try to manipulate the gendered features of domestic service, even
affirming that it is not a woman’s job or that men are better than women. How-
ever, not all domestics feel challenged, particularly those who have a less tradi-
tional view of the gender roles. This helps some of them to have a more
relaxed attitude toward their job, or at least to dislike it for reasons other than its
gender dimension.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for suggestions to P. Delpiano and to the participants to the panel Male
Domestic Workers: Past and Present in Comparative Perspective organized by

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

F.Scrinzi and myself within the Seventh European Social Science History Conference
(ESSHC), Lisbon, 26 February-1 March 2008 (http://www2.iisg.nl/esshc/Programme.
asp?selyear=9&day=13&time=44). I am grateful to C. Boscolo and S. Harrison
for revising my English. I have focused on male domestic workers in other
articles, too. See in particular Sarti 2005a and Sarti 2009.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.

Funding

Interviews with male migrant domestic workers were carried out as part of the
research project Nationality, Gender and Class in the New Domestic Work. Changes
in the Italian Family and Evolution of Migratory Systems funded by the f Italian
Ministry for University and Scientific Research and coordinated by Raimondo
Catanzaro.

Notes

1. For example Zancan (2009) and Numa (2009). Giuliano Soria spent three months in

prison; then he was allowed to go back home. He is awaiting trial, see Longo (2009);
Numa and Zancan (2009).

2. For a detailed description of the criteria used to choose the sample, see Catanzaro and

Colombo (2009b, 34-8).

3. The interviewers were supposed to ask a precise set of questions but were free to change

their order, to ask other questions besides those on the list and to give those interviewed
the opportunity to say anything they felt relevant for the purposes of the interview. As a
consequence the interviews provide us with very rich information but are diverse. Some
are extremely long (up to 90 pages), others quite short. Furthermore, the issues addressed
are only partially identical.

4. The established reference on this ‘‘resurgence’’ is Gregson and Lowe (1994, 4), but they

were not the first to notice the phenomenon, see for example Turrini (1977, 34); Tranberg
Hansen (1989, XII-XIII, 2).

5. According to Lutz (2008a, 3), a ‘‘growing demand for labour power in the domestic work

sector has contributed to the feminization of migration more than any other area of
work.’’ According to Sassen (2002, 2003), the formation of so-called global cities has cre-
ated a growing demand for services and manual workers, particularly women. Moreover,
entire nations are increasingly dependent on feminized survival networks such as remit-
tances sent home by female migrant domestic workers.

6. Glenn was also the supervisor of Rhacel Parren˜as, author of Servants of Globalization

(2001, 9).

7. Pape 1993; Chin 1998, 69-73; Bujra 2000; Ray 2000; Banerjee 2004; Chopra 2006;

Qayum and Ray as well as Bartolomei in this volume.

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8. Sarti 2000, 2005a, 2006; Higman 2002; Scrinzi 2005; Bartolomei 2005; Manalansan

2006;Bach 2007; Bartolomei, Kilkey, Na¨re, Sarti and Scrinzi in this volume.

9. Higman 2002; Sarti 2006; Kilkey in this volume.

10. In the autobiographical novel Ernesto, by Umberto Saba (1883

1957), the adult partner

within a pederast couple explains to his young lover that only a youth still without facial
hair can be in the passive role (Saba 1987).

11. The literature on these issue is huge; see Sarti (2005b) and (2008) with further references.

In many European languages, the vocabulary mirrors this situation: often the same terms
mean both young person and servant.

12. Article IV of the Preamble to the Constitution of Year III.
13. Although 52.5 percent of the female economically active population was married, among

maids it was 21.5 percent (Recensement 1911, 30). Marrying was certainly easier for
male servants than for maids.

14. The constitutions of Italian states are available online: http://www.dircost.unito.it/cs/paesi/it

alia.shtml (last accessed date August 18, 2010).

15. Servants were constructed as minors in countries, too, where the French model was

never introduced, such as Britain. English servants living with their masters were even-
tually enfranchised, thanks to the same law of 1918, which gave the vote to women of at
least 30 years of age (men gained the vote at 21; Blewett 1965). The parallel between
domestics and women (in particular wives) has been highlighted by Davidoff (1974).
English servants, too, had to be clean shaven and were claiming the right to grow mous-
taches (Molajoni 1904, 21).

16. Between 1882 and 1912, males aged 21 and over who had passed the examination of the

second year of primary school, or paid direct taxes of at least 19.80 lire, had the right to
vote, Law 22 January 1882, No. 999.

17. The growth was probably due to the economic crises that began in 1907, rather than to the

success of the servant protest. However, it might also be a statistical illusion due to chang-
ing categories. It is unfortunately impossible to verify whether the servant categories in
1901 and 1911 were identical.

18. In September 2009, after this article had been submitted, another amnesty took place. A

further 300,000 domestic workers applied for regularization, see http://www.dircost.
unito.it/cs/paesi/italia.shtml (last accessed date August 18, 2010).

19. 14,686 in 1951 and 14,079 in 1981.
20. 24.8 percent in 1991, 31.1 percent in 1996.
21. In 2007 (the last year for which data are available), the percentage of men grew again. It is

too early to understand whether a long-term reversal of the trend is going on.

22. Law 30 July 2002, no. 189; Legal decree, 9 September 2002, no. 195; Law 9 October

2002, no. 222.

23. Men may work for both local and Western people. In the latter case, there is certain con-

tinuity with the colonial custom of houseboys, infantilized through their very definition as
boys, Chin 1998, 71; Lowrie 2008 and Martinez and Lowrie 2009. I am grateful to Claire
Lowrie for allowing me to read the introduction and one chapter of her Phd thesis (In

Men and Masculinities 13(1)

Service of Empire: Domestic Service and Colonial Mastery in Darwin and Singapore,
1890–1930) before it was submitted.

24. Interview 18 (Mauritius, 31) carried out within the project Nationality, gender and class

in new domestic work. Changes in the Italian Family and Evolution of Migratory Systems.
The results of the research are illustrated in Catanzaro and Colombo (2009a). Interviews
quoted in the following pages (with a progressive number, the nationality, and the age of
the interviewee) are taken from this research. Personal names have been changed. Many
interviewees were not fluent in Italian, but this feature gets lost in translation.

25. 90, Sri Lanka, 24; 99, Sri Lanka, 25, and 438, Sri Lanka, 20.
26. 144, Sri Lanka, 27; 342, Sri Lanka, 47; 463, Sri Lanka, 34 and 27, Philippines, 33.
27. It would be too long to list all those who share this opinion. It is quicker to list those who

do not (at least explicitly), that is 133, Peru, 33; 234, Ecuador, 52. See also 26, Senegal,
30 and 344, Philippines, 37.

28. The interviewer was the same Bartolomei who took part in the project.
29. 125, Peru, 30; 361, Ukraine, 28; 364, Sri Lanka, 26; 450, Sri Lanka, 31; 344, Philippines, 37.
30. 111, Ukraine, 55; 223, Peru, 37; 232, Sri Lanka, 42; 313, Mauritius, 45; 366, Sri Lanka,

32; 394, Congo, 36.

31. 14, Mauritius, 37; 18, Mauritius, 31; 39, India, 32; 429, Sri Lanka, 56; 461, Mauritius, 42.

Others, though not being ashamed, illustrated the negative reactions of their families
when they knew which job they did: 185, from Moldavia, but with Russian nationality,
34; 325, Ecuador, 26; 328, Ecuador, 32; 436, Sri Lanka, 44.

32. 429, Sri Lanka, 56. Other interviewees, too, conceal their real job: for example 328, Ecua-

dor, 32.

33. Besides the interviewees mentioned in the other notes, see 354, Peru, 33.
34. ‘‘Without documents I cannot do another job,’’ 314, Bolivia, 40.
35. 146, Sri Lanka, 45; 14, Mauritius, 37; 61, Mauritius, 45; 195, Sri Lanka, 45; 279, Nigeria,

42; 313, Mauritius, 45; 394, Sri Lanka, 36; 429, Sri Lanka, 56.

36. For example, 328, Ecuador, 32 and 413, Ecuador, 40.
37. 364, Sri Lanka, 26; 434, Philippines, 38; 445, Sri Lanka, 48. On this issue, see also Scrinzi

in this volume.

38. 361, Ukraine, 28. See also 318, Peru, 44; 328, Ecuador, 32; 364, Sri Lanka, 26.
39. 125, Peru, 30; 141, Albania, age missing; 146, Sri Lanka, 45; 276, Peru, 55.
40. 58, Romania, 53. See also 125, Peru, 30.
41. See also 384, Sri Lanka, 36.
42. According to some interviewees, Italians prefer foreigners because they work harder and

cost less, for example 226, Ecuador, 35; 279, Nigeria, 42; 290, Sri Lanka, 53; 436, Sri
Lanka, 44; 522, Byelorussia, 31.

43. Information provided within the Summer School Lavoro delle donne. Diritti migrazioni

identita`, Florence, August 29, 2007 to September 4, 2007.

44. Scrinzi 2004; information provided by C. Serenari, of the recruitment agency CasaBase.
45. 25, Honduras, 26; 133, Peru, 33; 193, Mauritius, 32; 354, Peru, 33.
46. Nineteen interviewees refer to cases of racism (insults, spitting, blows) outside the house-

hold of their employers.

Sarti

47. For instance, according to the mass media, an increasing number of Italian women and

men attend courses to become elderly carers (e.g., TV news, TG Regione Emilia
Romagna, January 13, 2010, 2 p.m.). See Sarti 2010.

48. For example, 58, Romania, 53.
49. For example, 222, Mauritius, 27.
50. For example, 14, Mauritius, 37; 223, Peru, 37; 279, Nigeria, 42; 361, Ukraine, 28.

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