OVER the weekend, my fellow BNW (Brave New Woman) Sara sounded down. She had sent her Indonesian maid packing about six weeks ago for generally slovenly work and, specifically, for hiding a cell phone from Sara
that, naturally, raised myriad unsettling questions.

OVER the weekend, my fellow BNW (Brave New Woman) Sara sounded down. She had sent her Indonesian maid packing about six weeks ago for generally slovenly work and, specifically, for hiding a cell phone from Sara that, naturally, raised myriad unsettling questions. Where did the maid get the money to buy the phone, when did she buy the phone and with whom was she communicating? However, she had managed to find domestic help who had agreed to come in from 9am to 6pm, Mondays through Fridays. This suited Sara far better as part of her loathes having an essentially disempowered person slaving for her seven days a week with no time off over two years. Part-time domestic help seemed the more humane and civilised option. Then, after two weeks, Sara’s part-time help decided that working for her was just too much hard work and quit. So Sara called me for the number of the maid agency that I use. Sara, like many of our contemporaries, is someone I have come to label a BNW – a woman with a hitherto thriving career who has seemingly “given it all up” for her children and that holy grail, “domestic bliss”. To say that we’ve “given it all up” isn’t totally true; more accurately, we have managed to re-define our work-spaces and times by working from our home offices. In the grand scheme of the evolution of the BNW, we were first the “Ladies who Lunch”, and in the Malaysian idiom, “Tai- Tais” or “Mak Datins”. Now, with more education opportunities, we’ve become the “Ladies who Lunge and Launch”, that is, women who have been able to free themselves of the 9-to-9 tyranny to carve out the time to exercise or care for ourselves even as we run our little enterprises alongside our families. Ultimately, however, we can only be as “brave” as our domestic assistants, or maids, are efficient and honest. That is the reality of many a Malaysian household. Sara was particularly upset because she had just accepted a job – a BNW’s dream job – with a multinational company that allowed her to operate from home. What’s more, she would be paid in US$! Now, without any help… As BNWs, our maids are the very nexus of our existence. That’s why we feel so “conflicted” over them: On the one hand we want to be as “humane” and respectful of our maids’ rights (after all, they are BNWs too who have had to make very hard choices to leave their own families behind), but on the other hand, some maids just don’t have the mental prowess or foresight deserving of such regard. Although Sara’s maid was slovenly, Sara was willing to put up with it, until she found the phone. Given that her maid was none too bright and had been sending text messages out to unknown and unquantified parties replete with Sara’s domestic details, daily routine and even address, Sara finally felt compelled to send her back to the maid agency. In my case, I had a maid whom many of my friends and relatives considered a dream. For sure, that she was for the first term (the first two years) of her service. I rarely referred to her as my “maid”. I called and regarded her as my “personal assistant” given that she made it so easy for me to work from home and enjoy my child to boot by taking care of every domestic detail that would have otherwise demanded my attention. When she returned for her second term, she wielded a cell phone and reasoned that it was much more convenient and cheaper for her to communicate with her family in Java Tengah via text messaging. After a little consideration, I agreed. After a month, she asked if she could have one Sunday a month off. After a little consideration, I agreed. Eleven months later, she asked to return home to sign some documents pertaining to the property she had bought with the money she had earned during the first term she had worked with me. To cut a long story short, it transpired that she had to rush back to Java Tengah because she found herself already 16 weeks pregnant (it obviously took only one lazy Sunday afternoon…). This all happened 15 months ago. Last month, she sent me a text message telling me of her plans to return to Malaysia to work next year. After much consideration, I told her that it will not be with me. Would you be looking to dial a maid?
• Woo Lynn (woolynnchai@ gmail.com), who has a Masters in English Literature from Canada, is on a nostalgia binge watching re-runs of ‘Mary Poppins’.

Source: Malay Mail – July 17, 2008