[miniwark]

I have heard of the same in Ethiopia around the 90's. For white worker it was expected to:

- rent a house

- hire a house guardian

- hire at last one maid

- hire a chauffeur if you own a car

It was also recommended than they come form the local neighborhood.

It was a social norm, and if you do not do it you can expect the local policemen to "fine you" every time you take the car, the food cost to be x5 the price (or more), and many other additional costs and life inconvenience than just made more easy and cheaper to just hire the people.

That said the work was real. A good chauffeur, will negotiate prices and bribes for you, and recommend you the good places. The house guardian was also your speaker with the neighborhood committee (with was in fact a government organization). (I will avoid the more complicated subject of the maid...)

This was OK if you where a man, a couple or a family. If you where a young woman... good luck with this.

There was a way to avoid all this: living in a flat in the city center and use taxis.

(For Addis Ababa this may not be true anymore because the city was changed a lot from the big shantytown it was then)

[mmmmmbop]

> (I will avoid the more complicated subject of the maid...)

I'm really curious now. Why is the maid a more complicated subject?

[323]

Not all of them are free, some of them are kidnapped by traffickers from the country side.

https://www.economist.com/baobab/2012/04/24/maid-in-ethiopia

[miniwark]

Some comment have given a somewhat correct reply:

Some of the maid where indeed expected to also do "night duties" if asked. It was not a racial power stuff. It's was more a problem with a sort of "cultural prostitution" witch was everywhere in Ethiopia. The maids where still primary maids and not prostitute, and to be fair, the same problem also did exist in Europe at the time of Agatha Christie (How many European maid had become pregnant and then fired ?).

I thinks than it's now worst than in the 90's because Ethiopia had sadly become a tourist sex place since then. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Ethiopia

[hnlmorg]

Given our history, I was assuming there was some expectation that duties might also include requests of a sexual nature.

I really hope that's not the case. But we (rich white people) don't exactly have a good track record in these types of situation. :(

[CSMastermind]

> But we (rich white people)

I hate to break it to you but rich white people are generally far less likely to be a sexual predation risk in these situations because they often have more to lose, have easier access to consenting parties, and come from countries that stigmatize that type of behavior to a much greater degree.

[hnlmorg]

I'm not going to comment whether it's more or less likely than in other cultures. My point wasn't to start a race war, I was just commenting that we have a history on such topics (eg https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/rape-in-american-sla...)

[zo1]

But mentioning it as if white people are known for it or did it lots or have a specific history of it is quite racist. Bad things are committed by all races and slavery is certainly one of them. It's whitewashing the world's dirty secrets and then pinning them on the evil white man.

[hnlmorg]

As I've said elsewhere, the context was already about white men employing people from black communities -- go re-read the GP's post, I wasn't the one that bought race into it. I just made an uncomfortable truth that some people apparently feel the need to defend by proxy with the usual arguments of "other people were just as bad", as if that somehow reconciles the atrocities that we committed (hint: it doesn't).

Honestly the "other cultures are just as bad" argument here strikes me just as poor as the "all lives matter" protest comment against the BLM movement:

> There is a difference between something being true and something being relevant.

source: eg https://relevantmagazine.com/current/the-problem-with-saying...

[aksss]

everyone has a history of it, and many non-western societies still have a barely concealed if not government sanctioned industry of it.

[tagoregrtst]

No need to racially charge it - sexually exploiting servants is a universal.

Curiously, you said “rich white people” forgoing the one prejudice that actually does predict sexual exploitation - men!

[throwaway2037]

Yes, it is sadly common in Hongkong and Saudia Arabia with domestic helpers. I have heard numerous first-hands accounts about it.

[hnlmorg]

> No need to racially charge it - sexually exploiting servants is a universal.

The topic of race was already raised in the grandparent post, I quote (emphasis mine):

> I have heard of the same in Ethiopia around the 90's. For white worker it was expected to:

While I'm sure exploitation happens in most cultures I'm mostly familiar with it happening in white culture and given that context was already specified and my education being based on that context I decided to keep my reply specific to that context which I already knew.

Sorry if I offended anyone -- I just figured being a white male myself it was more offensive to drag other cultures into the discussion when they were previously outside the scope.

> Curiously, you said “rich white people” forgoing the one prejudice that actually does predict sexual exploitation - men!

I didn't need to specify men because that context was already defined in the post I was responding to. To quote the GP again:

> This was OK if you where a man, a couple or a family. If you where a young woman... good luck with this.

Frankly though, moaning about other cultures doing it too feels a little like trying to pull others down so we don't look so bad instead of acknowledging our own failings. Maybe that's an uncomfortable opinion for people to hear but as the saying goes "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".

[hutzlibu]

"But we (rich white people) don't exactly have a good track record in these types of situation"

I do not think that behavior is or was restricted to skin color.

[ejb999]

>>But we (rich white people) don't exactly have a good track record in these types of situation

Wow, nice generalization - do you get all your 'facts' from the movies?

[hnlmorg]

I don't watch movies.

Bare in mind I'm not suggesting an entire race is frequently abusing their maids to this day. What I'm saying is there is recorded history of it happening. You only have to dig through some of the abuses that happened during the slave trade to see evidence of this fact. So we do indeed have a bad track record in this regard. It might be an uncomfortable truth for some of us to hear but it doesn't make it any less true.

[fxtentacle]

At least in Japan, some maid services are more like cosplaying escorts.

https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/100650

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/10/national/u-n-of...

[goodpoint]

Not at all. There are cosplay cafe' where employees cosplay whatever role or character and there are real housekeeping services.

Japanese people can tell the difference between reality and cosplay.

[radicalbyte]

> Japanese people can tell the difference between reality and cosplay.

That quote would look good in a meme.

[__alexs]

Because they are sex workers.