Gender Work

This working group meets once a month to discuss an assigned text that engages gendered labor, gender as labor, and various forms of (social, cultural, biological) reproduction. What is the relation between burnout and contemporary dissatisfaction with late capitalism, evidenced in “quiet quitting”; rising union support in the U.S.; and longstanding grievances about the non-recognition of informal and often feminized labor? How do we think about labor that is emotional and sexual, and performed in the context of intimate life? When is love work? How is the social category of childhood constructed in opposition to labor, and to what end? How do social inequalities linked to race, immigration status, disability, class, and sexuality mark certain people as healthy, fit, and worthy of reproductive and social reproductive futurity and mark others as unhealthy and unfit for the same things? How do we best advocate for critical engagement with the paid and unpaid forms of labor performed in the domestic sphere? Potential authors include Judith Butler, bell hooks, Dorothy Roberts, Mark Fisher, Sophie Lewis, Andrea Long Chu, Sara Ahmed, Silvia Federici, Jenny Brown, Shulamith Firestone, Angela Davis, Helen Hester, Dolores Hayden, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Rhacel Parreñas, Eileen Boris, Kalindi Vora, Neda Atanasoski, Alexandra Kollontai, and Kristen Ghodsee.