Of House Madams and Maids: Middle-Class Careers and the Politics of Domestic Helps among Northern Ghanaian Women

A major challenge to women’s empowerment remains the question of how and who takes charge of domestic responsibilities as more women join formal career paths. Many studies on domestic maids focus on women and gendered power relations by emphasizing how domestic servants question and contest their treatment by employers. Few question the practice and factors that inform its continuous existence. From in-depth interviews of thirteen middle-class women, three parents of maids, and six maids, this paper finds that career advancements for women in Northern Ghana require generations of other women to take up the work at home. Housemaids are engaged in vague informal agreements with little accountability of madams to fulfill their promises. It argues that the phenomenon negates the efforts that seek to liberate, empower and improve the conditions of Ghanaian women.