All Publication Details
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Appears in:
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y
Hecate
vol.
45
no.
1/2
Carole Ferrier
(editor),
Jena Woodhouse
(editor),
2019
21220789
2019
periodical issue
'The house husbands or SNAGS, a new phenomenon, did not see this as a permanent role and most, sooner or later, tired of a lack of life in the public sphere; despite a brief fashion for the male population's public job being private Home Duties, many men longed to re-enter the usual world; one in which important or sometimes stimulating things went on. The Australian Institute of Family Studies (in the government Department of Social Services) has regularly researched attitudes to gender roles within households in relation to things such as divided domestic work and has found, in its surveys, considerable support for shared housework. Other factors are in play in many countries, especially the incidence of child marriage (650 million girls) and of Female Genital Mutilation (imposed upon 200 million girls), the latter increasingly administered by actual health services rather than the stereotypical old, female relative with a razor blade and a sewing basket. The witches and midwives of centuries ago were one thing (documented, for example, in Barbara Ehrenreich's 1973 Witches, Midwives and Nurses) but more recently, in COVID-19 times, women are much in demand in their jobs/professions as health workers, and have been given enthusiastic encouragement to lead their working life in close contact with often viralent infections, as "essential workers"-a category that seems to have benefits for the bourgeoisie who belong to it, but not many for nurses working long and demanding shifts, wearing often-uncomfortable Personal Protective Equipment, in hospitals and infection-testing clinics.' (Carole Ferrier, Editorial introduction)
2019 pg. 115-116, 309.
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Appears in:
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Hecate
vol.
46
no.
1/2
January
2020
24061124
2020
periodical issue
On 31 December 2019 the World Health Organisation China Office was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, a city of 10m people, 700 km inland from Shanghai. The disease was named COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 on 11 February, after the first case in Australia was notified in Melbourne on 25 January. Within a few months, major shifts in everyday life would occur, for people around the world. Thousands, and then millions, and then hundreds of millions of people were pushed back into the home—entire populations where lockdowns were declared, and these meant that many jobs were lost or had an uncertain future continuation. Women were disproportionally represented in this group and, because of still-prevalent ideations of a male breadwinner for the household and of female roles in the home, far fewer women than men have returned to work outside it. In addition, in many paid occupations, "working from home" (when it could be done with phone and computer technology) became very widespread—and it has persisted for many people for all of their paid work time, or some of that time, even when returning to the office was possible, or encouraged. Many people in Australia declared that they preferred this, at least for some days of the week, because it removed the time spent travelling to the workplace or getting offspring to childcare —and many businesses were keen to reduce or even eliminate their office space. They perceived this as saving money, as did the workers in relation to the cost of travel or, quite often, of childcare (and this also led to job losses in that female-dominated sector). ' (Carole Ferrier , Editorial introduction)
2020 pg. 186
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