The Help: Common Issues Faced in the Maid Profession

In The help, maids endure many challenges that maids in our current society may or may not endure. Inequality and racial discrimination are two of the most important themes that we find in the story that shaped the type of relationship that the maids have with their employers.

In the story of The Help and maids in our society share a common issue which is not feeling like outcasts in society because of race. Both in Bahrain and in The Help story maids feel that because of their race, this makes them seem inferior to their employer. In general, maids don’t have don’t say their opinions even though they are asked for it because any wrong word spill can get them fired. In The Help, for instance, some employers have a close relationship with their maids like Skeeter and Constantine. In my daily life, I witness distancing because employers and maid and I believe that this is because of a lack of trust that people in our society have faced with that current or previous maids. People and maids relationships are very complicated from where I come from because respect and obeying is the two rule maids better follow or they endure the consequences.

I think that what the maids endure in the story is tough and they are strong women to showcase love and affection to the kids of the people that show racial discrimination and inequality. Here in our society, we don’t give our maids credit they're owed because they are strong for raising peoples kids even though their kids are far away and they would like to be helpful and living a life with their own kids. Employers in this society are not very harsh like employers in the book in-fact they are forgiving and helpful with their maids. I the book we see that the maids are being controlled by racism but when they raise toddlers they do an impressive job that the babies own mothers can’t in my opinion, like Aibileen and Mae Mobley for instance, Mae calls Aibileen mom which means that Mae has a way better relationship without Aibileen that with her own mom.

In our society I think that maids a being looked down on by their owners because when I asked my maid if she feels distanced she said yes, I think this is because our relationship with our maids is only about respect, like Skeeters relationship with Constantine because Skeeter trust Constantine so much that she told her all of her secrets. I think we should take the essence of Skeeter and Constantine relationships and apply it with our lives this truly shows the perfect relationship.

In conclusion we see that maids in the story and in our lives endure so we should show them the appreciation that they deserve and are owed because this is the way to repay them other than the money get which is with appreciation, love, and care because this really makes a huge difference to create the perfect relationship.