Thinking Gender 2025: “Gendered Labors & Transnational Solidarities”

Keynote Speaker: Adriana Paz Ramírez

“From the Margins to the Center: Domestic Workers Realizing Collective Power & Gaining Rights”

Historically, paid domestic work has not been recognized as real work. Instead, it has been regarded as an extension of women’s roles and duties, unskilled and unqualified. The organized labor movement also has a long history of excluding domestic workers, who are primary Black and Indigenous migrant women. However, today, the International Labour Organization Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers known as Convention189 enshrines the rights of domestic workers.

The International Domestic Workers Federation is the first and only global union federation led and founded by women from the Global South. In this talk, Adriana Paz Ramirez will explore how domestic workers have galvanized their movement into a global force through strategic alliance building. Using creative organizing models, strategic alliance building and transnational solidarity, domestic workers were able to become recognized interlocutors with government institutions to develop legislation and enact much needed legislative reforms. Together, workers fought and continue to demand dignified work and life.