Helping Themselves to the Help

Arnold Schwarzenegger has admitted to having a sexual relationship with a woman who worked in his home, which resulted in the birth of a son. Meanwhile, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, faces charges of sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid; he denies the allegations.

The storylines feel almost ancient. In Mr. Schwarzenegger’s case, the woman was a member of his domestic staff for 20 years. According to widespread press reports, she, like her former employer, is an immigrant to this country, and I imagine that the very different experiences they brought to the U.S. served to foster the nasty interplay of social class, privilege and race, heightening the excitement of the affair for Mr. Schwarzenegger and ensuring that she would remain the subservient party.

Also new to this country were the New York City hotel maid and Mr. Strauss-Kahn—one an immigrant, the other a visiting foreign dignitary. The alleged victim is a mother and a devout Muslim who wears a headscarf to work, according to press reports; her lawyer has said that she and her daughter moved from Guinea seven years ago and were granted asylum.

The French people have protested Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s being treated like any other sex criminal (so much for equality, fraternity and all that), tossed in Rikers Island. But then the French do not have a great history where the fair treatment of northern Africans is concerned. It’s easy to imagine that his alleged use of this woman is not unrelated to her race and accent, and—more than anything else—to her lowly position as a maid.

Obviously, there is a world of difference between these two events—one a seemingly consensual relationship and the other an alleged assault. But the sense that both women were manageable and somewhat expendable must have emanated, on some level, from their jobs.

Domestic workers deal with the mess of other people’s lives—their unmade beds and fouled clothing and messy children. They operate in a corner of commerce that few are eager to illuminate; among women, how many feminists have their own nannies and housekeepers, toiling away without Social Security and paid benefits? And the more brutal men among us have been quick to exploit such women for their own domestic needs.

When it comes to powerful men and poor women, the sorry maxim of ancient warfare still holds true: The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

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