Dec 10, 2017 in Literature
If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you probably know that I’m a big fan of the sociologist and feminist scholar Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild. Previously I have reviewed her books “Strangers in Their Own Land” and “The Second Shift”. I’ve also published a practical guide to sharing housework, inspired by reading “The Second Shift”. Today I’m going to review The Managed Heart the book that first brought Professor Hochschild to mainstream attention.
But before I begin the review, I’d like to talk about words.
Words are handles to grasp concepts. These handles (like the concepts they evoke) are by necessity blurry and fuzzy. They...
Note: This blog post is about housework and chores. If disability or mental illness makes chores difficult for you to do and having someone breezily describe it as “easy” will be bad for you, I recommend skipping it. This meant to help people who are able split chores with a partner – but historically haven’t – begin to do so. It isn’t meant to be a cudgel with which to beat people who have difficulty with chores due to ability status. If this describes you, you are not lazy or broken and your difficulties are real and valid.
So, you’ve seen the comic by Emma, or read The Second Shift (which also happens to be my favourite term for the chores and childcare that happens after or before work), or maybe someone has linked you here with a pointed note. In any...
Sep 17, 2017 in Literature
Fittingly enough, The Second Shift is the second book I’ve read by the famed sociologist Professor Arlie Russel Hochschild. It’s a book about the second working shift – the one that starts when people, especially parents, come home from work and find themselves confronted with a mound of chores.
I really liked this book. It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve read this year and I’ve regaled everyone who will listen with facts from it for the past few weeks. Now I’m taking that regaling online. I’m not going to do a full summary of it because I think a lot of its ideas have entered the cultural consciousness; it’s well known that women continue to do the majority of work at home and have less time for leisure than men and this popular comic about mental load summarizes that section of the book better than I ever...