late night reflections on work ethics and its value

Last week I did a paper on migrant workers' labor and human rights abuses in the Arabian peninsula, where I argued that it is for the long-term best economic interests of the Gulf countries to invest in promoting better human and rights conditions for migrant workers as applied to construction and domestic workers. Today as I am writing a paper on the reform of Shari`ah laws in Palestine I have been thinking about domestic workers and the larger work ethic. I have lived with different people - women mostly throughout my years abroad in the States. One thing I noticed about the women I lived with and here I will single out two Arab women whom I lived with in different times is their apathy to house work. One caveat before you, concerned reader continue reading: I am basing my entry today on the assumption that as an Arab, an Arab woman is known her cleanliness and overall hygiene ( something I heard from different Arab men's observations about Arab women). any case, the Arab women I lived with rarely did house work such as doing the dishes, taking out the trash when it overflows and rarely cooked. Perhaps because of their upbringing and their socio-economic background they never felt the need to do or attempt to learn all this. Yet the link to the entire domestic workers regime is made here: the racist treatment of domestic workers who come from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and other South Asian countries in some parts of the Arab world such as Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain among others bespeak a wider capitalist and global effect on these countries on the one hand and utter taking for granted of someone else's labor to do the work on the other ,and just complete disregard to the value of work and labor on the other end of the spectrum. This positing of the problem and link between someone's apathy to domestic house shores might be wrong but in my case I seriously take it into consideration.
Take for instance the example of different anthropological studies that documented the change in young women's views in Palestine about cooking and cleaning : one study looked at how young women in some parts of the West Bank see a better value in pursuing a career and education over getting married and "cleaning and cooking" for their husbands and that they refuse this fixed role. It is true that domestic work is "work" that is yet to be given its due economic value instead of treating it as "informal" work ,and perhaps that's why some women have an aversion to it. But I think it is a matter of perception: it is not a nice work but it has to be done whether one likes it or not. Indeed, domestic work is seen as a menial kind of job only a domestic "servant" is worth doing , irrespective of her nationality. Perhaps if people internalized the notion of domestic house shores positively instead of giving it a negative "not my business" connotation, maybe , maybe then people will start to appreciate the work done by domestic workers as they work all night and all day cleaning after people..