Is it ethical to hire a house cleaner? Feminist Advice Friday paid subscriber bonus

A reader wonders if hiring a house cleaner exacerbates the exploitation of women, especially women of color.

A reader asks…

Here's our household background: We're a heterosexual married couple with a 3 1/2 year old daughter and a dog. We own our home. We are both educators, so we are both busy professionals who have multiple jobs and often come home tired.

My wife thinks we have an equitable relationship (I ask her every 3-4 weeks and asked her again before writing this message; she said yes). With our busy jobs, it's just too much to expect that everything gets cleaned. We both understand if dishes pile up in the sink over the week; neither of us argue about it. I do my share and I do not mind cleaning really dirty things like toilets or shower grout.

However, we never seem to have the time and energy to clean all the things we want. My ethical concern is because I know cleaning services are mostly staffed by women, often women of color who can't themselves afford to hire cleaning services.

I fear that we may be contributing to their household labor inequality ourselves! Is the solution to pay them enough and tip them? That would certainly be the answer from our capitalist system. I think you mentioned hiring a cleaner in a post awhile ago. What do you think about the ethics of hiring cleaners?