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Migration and Domestic Work
 Gaye Yilmaz • Sue Ledwith

Migration
and Domestic Work
The Collective Organisation of Women and their
Voices from the City
Gaye Yilmaz Sue Ledwith
Bogazici University Ruskin College
Istanbul, Turkey Oxford, United Kingdom

ISBN 978-3-319-51648-6 ISBN 978-3-319-51649-3 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51649-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933687

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

The idea for the research trajectory of this book came from Gaye Yilmaz’
experiences of being a citizen of and living in an ostensibly secular
country, Turkey. As an atheist herself, a feminist and from a Kurdish
background, as her country moved further towards becoming an Islamist
state under the government of AKP, she increasingly questioned the
pressures on women of the progressive convergence of religious and
patriarchal codes, and how for some groups, especially Kurds, Turkey
was again becoming a difficult place in which to live. Long interested in
questions of migration and women, Gaye then undertook the interviews
in the three cities which make up this book, starting in her home city of
Istanbul in 2012. She had worked with Sue Ledwith in the Global
Labour University’s Gender and Trade Unions Research Group, and
their shared interest in gender issues in labour movements brought them
to write this book together.
The research was carried out before the current and intense period we
find ourselves writing about, including the failed coup by an Islamic sect
(Gulenists) in Turkey in July 2016. The huge flow into Western Europe,
including Turkey, of refugees from conflict and war, mainly in Syria, but
also in Iraq, Afghanistan and African countries, must have impacted the
lives of the women Gaye interviewed, but we do not know how. They
were telling their stories in a more stable period – if any migrant can call
their lives stable. But it is likely that they would not have been
v
vi Preface

untouched by these events and the intensified rise of racism, misogyny

and homophobia and nationalist xenophobia in the UK and across
Europe, which has also been aggravated by the 2016 British referendum
vote to leave the European Union.
So this book is dedicated to the women migrants in this study with
the wish for them to realise their dreams.

Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey Gaye Yilmaz

Ruskin College, Oxford UK Sue Ledwith
2016.
 Acknowledgements

From Gaye: Thank you especially to:

Friends in London who helped me to reach migrant women: Hüseyin
and Semih from Cemevi, Mustafa, Hanife, Sophie, Şule (who sadly
passed away due to brain cancer last June), Orhan, Ayşe and Leyla
from Daymer, Barbara, Nadia.
Friends in Berlin who helped me to reach migrant women: Rafet,
Fatma, Ayşe, Adem, Zülfiye and Zeynep from SIMURG, Nare and
Yeter from DETA-MED, Habibe, Necla and Özkan.
Friends in Istanbul who helped me to reach migrant women: My
mum, Serpil, Şebnem, Garabet, Lale, Gülten abla, and the 120 migrant
women who agreed to be interviewed. Some of them deserve double
thanks as they directed me to colleagues to be interviewed.
Thank you from both of us to the trade union activists and officers
who we interviewed in Istanbul, Berlin and London.
Finally, thanks to our husbands, Selim and Peter.

vii
 Contents

1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting

Our Exploration 1
Introduction 1
Migration Models and Theories 4
Women and Migration 7
Gender Regimes in Migrant Domestic Work 9
Women and Paid Domestic Work 11
Summary 13
References 14

2 Women Migrating to London, Berlin and Istanbul:

A Research Study 17
Introduction 17
Methodological Issues and Perspectives 18
The Women Migrant Domestic Workers 25
Conclusions 34
References 35

3 Dreams Dashed but Not Forgotten 37

Introduction 37
Migration 38

ix
x Contents

Feminisation of Migration 39
Stories of Migrating Women 43
Three Countries: Three Cities 45
Conclusions 58
References 60

4 Migrating Women’s Working Lives, Rights

and Social Protections 65
Introduction 65
Migration Regimes 66
Domestic Work 68
The UK/London 70
London: The Research 72
Germany/Berlin 77
Berlin: The Research 80
Turkey/Istanbul 85
Istanbul: The Research 88
Health and Safety and Domestic Work 91
London 94
Berlin 95
Istanbul 96
Conclusions 97
References 99

5 Identity, Belonging, Discrimination, Racism, Sexism

and Exclusion 105
Introduction 105
Discrimination 108
The Research 110
Being a Migrant 112
Language 114
Being a Domestic Worker 116
Race Discrimination 120
Sex Discrimination 122
Integration? 123
 Contents xi

Conclusions 125
References 126

6 Gender, Family and Religion 129

Introduction 129
Religion, Family and Paid Work 132
Religion and Women’s Lives 135
Familial Control over Women’s Religious Obligations 141
Conclusions 145
References 147

7 Family and Gender: Religion and Work 151

Introduction 151
Housework, Domestic Gender Relations and Religion 153
London 155
Berlin 156
Istanbul 158
Breadwinning 161
Prioritising Careers by Gender 164
Prioritising Self 167
Women’s Agency in Job-Related Decisions 171
Women’s Collectivism, Patriarchy and Religiosity 174
Conclusions 177
References 178

8 Migrant Women’s Collectivism: The Diaspora

and Community Organising 181
Introduction 181
Organising and Mobilising 185
Communities of Coping 187
Community and Community Centres 190
Subjective Identities and Cognitive Liberation 193
Collectivism and Collective Action 195
Conclusions 197
References 200
xii Contents

9 Migrant Women, Collectivism and Trade Unions 205

Introduction 205
Trade Unions in Three Countries 207
Unions, Community Organising and Migrant Workers 211
The UK 213
May Days 218
Germany 221
Turkey 226
Conclusions 230
References 232

10 Prospects for Women Migrant Domestic Workers? 237

Introduction 237
Intersectional Analysis 238
Regimes of Migration and Regimes of Gender 239
Family Regimes, Religious and Patriarchal Codes 241
Migration and Regimes of Paid Domestic Work 243
Identity, Religion and Politics 245
Migration, Gender and Identity 246
Type of Work and Working Conditions 247
Regimes of Collectivism 248
The Researcher Role 249
Finally 249
References 250

Appendix 253

Glossary 259

Index 261
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Women’s national identities 26

Table 2.2 Religious affiliations of women in three cities 27
Table 2.3 Kurdish and Turkish women, by religion 29
Table 2.4 Marital status of women, with and without children 31
Table 2.5 Age of migrant women by host city 32
Table 2.6 Type of work by host city 32
Table 3.1 Women’s motives for migration 43
Table 4.1 Type of work, London 73
Table 4.2 Type of work, Berlin 81
Table 4.3 Type of work, Istanbul 88
Table 4.4 Health and safety problems of women by age 93
Table 5.1 Migrant women’s reported experiences
of types of discrimination 110
Table 6.1 Religious affiliations of migrant women 135
Table 6.2 Levels of religiosity among migrant women 138
Table 6.3 Parental control of women’s religious obligations 142
Table 7.1 Marital status of women 152
Table 7.2 Domestic division of labour by religion and host city 154
Table 7.3 Breadwinner position by gender 163
Table 7.4 Whose job promotion do you prefer? 165
Table 7.5 Promotion preferences by religion 166
Table 7.6 Partner’s interference in job-related decisions of women
who prefer their own promotion, by religion 172

xiii
xiv List of Tables

Table 7.7 Levels of religiosity among women needing consent from

kinsmen to join labour unions (excluding atheists) 176
Table 9.1 Trade union density in the UK, Germany and Turkey
2002–2012 209
Table 9.2 Women migrants by unionisation 216
 1
Migrating Women and Domestic Work:
Starting Our Exploration

Introduction
Who are women who migrate, and why do they do so? – dreams of a
better life or better education, to improve chances for their children,
to escape from wars, for individual freedoms? Where do they go and
what work do they do? What identities, beliefs and values do they
carry with them? How do migrating women both adapt to and re-
shape their new situation along with its gendered social and power
relations? What choices do they have and to what extent are they able
to extend agency and choice through organising collectively? With
migration and movements of people as possibly the biggest issue in
the modern world these are important questions. In this book we
explore these questions through interviews with 120 women migrants
working as domestic carers and cleaners in three cities: London,
Berlin and Istanbul.
Women now make up almost half of migrant workers worldwide
and the overwhelming majority of those are employed in the ever-
growing field of domestic and care work. Yet these women are often
difficult to access, and reflecting their subordinate social position, the

© The Author(s) 2017 1

G. Yilmaz, S. Ledwith, Migration and Domestic Work,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-51649-3_1
2 Migration and Domestic Work

detail of their lives, beliefs, hopes and fears are under-researched.

Here we aim to redress the balance through the narratives of migrant
women domestic workers themselves and to explore issues not often
addressed in such research. We are especially interested in the role of
religion and its relationship with patriarchy and family in the lives of
women, both before and after migration, in the privacy of the house-
hold and in the public sphere of paid work. These questions are
explored with the women in the research, and also frame the prospects
for and the propensity of the women to organise collectively through
trade unions and/or community organising.
Women such as those in this study are often invisible as migrants, in
official statistics, and in research studies where they tend to appear as
groups or categories of migrant workers, rather than as women with
individual and many layered identities. Their distinctive voices are rarely
heard, but regardless of their legal or social status, the women never-
theless are active agents. In this book we aim to put right some of these
wrongs and present the voices of migrant women domestic workers
through analysis which foregrounds their own stories.
We focus especially but not exclusively on Kurdish and Muslim
women, for a number of reasons. First, Gaye Yilmaz, the principal
researcher is herself Turkish with Kurdish links and is also especially
interested in examining the role of religion, particularly Islam, in the
identities and lives of women who migrate. The cultural codes of
religion and patriarchy are powerful influences on identity, beliefs and
behaviour, yet are a little explored aspect of such research, especially
among Kurdish women, partly because of the absence of their voices in
other studies of migrants (Holgate et al. 2012). Another factor is that
Turkey is not a member of the European Union (EU) although in the
recent past it has aspired to be, and at the time of writing, has a fractious
relationship with the EU. We are thus interested in how migrant women
care workers fare in Turkey compared with the UK and Germany and
how their situations might change should they ever find themselves in an
EU country. This research was conceived and carried out before the
2016 UK referendum resulting in ‘Brexit’, which although is not a
consideration here will undoubtedly have had some impact on these
women.
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 3

These parameters provide the context within which to interrogate and

compare similarities and differences among and between the women in
the study on a number of axes and themes, and in our discussions we
draw on intersecting regimes to frame our study. Following Esping-
Andersen (1990), we use the term regime to mean the organisation and
corresponding cultural codes of social practice in which the relationship
between the social actors is articulated and negotiated. We find that two
dominate; regimes of gender (cultural and structural) and regimes of
migration (structural and cultural), which in turn are inflected through
and with other regimes, especially religion and patriarchy.
In the three cities 120 women of 28 national identities were inter-
viewed and their narratives offer rich data across three broad areas:

1. Women’s motivations to migrate, and differences and similarities

with their home country situation in relation to their often multiple
identities, their roles in relation to family, their beliefs in relation
to religion and cultural codes and their political and gender
consciousness
2. Women’s material position as migrant workers, their employment
situation, type of paid work, opportunities and action in improv-
ing/changing their material position and their class position as
migrant workers compared with their class position in their
home country
3. Women’s collectivism and forms of organising as members of com-
munities, such as religious, national, class, which may overlap, and as
members or aspiring members of organised trade unions.

Our analytical approach is one of intersectionality, and we aim to use

it to avoid debating the lives of women migrant domestic workers in
terms of discrete categories, but rather through a series of trajectories
of their lives as told in their stories and recounted throughout the
book. In these narratives there were certainties, uncertainties, posi-
tives and negatives, joy and despair although these were not binary,
but simultaneous, and interlinked. So were their class, sexuality,
religion, and ethnicity and race, which were all intrinsic to their
lives as migrants in their new countries.
4 Migration and Domestic Work

Migration Models and Theories

Movement of people is a key phenomenon of the early twenty-first
century, encouraged by economic magnets of better work and lives, as
well as being driven by the devastation of terror, war, conflict and
climatic disaster.
Migration is unstable and precarious for both host and migrant, and
migrants might well find themselves assigned to a very different category
of person today from that of yesterday, and from their own identity of
self. Transnational migration is now global, and migrants have become
key in labour forces worldwide (McDowell 2013: 6).
In all three countries in the study, there have been years, decades,
centuries of migration, leading to generations settled in their country of
final arrival. This has been especially the case in Britain with its history of
colonialism and post-colonial settlers. In the second half of the twentieth
century, these were mainly from the Caribbean, the Indian sub-continent
and South Asia, and former African colonies, and were economic
migrants, deliberately sought to help reconstruct post-war Britain and its
developing welfare state and public services (McDowell 2013). Similar but
different motives led the West German state to seek migrants to help
rebuild the country post-war, especially Italians and Turkish migrants.
Migration in Turkey is different yet again, with migration both internal
from the rural to the urban, and cross-border mainly from bordering
states, including former Soviet states. Half of the migrant women from the
study in Turkey were moving into the city (Istanbul) especially from
Turkish Kurdish enclaves, while the other half were from bordering
countries such as Armenia and Turkmenistan.
‘Migration’ itself is a slippery concept, continually being re-defined in
the modern period of worldwide instability, conflict and inequality,
especially by states nervous about the economic impact on their own
populations and labour forces, and increasingly, the importing by migra-
tion of culture, ideology and religion. The impact of states closing down
opportunities through increasingly restrictive legislation also affects
existing and settled migrants who may well find themselves re-desig-
nated undocumented. In these ways, migrant status as refugee, asylum
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 5

seeker, documented, undocumented, legal, illegal tends to be shaped by

the response of the receiving country’s policies and laws at the time,
which are increasingly in flux.
Add in ways in which migrants are ascribed as ‘illegal aliens’ (Schinkel
2011) and are thus at the mercy of the authorities which may veer from
locking them up to granting them legal status, and a migrant’s life is very
precarious indeed. As Broeders and Engbersen demonstrate in their
study, such ‘irregular immigration’ in Europe can be identified through
three criteria: ‘legal and illegal entry; legal and illegal residency and legal
and illegal employment’ (Guiterrez-Rodriguez 2010: 47).
Individuals may begin their migration journey in one category and
then fall into another as their work permits expire (McKay et al. 2011).
This was the case with some women in our study in Istanbul who under
90-day permits had to exit and re-enter if they wanted to remain legal.
Several of them had in fact stayed on illegally and so were undocumen-
ted at the time of the research. Another way of regularising their legal
status is by marriage, which was a route identified by one of the women
in our study in Istanbul.
Theorising about migration is as complex and fast changing as is the
status of migrants themselves. However, McKay and colleagues (2011)
have usefully surveyed migration theories, and we use their ‘set of
theories’ (op cit: 27) as a framework for our own research. Although
these can be identified conceptually as distinct, when it comes to actual
analysis, they are difficult to separate, as we can see below.
Models based on migration push and pull are widely discussed in
the literature, whereby a combination of disadvantages experienced in
the home country push migrants, and presumed advantages in the host
country encourage them (McKay et al op cit: 29). These are clearly
linked to what has been described as ‘survival migration’, where
migrants’ search for basic economic security is a decisive factor regard-
less of holding valid permits to work or being a resident. The corollary
here is that such migrants will tend towards irregular paid work in the
underground economy of the receiving country, on the edge of the
formal sector (op cit: 31). Here they are at the mercy of employers
seeking to push down wages by employing workers who have little
6 Migration and Domestic Work

choice but to accept poor pay and conditions establishing and reinfor-
cing their status as precarious workers. Under traditional dual-labour
market theory, such migrant workers are used by employers as a
variable factor of production where migrant flows in a flourishing
underground economy are mainly demand determined (op cit: 32).
Not only this but hierarchies of desired workers develop according to
ethnicity, race and national background as we found among some of
the women in this study who came from African countries and who
declared that they were fortunate to be able to work in advanced and
democratic states. In such situations migrant women may be more
likely to compare their pay and work with the conditions they left
behind rather than with those in similar work in their new countries, a
situation which makes it less likely they will question or challenge
employment systems in their countries of migration.
In such conditions, with limited access to formal institutions and
labour markets and limited fluency in the mother tongue of host
countries, recently arrived migrants may turn to informal social net-
works as one of the few options for finding work (Sassen 2006, Vasta
2004 in Gavanas 2010: 15, 16 and 23). Existing communities, ethnic
enclaves (Bloch 2013), in the host country provide important social
capital to help migrants find accommodation, paid work, childcare,
while also maintaining ethnic cultures and religion, although as we
discuss later, they are also a source of downward pressure on pay and
can be personally stifling and controlling. In turn combinations of
push and pull are also linked to models which concentrate on family
strategies (op cit: 32) to maximise or at least increase income. This was
the case for several of the women in our study who had been obliged to
leave home to earn enough to support not only themselves and their
immediate family but also the extended family. Such remittances have
long been an important part of the economics of migration, and in the
case of some women in our study it was also a consequence of their
gender role as subordinate to all males in the family. Their human
capital was also severely diminished in that some of these women were
educated to degree level and above, had worked professionally in their
home country, but had had to sacrifice all this when they were obliged
to migrate.
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 7

In turn, this move away from individual decision-making about

migration relates to extensive family, kin and ethnic networks across
and between home and the new host country. These days information
technology (IT) and e-communication networks are important in
sustaining transnational links. Among the women in our study, these
operated positively in terms of keeping in touch with children they had
to leave behind, but also enabled parents and family to monitor the
religious observance of their absent daughters. These continuing bonds
may also be the means of future generations’ migrations; among the
women in our study, there were some who were third generation, yet
they still also described themselves as migrants. In these ways migrants
may also finds themselves creating new identities straddling both
home and away, in a ‘culture of migration’ (Massey et al. 1994 in
McKay et al. 2011: 35). Women in our study who had developed good
language skills in their new countries saw themselves as advantaged in
relation to both their new neighbours and colleagues in that they were
now bi-lingual, and to those at home since they were able to demon-
strate superior new skills and proficiencies. All of these factors may also
be influential in their decisions about which countries, and cities, they
prefer to migrate to, and whether or not they want to stay or go home,
as was the case with some of the women in the research.
Women may also achieve increased autonomy by migrating, and
even within the same community, the consequences of migration may
be different for married and single female migrants (Tienda and Booth
1991). Women are diverse, migrants are diverse, and so are migrant
women.

Women and Migration

Previously, being a woman was seen as a barrier to migration unless
it was as part of family movement, with the majority of migrant
workers in guest worker schemes in northern Europe in the 1950s
and 1960s being male, with wives moving for family unification. Now
in the twenty-first century female migration has reached the same level
as male migration, and further, a large number of women initiate
8 Migration and Domestic Work

migration themselves, independently (McKay et al. 2011: 25).

Nevertheless, women tend to have fewer opportunities in labour
markets than men wherever they are, and occupational gender segre-
gation seems to be firmly reinforced among migrants (McKay et al.
2011). This has seen the emergence of specifically female forms of
migration, especially the commercialised migration of domestic work-
ers sometimes labelled as ‘the maid trade’ (Carling 2005). These are
low-income women who are frequently involved in domestic service
and commerce. The differences in gender migration also emphasise
the divisions in productive and reproductive roles in the household.
Women have responsibility for both domestic labour and working for
cash income (Chant 1992).
On the demand side of domestic and care work in general, the
feminisation of migration is also fuelled by a number of factors such as
the increase in women’s labour force participation, falling fertility rates,
increasing life expectancy, changes in family structure, shortages of
public care and the increasing marketisation of care in the global
North (Fudge 2010; Parella 2005; Anderson 2000). Today, there is
both a growing share of part-time and temporary jobs as well as fewer
protections and benefits for growing proportions of the workforce,
which becomes increasingly insecure.
Women’s motives for migration are both the same but also different
from those of men. Gendered cultural practices such as female genital
mutilation, and gender-based violence have become strong reasons for
women to leave their homelands. So have escape from conflict at one
level, and oppressive cultural regimes at another. A search for a better
life, for family re-unification is also common. In these, motivations to
migrate can be ambivalent; women may leave home because they want
the homes and families of their hearts to be sustained, and if this
cannot be achieved in their own country, moving elsewhere might
work better (Morokvasic 1993 in Lutz 2008). Several women in our
study came into this category; few actually wanted to start and establish
a new home somewhere else and were pushed to migrate for reasons
discussed in Chapter 3.
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 9

Gender Regimes in Migrant Domestic Work

Gender regimes of family and household roles can be seen as the
engine of gendered cultural scripts and discursive frameworks around
family, household and gender regimes of housework, breadwinning
and preference for male superiority in these. Motives of women to
migrate are frequently interwoven with gender regimes, which are
explored in Chapter 3. Gender regimes also underlie our examination
of the migrant women’s working lives in Chapter 4, which in turn are
structured through religious and patriarchal codes that promote and
shape the employment of migrant domestic workers in the three
countries in the study.
For migrants, identity is central to the making and re-making of self
as they move, settle and find employment, as well as reconstructing
their personal and family lives. McDowell (2013: 44–45) describes this
making of self as a social act involving many shifting layers of ideas and
practices by the migrant herself, local natives and the receiving society
and the state. Yet women’s choices are constrained, and their identities
proscribed. Several of the women in our study were highly educated
and qualified, but were compelled to migrate to support financially
either themselves and/or their wider families. By ending up as domestic
workers, they also found themselves downwardly mobile. Being re-
designated by class is a significant shift, both materially and through
the impact on their new lives as migrant domestic workers.
So, the women in this study were involved in both being assigned
identities, and also of re-affirming and re-making their own identities,
and these are examined in Chapter 5. Identity can be partly ascribed to
religion, and in following this thread, we will see in Chapters 6 and 7
how its associated cultural codes were of central importance, especially at
the intersections of patriarchy, gender and family. Feminist scholars
generally agree that there is a strong relationship between patriarchy
and religion, especially in Islamist countries. El Saadawi (1997) sees
women as victims of the patriarchal class system consolidated by politics,
religion and social customs (Shihada 2007: 163). She presents a picture
10 Migration and Domestic Work

of how poor servant women are employed by upper-class people at

shamefully low salaries and who are frequently sexually abused by their
masters and sons – the women in our study acknowledged the employ-
ment conditions, but not sexual abuse. Saadawi focuses on showing why
and how for patriarchy to survive as an institution, it has to be fortified
by religion, politics and social customs (in Shihada 2007: 168, 169).
Confirming this, in recent times there have been important moves
within Christianity, Judaism and Islam to consolidate identity around
a defence of ‘traditional’ roles for men and women, which involve male
headship and female domesticity (Woodhead 2013: 64, 65). These
cultural-religious issues are rarely addressed in studies of migration and
migrants, rather they have become subsumed in normative ideas about
the family, labour and domesticity (Moors 2003).
Half of all the women interviewed in this study came from a
Muslim background, and much of their testimony confirms the
powerful partnership of patriarchy and religion in shaping how they
see themselves and their relationships, their behaviour, deference to
their husbands/the men in their lives and their beliefs about their own
subordinate roles in heterosexual relationships. The other main reli-
gion represented among the migrant women was Christianity, also
shaped by patriarchal hegemonic masculinity. Reactions by women
against religion was strong too, with 20 atheists represented in the
study.
At a practical everyday level nevertheless, churches and religious
community centres also serve as the places where migrant care workers
meet, chat and satisfy their needs to talk with their home-country sisters.
This was the case in each of the cities in this research. As well as
operating as community centres they also functioned as job centres, as
can be seen in both London and Berlin. We explore the efficacy of such
ethnic enclaves and communities as sites of collective organising in
Chapter 8, and the role and prospects of labour unions in collectivising
in Chapter 9.
In the twenty-first-century climate of international terrorism, the
implication of fundamentalist religious beliefs in this and the ensuing
growth of racism, there has developed a strong argument that religion
has become a central category of political mobilisation and that
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 11

religious groups are potential vehicles for collective action. As a con-

sequence, some writers have suggested that linking with religious
groups is a relevant and useful development in the struggle against
racism (Davis and Dhaliwal 2007).

Women and Paid Domestic Work

Worldwide, domestic/care work is the largest employer of women, and
women make up the vast majority of such workers. It remains a highly
feminised field although a substantial number of men work in the
sector – often as gardeners, drivers or butlers. Over 80 per cent of all
domestic/care workers are women. We refer to domestic/care work as
joint because the two are so closely related that they often become
conflated. For example, some of the women in our study described
how, although they were employed as carers, this frequently involved
cleaning or other domestic tasks. Domestic workers comprise a sig-
nificant part of the global workforce in informal employment and are
among the most vulnerable groups of workers. They work for private
households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered,
and excluded from the scope of labour legislation. Currently, there are
at least 53 million domestic workers worldwide, not including child
domestic workers and this number is increasing steadily in developed
and developing countries; 83 per cent of all domestic workers are
women, and globally, domestic work accounts for 3.5 per cent of
women’s employment (ILO 2013).
In the West especially there is a rapacious and unmet demand for such
workers to care for children, the disabled and the elderly, as populations
change and age. In addition, historical, post-colonial, economic and
cultural links often play an important role in migration trajectories of
migrant care workers (Tholen 2009; Williams 2012, in Luppi et al.
2015: 16). Paid domestic labour is also attractive to immigrants because
it has low barriers to entry and often includes housing. This feminisation
of migration, increasingly feeding trajectories from east to west and
south to north has become what Lutz (2008: 1) refers to as a gendered
global care chain.
12 Migration and Domestic Work

Although the work involved is complex, demanding and highly

skilled, especially in relation to emotion work, within the traditional
gender lens it remains designated as low status, unskilled, typically is in
the informal economy, is unregulated and poorly paid (Parella 2005:
148). In Germany, such work is largely regulated by the state, but does
not include employment rights, just as in the UK where work in
private households is not protected by employment law, so the
women have no formal rights. While there are some positive examples
of tripartite arrangements between the employer, the care worker and
the local trade union or community organisation (Alvarez and
Whitefield 2013), usually it is only in trade unionised settings such
as public sector and regulated care homes where collective bargaining
results in this work being given its proper worth, and even that is often
contested. In the unregulated care work sector, collective organising
is sporadic and often tentative. Only in 2011 did the International
Labour Organisation’s (ILO’s) convention 189 Decent Work for
Domestic Workers, get worldwide recognition, although of the three
countries in this study, only Germany had ratified it at the time of
writing.
Domestic and care work is rarely socially valued and many (mainly
Western Europe) countries do not consider it as valid for the allocation
of a residence and work permit. The fact of working in a private
household makes it difficult for undocumented women migrants to
supply proof of employment and benefit from regularisation schemes
(Chammartin 2008: 2). Historically across a diverse range of countries,
both developed and developing, women from disadvantaged racial and
ethnic groups have tended to provide care and household services to
meet the needs of more powerful social groups, while their own care
needs have been downplayed and neglected.
Data about domestic workers is problematic, especially since much of it
takes place in the informal sector, and it is not unusual to find discre-
pancies between official estimates and estimates from other sources, such
as NGOs (Palriwala and Neetha 2009; ILO 2013: 14). However, some
statistical departments have looked further into potential methodological
shortcomings of household surveys in recording paid domestic work.
Germany, one of three countries in this study, is a good example, where
 1 Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration 13

domestic work is frequently identified as part of the ‘shadow economy’.

Here, the 2009 labour force survey counted 203,000 persons engaged in
‘Activities of households’, yet the national accounts section of Germany’s
federal statistical office supplemented these data with other sources and
estimated that some 712,000 persons worked in the same industry (see
Korner and Puch 2011, cited by ILO 2013: 15). For these reasons
statistical data on domestic workers is neither convincing nor reliable.
So for migrating women this is the labour market in which they find
themselves (Kofman 2003: 14, Woodhead 2013). For some of the
women in this study, it was a positive choice. In Berlin training was
available for care workers, but not in London. For others with, for
example, professional qualifications and experience as teachers or scien-
tists, migration became a slide to downward mobility. In addition, the
ideal standards of care varies across cultures, leading to carers and care
recipients not necessarily sharing the same view as migrant care workers
of what ‘good care’ should look like (Lamura et al. 2013: 4). Work
relationships are fraught with such difficulties. Nevertheless, in all of
this, domestic care work is a niche market for women since it embodies
the main aspects/components of their ascribed domestic role with all its
skills and attributes of caring, which are then exported to the labour
market as productive labour.
In exploring these issues, chapter by chapter we have set up our analysis
using an intersectional approach. While intersectionality is a contested
concept, we think by using it as an approach for analysis, it offers a way of
examining women’s lives both structurally and culturally; categories such
as gender and migrant are both structured by and themselves structure
migration and co-exist as cultural identities too. How they do so is our
task in this book, but first we move on to Chapter 2 to discuss the
methodology and methods of the research study.

Summary
In this chapter we have introduced our study and the objectives driving
it, together with the context and location of the research in London,
Berlin and Istanbul. Our focus is an exploration of aspects of women
14 Migration and Domestic Work

migrant domestic workers’ lives which have scarcely been addressed in

previous research. Key among these is their relationships with religious
and patriarchal codes in the private domain of family and the public
sphere of paid work, and how these relate to being a woman migrant and
a woman migrant domestic worker. We are also interested in the pro-
spects for the women in moving from being individual problem solvers
towards collective organising.
To set the scene, in this chapter we have surveyed concepts and realities
of women domestic migrants and their work. We have drawn on a range of
theories, and started to see how these are linked. In the rest of the chapters
we explore these in more detail, including the intersections among them.

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Another random document with
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 PLATE XXXVIII

SHRUBBY CINQUEFOIL.—P. fruticosa.

Of all the cinquefoils perhaps this one most truly merits the title
five finger. Certainly its slender leaflets are much more finger-like
than those of the common cinquefoil. It is not a common plant in
most localities, but is very abundant among the Berkshire Hills.

Silvery Cinquefoil.
Potentilla argentea. Rose Family.

Stems.—Ascending, branched at the summit, white, woolly. Leaves.—Divided

into five wedge-oblong, deeply incised leaflets, which are green above, white with
silvery wool, beneath.
The silvery cinquefoil has rather large yellow flowers which are
found in dry fields throughout the summer as far south as New
Jersey.

Golden Ragwort. Squaw-weed.

Senecio aureus. Composite Family (p. 13).

Stem.—One to three feet high. Root-leaves.—Rounded, the larger ones mostly

heart-shaped, toothed, and long-stalked. Stem-leaves.—The lower lyre-shaped, the
upper lance-shaped, incised, set close to the stem. Flower-heads.—Yellow,
clustered, composed of both ray and disk-flowers.
A child would perhaps liken the flower of the golden ragwort to a
yellow daisy. Stain yellow the white rays of the daisy, diminish the
size of the whole head somewhat, and you have a pretty good
likeness of the ragwort. There need be little difficulty in the
identification of this plant—although there are several marked
varieties—for its flowers are abundant in the early year, at which
season but few members of the Composite family are abroad.
The generic name is from senex—an old man—alluding to the
silky down of the seeds, which is supposed to suggest the silvery
hairs of age.
Closely allied to the golden ragwort is the common groundsel, S.
vulgaris, which is given as food to caged birds. The flower-heads of
this species are without rays.

——— ———
Clintonia borealis. Lily Family.

Scape.—Five to eight inches high, sheathed at its base by the stalks of two to
four large, oblong, conspicuous leaves. Flowers.—Greenish-yellow, rather large,
rarely solitary. Perianth.—Of six sepals. Stamens.—Six, protruding. Pistil.—One,
protruding. Fruit.—A blue berry.
 PLATE XXXIX

Clintonia borealis.

When rambling through the cool, moist woods our attention is

often attracted by patches of great dark, shining, leaves; and if it be
late in the year we long to know the flower of which this rich foliage
is the setting. To satisfy our curiosity we must return the following
May or June, when we shall probably find that a slender scape rises
from its midst bearing at its summit several bell-shaped flowers,
which, without either high color or fragrance, are peculiarly
charming. It is hard to understand why this beautiful plant has
received no English name. As to its generic title we cannot but
sympathize with Thoreau. “Gray should not have named it from the
Governor of New York,” he complains; “what is he to the lovers of
flowers in Massachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of
flowers.... Name your canals and railroads after Clinton, if you
please, but his name is not associated with flowers.”
C. umbellata is a more Southern species, with smaller white
flowers, which are speckled with green or purplish dots.

Yellow Lady’s Slipper. Whip-poor-Will’s Shoe.

Cypripedium pubescens. Orchis Family (p. 17).

Stem.—About two feet high, downy, leafy to the top, one to three-flowered.
Leaves.—Alternate, broadly oval, many-nerved and plaited. Flowers.—Large,
yellow. Perianth.—Two of the three brownish, elongated sepals united into one
under the lip; the lateral petals linear, wavy-twisted, brownish; the pale yellow lip
an inflated pouch. Stamens.—Two, the short filaments of each bearing a two-celled
anther. Stigma.—Broad, obscurely three-lobed, moist and roughish.
The yellow lady’s slipper usually blossoms in May or June, a few
days later than its pink sister, C. acaule. Regarding its favorite
haunts, Mr. Baldwin[3] says: “Its preference is for maples, beeches,
and particularly butternuts, and for sloping or hilly ground, and I
always look with glad suspicion at a knoll covered with ferns,
cohoshes, and trilliums, expecting to see a clump of this plant among
them. Its sentinel-like habit of choosing ‘sightly places’ leads it to
venture well up on mountain sides.”
The long, wavy, brownish petals give the flower an alert, startled
look when surprised in its lonely hiding-places.
 PLATE XL

SMALLER YELLOW LADY’S SLIPPER.

—C. parviflorum.

C. parviflorum, the small yellow lady’s slipper, differs from C.

pubescens in the superior richness of its color as well as in its size. It
also has the charm of fragrance.

Early Meadow Parsnip.

Zizia aurea. Parsley Family (p. 15).

One to three feet high. Leaves.—Twice or thrice-compound, leaflets oblong to

lance-shaped, toothed. Flowers.—Yellow, small, in compound umbels.
 This is one of the earliest members of the Parsley family to
appear. Its golden flower-clusters brighten the damp meadows and
the borders of streams in May or June and closely resemble the
meadow parsnip, Thaspium aureum, of which this species was
formerly considered a variety, of the later year.
The tall, stout, common wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa, is
another yellow representative of this family in which white flowers
prevail, the three plants here mentioned being the only yellow
species commonly encountered. The common parsnip may be
identified by its grooved stem and simply compound leaves. Its roots
have been utilized for food at least since the reign of Tiberius, for
Pliny tells us that that Emperor brought them to Rome from the
banks of the Rhine, where they were successfully cultivated.

Golden Club.
Orontium aquaticum. Arum Family.

Scape.—Slender, elongated. Leaves.—Long-stalked, oblong, floating. Flowers.

—Small, yellow, crowded over the narrow spike or spadix.
When we go to the bogs in May to hunt for the purple flower of
the pitcher-plant we are likely to chance upon the well-named golden
club. This curious-looking club-shaped object, which is found along
the borders of ponds, indicates its relationship to the jack-in-the-
pulpit, and still more to the calla lily, but unlike them its tiny flowers
are shielded by no protecting spathe.
Kalm tells us in his “Travels,” “that the Indians called the plant
Taw-Kee, and used its dried seeds as food.”

Spearwort.
Ranunculus ambigens. Crowfoot Family.

Stems.—One to two feet high. Leaves.—Oblong or lance-shaped, mostly

toothed, contracted into a half-clasping leaf-stalk. Flowers.—Bright yellow, solitary
or clustered. Calyx.—Of five sepals. Corolla.—Of five to seven oblong petals.
Stamens.—Indefinite in number, occasionally few. Pistils.—Numerous in a head.
Many weeks after the marsh marigolds have passed away, just
such marshy places as they affected are brightly flecked with gold.
Wondering, perhaps, if they can be flowering for the second time in
the season, we wade recklessly into the bog to rescue, not the marsh
marigold, but its near relation, the spearwort, which is still more
closely related to the buttercup, as a little comparison of the two
flowers will show. This plant is especially common at the North.

Indian Cucumber-root.
Medeola Virginica. Lily Family.

Root.—Tuberous, shaped somewhat like a cucumber, with a suggestion of its

flavor. Stem.—Slender, from one to three feet high, at first clothed with wool.
Leaves.—In two whorls on the flowering plants, the lower of five to nine oblong,
pointed leaves set close to the stem, the upper usually of three or four much
smaller ones. Flowers.—Greenish-yellow, small, clustered, recurved, set close to
the upper leaves. Perianth.—Of three sepals and three petals, oblong and alike.
Stamens.—Six, reddish-brown. Pistil.—With three stigmas, long, recurved, and
reddish-brown. Fruit.—A purple berry.
One is more apt to pause in September to note the brilliant
foliage and purple berries of this little plant than to gather the
drooping inconspicuous blossoms for his bunch of wood-flowers in
June. The generic name is after the sorceress Medea, on account of
its supposed medicinal virtues, of which, however, there seems to be
no record.
The tuberous rootstock has the flavor, and something the shape,
of the cucumber, and was probably used as food by the Indians. It
would not be an uninteresting study to discover which of our
common wild plants are able to afford pleasant and nutritious food;
in such a pursuit many of the otherwise unattractive popular names
would prove suggestive.

Common Bladderwort.
Utricularia vulgaris. Bladderwort Family.

Stems.—Immersed, one to three feet long. Leaves.—Many-parted, hair-like,

bearing numerous bladders. Scape.—Six to twelve inches long. Flowers.—Yellow,
five to twelve on each scape. Calyx.—Two-lipped. Corolla.—Two-lipped, spurred at
the base. Stamens.—Two. Pistil.—One.
 This curious water-plant may or may not have roots; in either
case it is not fastened to the ground, but is floated by means of the
many bladders which are borne on its finely dissected leaves. It is
commonly found in ponds and slow streams, flowering throughout
the summer. Thoreau calls it “a dirty-conditioned flower, like a
sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow bonnet.”
The horned bladderwort, U. cornuta, roots in the peat-bogs and
sandy swamps. Its large yellow helmet-shaped flowers are very
fragrant, less than half a dozen being borne on each scape.

Yellow Pond-lily. Spatter Dock.

Nuphar advena. Water-lily Family.

Leaves.—Floating or erect, roundish to oblong, with a deep cleft at their base.

Flowers.—Yellow, sometimes purplish, large, somewhat globular. Calyx.—Of five
or six sepals or more, yellow or green without. Corolla.—Of numerous small, thick,
fleshy petals which are shorter than the stamens and resemble them. Stamens.—
Very numerous. Pistil.—One, with a disk-like, many-rayed stigma.
Bordering the slow streams and stagnant ponds from May till
August may be seen the yellow pond-lilies. These flowers lack the
delicate beauty and fragrance of the white water-lilies; having,
indeed, either from their odor, or appearance, or the form of their
fruit, won for themselves in England the unpoetic title of “brandy-
bottle.” Owing to their love of mud they have also been called “frog-
lilies.” The Indians used their roots for food.
 PLATE XLI

INDIAN CUCUMBER-ROOT.—M.
Virginiana.

Winter-cress, Yellow Rocket. Herb of St. Barbara.

Barbarea vulgaris. Mustard Family (p. 17).

Stem.—Smooth. Leaves.—The lower lyre-shaped; the upper ovate, toothed or

deeply incised at their base. Flowers.—Yellow, growing in racemes. Pod.—Linear,
erect or slightly spreading.
As early as May we find the bright flowers of the winter-cress
along the roadside. This is probably the first of the yellow mustards
to appear.
 Black Mustard.
Brassica nigra. Mustard Family (p. 17).

Often several feet high. Stem.—Branching. Leaves.—The lower with a large

terminal lobe and a few small lateral ones. Flowers.—Yellow, rather small, growing
in a raceme. Pods.—Smooth, erect, appressed, about half an inch long.
Many are familiar with the appearance of this plant who are
ignorant of its name. The pale yellow flowers spring from the waste
places along the roadside and border the dry fields throughout the
summer. The tall spreading branches recall the biblical description:
“It groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth
out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the
shadow of it.”
This plant is extensively cultivated in Europe, its ground seeds
forming the well-known condiment. The ancients used it for
medicinal purposes. It has come across the water to us, and is a
troublesome weed in many parts of the country.

Wild Radish.
Raphanus Raphanistrum. Mustard Family (p. 17).

One to three feet high. Leaves.—Rough, lyre-shaped. Flowers.—Yellow, veiny,

turning white or purplish; larger than those of the black mustard, otherwise
resembling them. Pod.—Often necklace-form by constriction between the seeds.
This plant is a troublesome weed in many of our fields. It is the
stock from which the garden radish has been raised.
 PLATE XLII

WINTER-CRESS.—B. vulgaris.

Cynthia. Dwarf Dandelion.

Krigia Virginica. Composite Family (p. 13).

Stems.—Several, becoming branched, leafy. Leaves.—Earlier ones roundish;

the latter narrower and often cleft. Flower-heads.—Yellow, composed entirely of
strap-shaped flowers.
In some parts of the country these flowers are among the earliest
to appear. They are found in New England, as well as south and
westward.
 The flowers of K. amplexicaulis appear later, and their range is a
little farther south. Near Philadelphia great masses of the orange-
colored blossoms and pale green stems and foliage line the railway
embankments in June.

Rattlesnake-weed.
Hieracium venosum. Composite Family (p. 13).

Stem or Scape.—One or two feet high, naked or with a single leaf, smooth,
slender, forking above. Leaves.—From the root, oblong, often making a sort of flat
rosette, usually conspicuously veined with purple. Flower-heads.—Yellow,
composed entirely of strap-shaped flowers.
The loosely clustered yellow flower-heads of the rattlesnake-
weed somewhat resemble small dandelions. They abound in the
pine-woods and dry, waste places of early summer. The purple-
veined leaves, whose curious markings give to the plant its common
name, grow close to the ground and are supposed to be efficacious in
rattlesnake bites. Here again crops out the old “doctrine of
signatures,” for undoubtedly this virtue has been attributed to the
species solely on account of the fancied resemblance between its
leaves and the markings of the rattlesnake.
H. scabrum is another common species, which may be
distinguished from the rattlesnake-weed by its stout, leafy stem and
unveined leaves.

Dandelion.
Taraxacum officinale. Composite Family (p. 13).
 PLATE XLIII

RATTLESNAKE-WEED.—H. venosum.

If Emerson’s definition of a weed, as a plant whose virtues have

not yet been discovered, be correct, we can hardly place the
dandelion in that category, for its young sprouts have been valued as
a pot-herb, its fresh leaves enjoyed as a salad, and its dried roots
used as a substitute for coffee in various countries and ages. It is said
that the Apache Indians so greatly relish it as food, that they scour
the country for many days in order to procure enough to appease
their appetites, and that the quantity consumed by one individual
exceeds belief. The feathery-tufted seeds which form the downy balls
beloved as “clocks” by country children, are delicately and beautifully
adapted to dissemination by the wind, which ingenious arrangement
partly accounts for the plant’s wide range. The common name is a
corruption of the French dent de lion. There is a difference of opinion
as to which part of the plant is supposed to resemble a lion’s tooth.
Some fancy the jagged leaves gave rise to the name, while others
claim that it refers to the yellow flowers, which they liken to the
golden teeth of the heraldic lion. In nearly every European country
the plant bears a name of similar signification.

Poverty-grass.
Hudsonia tomentosa. Rock-rose Family.

“Bushy, heath-like little shrubs, seldom a foot high.” (Gray.) Leaves.—Small,

oval or narrowly oblong, pressed close to the stem. Flowers.—Bright yellow, small,
numerous, crowded along the upper part of the branches. Calyx.—Of five sepals,
the two outer much smaller. Corolla.—Of five petals. Stamens.—Nine to thirty.
Pistil.—One, with a long and slender style.
In early summer many of the sand-hills along the New England
coast are bright with the yellow flowers of this hoary little shrub. It is
also found as far south as Maryland and near the Great Lakes. Each
blossom endures for a single day only. The plant’s popular name is
due to its economical habit of utilizing sandy unproductive soil
where little else will flourish.

Bush-honeysuckle.
Diervilla trifida. Honeysuckle Family.

An upright shrub from one to four feet high. Leaves.—Opposite, oblong, taper-
pointed. Flowers.—Yellow, sometimes much tinged with red, clustered usually in
threes, in the axils of the upper leaves and at the summit of the stem. Calyx.—With
slender awl-shaped lobes. Corolla.—Funnel-form, five-lobed, the lower lobe larger
than the others and of a deeper yellow, with a small nectar-bearing gland at its
base. Stamens.—Five. Pistil.—One.
 PLATE XLIV

BUSH-HONEYSUCKLE.—D. trifida.

This pretty little shrub is found along our rocky hills and
mountains. The blossoms appear in early summer, and form a good
example of nectar-bearing flowers. The lower lobe of the corolla is
crested and more deeply colored than the others, thus advising the
bee of secreted treasure. The hairy filaments of the stamens are so
placed as to protect the nectar from injury by rain. When the
blossom has been despoiled and at the same time fertilized, for the
nectar-seeking bee has probably deposited some pollen upon its
pistil, the color of the corolla changes from a pale to a deep yellow,
thus giving warning to the insect world that further attentions would
be useless to both parties.

Cow Wheat.
Melampyrum Americanum. Figwort Family.
 Stem.—Low, erect, branching. Leaves.—Opposite, lance-shaped. Flowers.—
Small, greenish-yellow, solitary in the axils of the upper leaves. Calyx.—Bell-
shaped, four-cleft. Corolla.—Two-lipped, upper lip arched, lower three-lobed and
spreading at the apex. Stamens.—Four. Pistil.—One.
In the open woods, from June until September, we encounter
the pale yellow flowers of this rather insignificant little plant. The
cow wheat was formerly cultivated by the Dutch as food for cattle.
The Spanish name, Trigo de Vaca, would seem to indicate a similar
custom in Spain. The generic name, Melampyrum, is from the
Greek, and signifies black wheat, in reference to the appearance of
the seeds of some species when mixed with grain. The flower would
not be likely to attract one’s attention were it not exceedingly
common in some parts of the country, flourishing especially in our
more eastern woodlands.

Meadow Lily. Wild Yellow Lily.

Lilium Canadense. Lily Family.

Stem.—Two to five feet high. Leaves.—Whorled, lance-shaped. Flowers.—

Yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, bell-shaped, two to three inches long.
Perianth.—Of six recurved sepals, with a nectar-bearing furrow at their base.
Stamens.—Six, with anthers loaded with brown pollen. Pistil.—One, with a three-
lobed stigma.
What does the summer bring which is more enchanting than a
sequestered wood-bordered meadow hung with a thousand of these
delicate, nodding bells which look as though ready to tinkle at the
least disturbance and sound an alarum among the flowers?
 PLATE XLV

MEADOW LILY.—L. Canadense.

These too are true “lilies of the field,” less gorgeous, less
imposing than the Turks’ caps, but with an unsurpassed grace and
charm of their own. “Fairy-caps,” these pointed blossoms are
sometimes called; “witch-caps,” would be more appropriate still.
Indeed they would make dainty headgear for any of the dim
inhabitants of Wonder-Land.
The growth of this plant is very striking when seen at its best.
The erect stem is surrounded with regular whorls of leaves, from the
upper one of which curves a circle of long-stemmed, nodding
flowers. They suggest an exquisite design for a church candelabra.
 Prickly Pear. Indian Fig.
Opuntia Rafinesquii. Cactus Family.

Flowers.—Yellow, large, two and a half to three and a half inches across.
Calyx.—Of numerous sepals. Corolla.—Of ten or twelve petals. Stamens.—
Numerous. Pistil.—One, with numerous stigmas. Fruit.—Shaped like a small pear,
often with prickles over its surface.
This curious-looking plant is one of the only two representatives
of the Cactus family in the Northeastern States. It has deep green,
fleshy, prickly, rounded joints and large yellow flowers, which are
often conspicuous in summer in dry, sandy places along the coast.
O. vulgaris, the only other species found in Northeastern
America, has somewhat smaller flowers, but otherwise so closely
resembles O. Rafinesquii as to make it difficult to distinguish
between the two.

Four-leaved Loosestrife.
Lysimachia quadrifolia. Primrose Family.

Stem.—Slender, one or two feet high. Leaves.—Narrowly oblong, whorled in

fours, fives, or sixes. Flowers.—Yellow, spotted or streaked with red, on slender,
hair-like flower-stalks from the axils of the leaves. Calyx.—Five or six-parted.
Corolla.—Very deeply five or six-parted. Stamens.—Four or five. Pistil.—One.
 PLATE XLVI

FOUR-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE.—L.
quadrifolia.

This slender pretty plant grows along the roadsides and attracts
one’s notice in June by its regular whorls of leaves and flowers.
Linnæus says that this genus is named after Lysimachus, King of
Sicily. Loosestrife is the English for Lysimachus; but whether the
ancient superstition that the placing of these flowers upon the yokes
of oxen rendered the beasts gentle and submissive arose from the
peace-suggestive title or from other causes, I cannot discover.
 Yellow Loosestrife.
Lysimachia stricta. Primrose Family.

The yellow loosestrife bears its flowers, which are similar to

those of L. quadrifolia, in a terminal raceme; it has opposite lance-
shaped leaves. Its bright yellow clusters border the streams and
brighten the marshes from June till August.

Rock-rose. Frost-weed.
Helianthemum Canadense. Rock-rose Family.

About one foot high. Leaves.—Set close to the stem, simple, lance-oblong.
Flowers.—Of two kinds: the earlier, more noticeable ones, yellow, solitary, about
one inch across; the later ones small and clustered, usually without petals. Calyx.—
(Of the petal-bearing flowers) of five sepals. Corolla.—Of five early falling petals
which are crumpled in the bud. Stamens.—Numerous. Pistil.—One, with a three-
lobed stigma.
These fragile bright yellow flowers are found in gravelly places in
early summer. Under the influence of the sunshine they open once;
by the next day their petals have fallen, and their brief beauty is a
thing of the past. On June 17th Thoreau finds this “broad, cup-like
flower, one of the most delicate yellow flowers, with large spring-
yellow petals, and its stamens laid one way.”
In the Vale of Sharon a nearly allied rose-colored species
abounds. This is believed by some of the botanists who have travelled
in that region to be the Rose of Sharon which Solomon has
celebrated.
The name of frost-weed has been given to our plant because of
the crystals of ice which shoot from the cracked bark at the base of
the stem in late autumn.