The Lady and the Maid: Racialised Gender Relations in Greek-Cypriot Households

Over the last decade the Republic of Cyprus has become the destination of an increasing number of migrants from Third World countries and Eastern Europe; many of whom are women who earn their living as sex workers or housemaids. The feminisation of labour migration to Cyprus is related to the increasing integration of native women in the national labour market, whereas the gendered ascription of domestic work has not changed. In view of the emergence of new inequalities within the gendered group of women, this paper will look at different notions of gender equality expressed by Greek-Cypriot women who take an active role in politics. It argues that even though many of the women interviewed endeavour to establish gender equality, the androcentric evaluation of gainful labour versus unpaid or at best lowly paid reproductive work, and hence gender inequality, is reproduced on a racialised level.

This text was originally published as: "The Lady and the Maid: Racialised Gender Relations in Greek-Cypriot Households", The Cyprus Review, 13(2). We are republishing it here with permission of the author.

Author holds a master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, Political Science and Religious Studies. Since April 2004 she is research and teaching associate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at JWG-Universitaet, Frankfurt/Main, and works on her doctoral thesis on issues of tourism and migration in the context of the European mobility regime.