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Sean Paul’s Wife Jodi Jinx Called A ‘Domestic Engineer’ And It Sparked A Twitter Firestorm

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sean_paul_jodi-stewart
Sean Paul and his wife Jodi’ Jinx’ Henriques

A reference to Dancehall superstar Sean Paul’s wife Jodi ‘Jinx’ Henriques as a “domestic engineer” in a newspaper article, has sparked a firestorm on Jamaican Twitter.

In the article titled Irresistible love – Celebrities reveal the qualities they find appealing in a partner which was published in The Jamaica Gleaner on Valentine’s Day, Jodi, 38, is described as a “domestic engineer and costume designer”, and is quoted as saying, among other things, that “what makes her happy is knowing she is cared for and loved by her man”.

“Domestic Engineer” has been trending No. 1 on Twitter in Jamaica since the article was published and scores of persons on the platform, who were hearing of the term for the first time, found the reference hilarious.  Many expressed sarcasm, surprise, and sheer amusement about the term which has been used in recent times as a misnomer, a euphemism, or what many regard as a “fancy word” for “housewife”.

Some users rehashed the long-held belief that the addition of the word engineer to certain occupations is demeaning to actual engineers.

One upset engineering student declared: “So ppl out here just slapping engineer on things while I’m slaving through four years of school”, while another man added: “What the hell is a Domestic engineer?  The word engineer is just being slapped about”.

“Weh she a do, jump start the stove.  Kmft, she cyaah gweh,” Down Badman said, while Virgo of The Year declared sarcastically, “about to add Domestic Engineer to my resume”.

Mimicking participants in TVJ’s School’s Challenge Quiz, one user who seemingly changed his Twitter handle to Future Domestic Engineer mockingly wrote: “In the future, God’s will, I would like to become a domestic engineer”.

Another woman posted: “Smaddy look inna the Gleaner and tell me if any Domestic Engineer jobs are hiring please an tonx.  Mi need a werk.”

Two brash Twitter users did not spare any punches, one asking: “Jodi a helper now?” while the other declared: “N-gga wtf is a Domestic Engineer.  True she white unu fraid fi call her housewife?”.

Others said that whilst being referred to as a housewife is nothing to be ashamed of, Jodi should not be pretentious. “I just know she was the one who said she want to be called a domestic engineer,” one amused user said.

sp-wife
Jodi’ Jinx’ Henriques

Here are more reactions from Twitter users.

https://twitter.com/gerald2dg/status/1361405798052683776

https://twitter.com/gyalkapone/status/1361402021010694147

https://twitter.com/Omirtug/status/1361393290608865288

https://twitter.com/vathompson101/status/1361385603921817604

https://twitter.com/LaJeovaune/status/1361375151020011522

Online, employment websites have proffered various descriptions for the term Domestic Engineer, but the central theme, is that they perform basic household duties.

BetterTeam.com describes domestic engineers as “stay-at-home parents or individuals appointed by families to perform various housekeeping tasks in private home settings” who “organize and tidy up houses, perform household chores, manage budgets, and provide childcare.

“They may also perform basic garden maintenance and take care of pets,” the site said.

Zippia.com said some Domestic Engineers were racking up top dollars in the United States for their services.

“There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a domestic engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $39.73 an hour? That’s $82,636 a year!   Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 8,000 job opportunities across the U.S,” the website noted.

The website also said that the most important skills required to be a domestic engineer,  included scheduling appointments, financial management, and counselling children, and that its research has shown that 19.6 percent of Domestic Engineers have a bachelor’s degree, while 3.4 per cent have master’s degrees.

“Even though some domestic engineers have a college degree, it’s possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED,” it said.

There is one site though www.daindia.com, that published an article in August 2007 which ranged between mockery and outright scorn of the term Domestic Engineer.   The article titled When housewife became a ‘domestic engineer’ noted that “the language police have added more words to their politically correct lexicon – so it is no longer okay to call a housewife a ‘homemaker’.

It referenced the website newspeak.com which tracked “modernspeak” and which took a “tongue-in-cheek stand on constant additions and improvisations in the politically correct lexicon”, listing words that have supposedly lost their original meaning.

One example was  ‘patriot’, which once meant one who loves his country and culture, but now means ‘bigot, racist, and a possible terrorist’ it said.

Newspeak had argued that scores of English words were being altered to make certain ideas more palatable for the masses and to create a perfect language, including sex change, which has been replaced by “gender re-assignment”, broken home by “dysfunctional family”, and psycho by “pathologically high-spirited”.

The website compared ‘modernspeak’ with “Newspeak” – the official language of the totalitarian state of Oceania, in which all words that went against party policy were deleted, in George Orwell’s classic fictitional book titled Nineteen Eighty Four, which was published in 1949.

“The website sees the same destruction of words in today’s world as in Orwell’s fictitious Oceania, where the state used misleading terms such as ‘Joycamp’ to describe its horrible forced labour camps, called its propaganda department ‘The Ministry of Truth’; renamed the rationing department ‘The Ministry of Plenty’ and “the cold, unemotional act of sex for the sole purpose of producing children” as ‘goodsex’ Daindia noted.