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In the summer of 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, Aibileen Clark, a Black woman in her fifties, has been working for the white Leefolt family for two years as a maid and caretaker of their daughter, Mae Mobley. While working one day, Aibileen overhears a conversation between Elizabeth Leefolt and her friends, Skeeter Phelan, Hilly Holbrook, and Hilly’s mother, Miss Walters. Hilly urges Elizabeth to have a separate bathroom built for Aibileen, as she believes Black people carry different diseases than white people. Skeeter is appalled by this claim and later privately asks Aibileen if she wishes things were different, a question Aibileen finds ridiculous. Elizabeth, on the other hand, has a separate bathroom built in the garage even though she and her husband cannot afford it. Meanwhile, Aibileen’s best friend Minny is fired from her job as Miss Walters’s maid, and Hilly is sending her mother to a nursing home. Due to lies spread by Hilly that Minny is a thief, Minny struggles to find a new job, though eventually finds one with Celia Foote. As Celia is married to Hilly’s ex-boyfriend and seen as “white trash,” she is excluded from most of Jackson’s social scene.

Skeeter, a recent college graduate, feels aimless while living at her parents’ house, wondering what happened to her childhood maid Constantine, who quit out of the blue. Skeeter hopes to be a writer and has applied for a job at the publisher Harper & Row in Manhattan. A senior editor, Elaine Stein, writes to Skeeter encouraging her to get some writing experience and to write about anything that bothers her about society. Bolstered by this, Skeeter secures a job at the local newspaper writing a column giving cleaning advice, a topic about which she knows nothing. Skeeter gets permission from Elizabeth to ask Aibileen for help with writing her column. While talking to Aibileen, Skeeter learns that Aibileen’s son, Treelore, was writing a book about what it was like to be a Black person working for white people before he died. This inspires Skeeter to research what working as a maid is like. Skeeter asks to interview Aibileen for the book though promises to change identifying information such as her name and the name of the town. Aibileen is at first reluctant, wary of the danger she would be in. However, increasingly frustrated by Hilly’s racist talk, Aibileen agrees, and she and Skeeter begin meeting in secret.

Elaine Stein is interested in Skeeter’s book from the point of view of domestic workers and she tells Skeeter she should interview at least a dozen maids. Aibileen tries to recruit more maids to talk to Skeeter, though no one will agree. Eventually, Aibileen convinces Minny to participate. And after Hilly has her maid, Yule May, arrested for petty theft, several other maids agree to talk to Skeeter. Skeeter meets with the maids at night in secret while beginning a relationship with Stuart Whitworth, Jr. After finding a copy of the Jim Crow laws in Skeeter’s bag, Hilly begins to suspect that Skeeter is sympathetic toward the civil rights movement. Hilly eventually bullies Skeeter into publishing her Home Health Sanitation Initiative, advocating for separate bathrooms for maids in the home, in the Junior League’s newsletter. Skeeter does so, yet in a piece below the initiative about a coat drive, Skeeter directs people to leave their old toilets at Hilly’s house instead of their coats. Hilly is furious to find dozens of toilets in her front yard and ostracizes Skeeter.

Meanwhile, Minny is bewildered by Celia, who barely leaves the house and who treats Minny as an equal. Minny eventually discovers that Celia has had several miscarriages that she has kept hidden from her husband. Although Minny tries to get Celia to see that Hilly will never accept her, Celia is determined to befriend Hilly. At the Junior League’s annual Children’s Benefit, Celia gets drunk and tries to talk to Hilly, although Hilly is only focused on who nominated her for a chocolate pie made by Minny. In the confusion, Celia accidentally rips Hilly’s dress and vomits in front of everyone. Celia spends the next week in bed ashamed, and Minny eventually reveals to Celia why Hilly was so angry about the pie. While Minny worked for Hilly’s mother, Hilly had spread rumors that Minny was a thief. Hilly wanted Minny to work for her after she put her mother in a nursing home, so she figured telling people Minny was a thief would prevent them from hiring Minny and she could hire her herself. Out of revenge, Minny made a chocolate pie that contained her feces and brought it to Hilly, who ate two slices of it before Minny told her what was in it. Ever since, Minny has tried to avoid Hilly, although she knows Hilly would never want anyone to know what happened. To help protect all of the maids who gave their stories for Skeeter’s book, Minny suggests Skeeter put the story about the pie in their book so that Hilly will insist the book does not take place in Jackson.

Once the book is published, some people begin to suspect it’s about Jackson based on certain details. However, none of the white women want to admit to the behavior described in the book and so cannot fire their maids. Having broken off her relationship with Stuart for good, Skeeter accepts a junior position at Harper & Row and moves to New York. Minny, who has been assured employment by Celia and her husband, takes her children and leaves her abusive husband, Leroy. Hilly, having finished reading the book and figured out it was about Jackson, tries to get Elizabeth to have Aibileen arrested for stealing. Although Elizabeth refuses to press charges, as Aibileen is innocent, Elizabeth reluctantly fires Aibileen. As Aibileen says goodbye to a tearful Mae Mobley and leaves the Leefolt home for good, she is both excited and nervous about the prospect of a fresh start.

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