House Elves

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 180832

This is a reply to Carol's
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180811> with
Goddlefrood's
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180819> and 
my <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180792> 

Carol:
<< Well, yes. But eliminating the compulsion to punish themselves,
which I agree is a problem (the chief concern of Hermione in DH),
isn't freedom from what a_svirn and Magpie are calling "slavery." >>

Yes. Immediately improving the condition of House Elves is the short
term point 1 (short term: ordering them not to punish themselves while
longer term: searching for more thorough cures) and point 2 (outlawing
abuse of House Elves). Ending slavery starts with point 3.

Catlady then:
<< 2.5) House Elves taken away from egregiously abusive employers
would feel the same as children taken away from egregiously abusive
parents  -- that they are the ones being punished, not the
masters/parents.

This is a bad thing, which WSPCHE should have a rehabilitation
(brainwashing and re-employment) program to help displaced House Elves
with. >>

Carol:
<< I don't understand what you're saying here, or what WSPCHE is. >>

Catlady then:
<< SPEW should have been [named] WSPCHE, Wizarding Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to House Elves. >>

Catlady now:
I was thinking of the RSPCA and other Societies for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals and the RSPCC and other Societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children. These groups started as social
activists, trying to get the public to care about animals/children
while trying to get the individuals in control of animals/children to
treat them okay. Once they had gotten the public to care, they
successfully lobbied for laws against cruelty to animals and cruelty
to children. Then they had a role in enforcement of those laws (SPCCs
have handed that role over to government Departments of Children and
Family Services).

(At the beginning, most of the animals were work animals, with cart
horses being especially visible victims. Now most of them are pets.)

Penalties for people mistreating their animals or children range from
being required to take a parenting class/pet care class, to paying a
fine, to having the child or animal taken into protection (aka taken
away from the parent/owner), to prison time. I therefore assume that
legal penalties for wizards mistreating their House Elves will range
the same, from taking a class to imprisonment, including having the
abused House Elf taken into protection (maybe only when it is
considered to be in immediate danger of being killed).

I believe it is documented that children taken away from abusive
parents often believe that it is they who did wrong and are being
punished, rather than that the abusive adult did wrong. They often
want to go home to Mommy even if the foster home is a decent place
(and home wasn't). 

Even if this is not true of abused children, don't you think it would
be true of most abused House Elves? Dobby would have been glad to have
been taken away from the Malfoys, but would Winky have been glad to
have been taken away from the Crouches even if Mr Crouch had ordered
her to iron her mouth for talking back?

So WSPCHE should have a re-employment program for those Dobbies, and a
rehabilitation program for those Winkies rather than just dumping her
into new employment with her broken heart and her drinking problem.
Rehabilitation means something like brainwashing her into believing
that those no-good Crouches never were worthy of her and her
foremothers. Maybe pep talks about she'll find better wizards to care
for. Telling her she should conceal her broken heart so other House
Elves don't despise her.

Catlady before: 
<< 3) Freedom to leave an unwanted employer and seek another. >>

Catlady now:
That is when ending slavery begins.

Goddlefrood:
<< they might become mischievous nuisances if annoyed (snip). On the
other hand, it might prove impossible to get rid of a troublesome hob" >>

Catlady before: 
<< Of course, it's only fair that the employer would have the right to
sack an unwanted House Elf and seek another. >>

Catlady now:
And prosecute him for trepass if he won't leave, and get a restraining
order against him (like Olive Hornby did against Moaning Myrtle).

Catlady before:
<< To make sure that both House Elves and wizards know their rights
and duties, a law that both must sign an employment contract. Yes, the
law intrudes between House  Elves and wizards who have lived together
happily for decades, forcing them to sign some stupid contract. >>

Carol:
<< Are you for or against the "stupid contract"? Are you advocating
more bureaucracy (just what the WWW needs!) or ridiculing the idea? >>

Catlady now:
I'm in favor of the stupid contract and the additional bureaucracy,
because I can't think how else word could be gotten to all House Elves
that they are now free to leave if they want to, and have assistance
to find a new employer, Even with the contract, it would be terribly
difficult to explain it to the House Elves (as per the example
conversation you, Carol, posted in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180806>) Even
when they understood it, very few would do it.

Goddlefrood:
<< Should the elves be freed en masse, and there is no indication that
they would be in the books, then I don't think they would actually
have much of a change in their circumstances. They would undoubtedly
continue to work as domestic servants for witches and wizards. >>

Catlady now:
Exactly.

Carol in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180806>:
<< If they were freed, they'd have clothes rather than tea towels
(marking them in the eyes of other House-Elves as fired and
disgraced).  >>

Catlady now:
All the House Elves in Britain would have been freed, so none of them
would be in a position to sneer at any of the others. 

Carol in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/180806>:
<< Just how freed Elves would choose their masters is beyond me. Are
they supposed to wander the WW until they find a family that they
like, meantime living without work or shelter and somehow grubbing for
food? >>

Catlady then:
<<  3.5) Can we rely on the free market to spontaneously generate a
House Elf employment agency? An 'Elves Seeking Houses' section of
classified ads in Witch Weekly? A particular bulletin board in
Hogsmead where wizards post House Elf Wanted notices? >>

Catlady now:
Classified ads and bulletin boards, for-profit employment agencies 
and non-profit employment agencies (Ministry: office of House Elf
relocation, WSPCHE re-employment program) are ways for House Elves to
find new masters without wandering the country knocking on random
doors. (Altho' OoP!Kreachy could have skipped all that and just gone
to Narcissa.) 

I'm sure there would be more wizards seeking House Elves than House
Elves seeking wizards; remember Ron saying that Mrs Weasley had always
wanted a House Elf to help with the ironing? I sure would love to hire
a House Elf. 

The only problem is stated by Ron, that you'll never find a House Elf
at The Burrow, because they only like big mansions and castles. So
some House Elves might have to swallow their pride and work in a
smaller house or flat. I think Dobby must have sought work only in
big, rich houses that already had House Elves, or the inhabitants
wouldn't have been so haughty about refusing to pay him.

Carol: 
<< Not unless you want to make House-Elves as dependent on money as
humans, essentially turning them into us. >>

Goddlefrood:
<< Whether they were paid or not would depend on the individual elf.
Dobby's being paid in GoF was repugnant to most of the elves >>

Catlady now:
It is possible that the employment contracts provide no pay nor time
off nor health care to the House Elf, only room and board. And maybe a
promise to keep the Elf even when he's too old and feeble to work.
Really, keeping a House Elf seems even less expensive than keeping a
cat, so why would I fire the poor old guy? I mean, when my cats get
very old, if they're not suffering, I don't have them euthanized just
because of incontinence and constantly cleaning the carpet and the
blankets after them. Whether House Elves need pay, time off, health
care, old age pensions is something that WSPCHE will have to study
once the basic idea that there must be a contract is accepted. Maybe
they need no involvement in the money economy unless they specially
ask for it.

Carol:
<< Somehow, I don't think that more Wizarding laws and more
bureaucracy are what a_svirn has in mind. I think it's more like
self-rule for House-Elves, whether they want it or not. As they
obviously don't, or they'd have picked up those hats that Hermione
placed in the Gryffindor Common Room. >>

If someday there are some House Elves who want self-rule, I think they
should be allowed to find or buy their own home or town and do it. I
don't know whether such House Elves will turn up in the future.

<< So wizards should impose their own values onto House-Elves,
deciding what's right for them and ignoring their own wishes so
they'll be just like us. Sounds like cultural imperialism to me,
assuming that human culture and values (specifically, those of the WW)
are superior to House-Elves values, as if House-Elves are incapable of
deciding what they want (which is, clearly, domestic service to
Wizards). How that's different from nineteenth-century Christian
missionaries saving cannibals from their own culture by converting and
educating them is unclear to me. The Wizards are deciding what's right
for the Elves ("freedom") and imposing it on them. (You *will* wear
clothes and earn wages because that's the *right* way to do things.
And if Elves would rather wear tea towels and work for praise from a
master they respect, well, the Elves must be wrong.)

Carol, who is all for an end to self-punishment and an end to abuse by
Wizards, but thinks that, otherwise, the system works fine as it is,
for all concerned >>

Catlady now:
In the wizarding world, there will surely be sincere and good-hearted
people making exactly those arguments, and they might win the elections.

And I, not being a_svirn, would not care too much which side won that
election.

But, most certainly, cultural imperialism is a tough problem. I'm
trying to work out a compromise, with House Elves free to live their
own way if they want to, with service, tea towels and praise, but
freedom to live another way if they choose. My law wouldn't require
they wear clothes if polling and focus groups show they'll accept
freedom without clothes. My law might not require they accept pay;
depending on the findings of WSPCHE's study, their pay can go straight
from the employer to an escrow account. 

Several people have suggested that House Elves are more like dogs
(working dogs, of course) who can talk than like any kind of human.
Guide dogs and service dogs don't get paid, don't get time off (except
to be taken to the groomer shop for a bath, which most non-working
dogs I've known Do Not Want), and don't choose their masters. So when
we Muggles genetically engineer dogs to speak intelligently, we may
have this same problem.