Lutte des travailleuses domestiques au Brésil. Racisme, sexisme et inégalités de classe

This article presents data collected during fieldwork conducted in 2013-2015 among 20 domestic workers and 10 domestic worker activists in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Campinas (Brazil). In particular, it examines the domestic workers’ job conditions and political struggles to achieve the same labor rights as other workers by demanding that state institutions recognize that «domestic work is work» and accept their claims. These struggles made it possible for domestic workers, who are poor, non-educated and mostly black women, to achieve significant results that improved their lives and self-esteem. In these political actions, activists established coalitions with other subjectivities such as the black movement. Domestic workers’ struggles have always faced opposition, and this article argues that these forms of opposition are linked not only to the conservative interests of most right-wing groups, but also to a more complex imbrication of structures of inequality based on the social division of domestic labor and its links with racism and class inequalities. Domestic workers’ battles thus pave the way for a broader political project that aims to dismantle structures of inequality such racism, sexism and class inequality and their intersection.