Nora Goffre’s ethnographic study, grounded in fieldwork across Bolivia and Peru, reveals that paid domestic labor is deeply shaped by early gendered socialization, presenting a “regime of gendered and racialized appropriated labor”(source). She argues that domestic workers—mostly rural migrant women, often Indigenous or Afro‑Latin American—enter a cycle where exploitation in their birth families resonates within employers’ households and persists into their conjugal relationships 

Contrary to the common perception of the family as a protective space, Goffre highlights how it can perpetuate violence. The sexual division of labor and normalized gendered roles within households lay the foundation for ongoing emotional, physical, and sexual exploitation. When these workers transition into paid domestic roles, the same norms become inscribed into work relationships, making violence and dependency systemic.

Goffre positions paid domestic work as a blurred form of “appropriated labor”—where private, informal care becomes formally unpaid or underpaid labor, rooted in structural inequalities of class, race, and patriarchal norms. The prevalence of rural, ethnically marginalized women in this sector is a clear outcome of colonial histories and entrenched poverty.

What stands out most to me in this study is Goffre’s intersectional framing: violence against domestic workers isn’t just gendered—it’s racialized and classed. Goffre critiques the failure of broader scholarly work to integrate these intersecting axes of oppression when analyzing household labor dynamics.

Some More Key Takeaways:

• Violence is normalized early: Gendered socialization in origin families lays the emotional groundwork for accepting abusive power dynamics.
  
• Paid work reflects private oppression: Domestic employment often replicates familial exploitation patterns.
  
• Labor is appropriated, not compensated: The merging of emotional care and wage labor functions as structural extraction.
  
• Intersectionality is essential: Only by considering gender, race, and class together can we grasp the full depth of workers’ vulnerabilities.
  

Goffre’s study serves as a powerful reminder that interventions aimed at protecting domestic workers must go beyond workplace regulations in order to enact real change. They must address the familial and societal norms that sanction harm, starting from childhood socialization through adulthood. Only then can the root cause of the harms done to the households and daily lives of some of Latin America’s most vulnerable laborers be addressed. For more information check out the full ethnographic study.