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A review by nico2022
The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home by Anne Machung, Arlie Hochschild
4.0
A few years ago, I told a girlfriend of mine that the reason women didn't run the world is we get distracted by housework. I was joking, but as it turns out, I wasn't too far from being right. Women work 2-4 extra weeks a year compared to their husbands when it comes to domestic and family care, and when pushed, men often avoid the work entirely (beds don't need made, hire a maid, etc.).
Prof. Hochschild's book offers fantastic insight into this imbalance and its many forms; I'd highly recommend it. From a purely intellectual perspective, it's fascinating and digestible by a lay person (it also made me want to read more sociology books). From a personal perspective, it spoke to some things very close to me and gave words and concepts to thoughts and feelings I'd only loosely grasped before: gender strategies (e.g., I looked at the people and opportunities around me to determine what type of woman made sense in my context), the economy of gratitude, and the difference between managing and doing domestic work.
My only disappointment was that only heterosexual couples with children were included in the study. I'm actually writing a letter to the author (I'm THAT nerdy) asking if there are similar studies of dual-career couples without children and research on same-sex, dual-career couples with children. I'm curious about how the second shift would be balanced in these cases and how gender strategies play out in the latter scenario.
What I took away from this work—particularly in light of some conversations I've heard in the news lately—is that balancing career and family cannot be a "women's problem." It's a family problem, and men should be part of families. The question isn't how women can balance work and motherhood. The question should be how can everyone do good work and nurture healthy families?
Prof. Hochschild's book offers fantastic insight into this imbalance and its many forms; I'd highly recommend it. From a purely intellectual perspective, it's fascinating and digestible by a lay person (it also made me want to read more sociology books). From a personal perspective, it spoke to some things very close to me and gave words and concepts to thoughts and feelings I'd only loosely grasped before: gender strategies (e.g., I looked at the people and opportunities around me to determine what type of woman made sense in my context), the economy of gratitude, and the difference between managing and doing domestic work.
My only disappointment was that only heterosexual couples with children were included in the study. I'm actually writing a letter to the author (I'm THAT nerdy) asking if there are similar studies of dual-career couples without children and research on same-sex, dual-career couples with children. I'm curious about how the second shift would be balanced in these cases and how gender strategies play out in the latter scenario.
What I took away from this work—particularly in light of some conversations I've heard in the news lately—is that balancing career and family cannot be a "women's problem." It's a family problem, and men should be part of families. The question isn't how women can balance work and motherhood. The question should be how can everyone do good work and nurture healthy families?