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A review by mkwojcie
Women's Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home by Megan K. Stack
3.0
"I think about all the houses I've known since withdrawing from the world to work at home. I remember the scenes and the stories. And I think, somebody should investigate. Somebody should write about all of this. But this is my life. If I investigate, I must stand for examination. If I interrogate, I'll be the one who has to answer."
"Women's Work" takes on the important topic of white working women who juggle career and motherhood primarily through the cheap labor of other working mothers, usually women of color. Examining, in effect, the systems and conditions that made it possible for her to write this very book. Given many reviews, I expected this to be a more sociological examination of that topic, examining patterns, perhaps alongside personal encounters with these situations, and proposing researched solutions. While the writing was gorgeous and the project of personally examining one's own privilege is admirable, the book's refrain of "I don't have the answers" for a variety of problems became frustrating, and the work could have benefitted greatly from the attempt to find some. As well as greater focus on the women she purports to write about, instead of lengthy narratives about going into labor or breastfeeding: while these nannies are characters in the broader narrative of her own motherhood, their lives and perspectives are largely relegated to the final and shortest section of the book.
Having read several recent books surrounding the topic of women's labor and domestic work back-to-back for a class I'm about to teach, I would recommend "Fed Up" much more highly, as an examination of a woman's life personally dealing with some core gendered issues that this book (perhaps it's unfair to say) can only imagine as solvable through outsourcing. If you're interested in the lives of domestic workers, "Maid" or "In A Day's Work."
"Women's Work" takes on the important topic of white working women who juggle career and motherhood primarily through the cheap labor of other working mothers, usually women of color. Examining, in effect, the systems and conditions that made it possible for her to write this very book. Given many reviews, I expected this to be a more sociological examination of that topic, examining patterns, perhaps alongside personal encounters with these situations, and proposing researched solutions. While the writing was gorgeous and the project of personally examining one's own privilege is admirable, the book's refrain of "I don't have the answers" for a variety of problems became frustrating, and the work could have benefitted greatly from the attempt to find some. As well as greater focus on the women she purports to write about, instead of lengthy narratives about going into labor or breastfeeding: while these nannies are characters in the broader narrative of her own motherhood, their lives and perspectives are largely relegated to the final and shortest section of the book.
Having read several recent books surrounding the topic of women's labor and domestic work back-to-back for a class I'm about to teach, I would recommend "Fed Up" much more highly, as an examination of a woman's life personally dealing with some core gendered issues that this book (perhaps it's unfair to say) can only imagine as solvable through outsourcing. If you're interested in the lives of domestic workers, "Maid" or "In A Day's Work."