Brazil has seven million maids, apparently more than any other country, and they have been the butts of jokes and denigration for ages. That’s why an anonymous Twitter account highlighting how poorly Brazilians treat their maids is worth noting. @aminhaempregada began re-tweeting examples of what people think and say about their maids, revealing attitudes with tweets like “My maid is really dumb. Sometimes I feel like chopping that fat of hers with a kitchen knife.” Within days of its beginning the account had 8000 followers. Some Tweets defended their contents, some shared they felt ashamed for having written them, and maids and their relatives tweeted stories of derogatory treatment.
The owner of the Twitter account is in Sao Paulo, in his 30’s, was raised by maids and doesn’t want credit for the site. He just wants to bring out the facts and make it easier for all to show love and respect to maids.
In India and in Middle Eastern countries maids fare no better than in Brazil. The U.S may have made progress, we no longer treat maids the way we did in the fairly recent book and subsequent movie “The Help” for example, but we still have ways to go before we can be a paragon.