Motherload

Professor Jonathan Gershuny of the Centre for Time Use Research in Oxford was making depressing and familiar points on  Woman’s Hour this week  (‘ Chore Wars ’). W omen have been completely done over in the modern world, he said. Because women cannot expect marriage to last (statistically), they'd better keep earning, plus they can still expect to shoulder the majority of the unpaid work at home.   This isn't news to me, but it's depressing to hear a Professor say it. I found it a little simplistic: what about how women cop the unpaid work at   work   as well? All those emotional dynamics, the presenteeism, the bringing in of fattening cakes, and, frankly, the menial   paid   parts of jobs.  Be that as it may, Professor Gershuny's argument was that domestic labour has been progressively 'feminised', through labour-saving devices like boilers, dishwashers and hoovers. He argues that men used to lay the fires in the average home. Domestic jo...

Yesterday, Mumsnet asked me to write a guest post for them on their current Chores Survey. You can read the post here , and I've added it for convenience below. Enjoy! "On Monday I met a friend for lunch. I'd put ‘Luncheon with Janet’ in the calendar, because it made us both laugh to think of ourselves as Ladies who Lunch. As we were sitting chatting, my husband walked into the cafe, carrying a big bag of food shopping. He looked rather dashing, actually, all six foot three of him; he had on one of his dark work jackets, and those deep chocolate brown eyes were twinkling. He wanted to know whether I had the car with me, so he could put the shopping in the boot and walk home. As he left the cafe, we flirted with each other, and he pulled an imaginary forelock, Clifford to my Lady Chatterley. How are we to interpret this silly little anecdote? My heart burst with pride to see my husband in an unaccustomed context and to see him caring for the family, but the tra...