What we talk about when we talk about work
And what's sacred
I’m writing this from the depths of overwork, and as I think more about the piece I offered this week in response to that guy’s speech about women working or not working or whatever it was he was saying:
I am also thinking about all the artists and writers I know who desperately want to do their work, but also, be compensated for that work. Who are aware that most people don’t see what they do as work, at least not work that is worth paying for, even when they consume it; as well as those who are struggling to cobble together a livable income doing the kind of work that we need most right now.
I’m thinking about all the students I met with this week to discuss how they felt blocked and interrupted by care work, unable to access their highest, most creative selves—but who also wanted it to be known that they saw their mothering work as valuable, too, even if many others do not.
I am trying to get better at valuing my own work, which is a struggle, of course, in a culture that doesn’t believe the work I do at home or for an income is actual work. Teaching, most people agree, is work, though not enough for a living wage. Writing, not really. Mothering, well, no.
At least—not work in the sense that it ought to be paid, monetized, and therefore valued in an economic system that only confers value on things by monetizing them. That would corrupt the caring labor, or so the reasoning goes— so if it’s work, it’s the kind that is a natural expression of one gender, work that men are entitled to.
Some of the anxiety around calling art or intellectual and creative labor or caring or housework work is, I think, related to the need to resist the idea that everything is work. If everything is “emotional labor” at home, for instance, might that mean nothing is a gesture of love, connection, or human affection? Might that mean nothing is sacred?
I, too, detest the reduction of everything to work. I want to believe that there are things that we do that are not labor— and yet, isn’t that because I have a very limited definition of what labor looks like and what it’s for? Even Marx believed that the exploitative, soul-crushing nature of work was not an essential part of the human condition, but rather, work could be, and has been, in different circumstances, creative, communal, and fulfilling. (He didn’t, though, recognize domestic work as work, because he didn’t recognize that the work done inside the home produced something of shared social value, but I digress.)
I think this is at the heart of the post-Girlbossian v. trad wife moment in which we find ourselves, which seems to be giving us lots of conversations that devolve into platitudes like, well, women should be allowed to pursue any kind of work they want. And they should! But do they want to? What we’re really talking about is how do we define work, ambition, and the place it has in our lives.
I think this, too, is why people are often reluctant to value the work of artists, writers, teachers, childcare providers, parents, house cleaners, and so on. Not only because it’s historically feminine work, but because it is sacred work. And we’ve become so accustomed to seeing work as painful and awful.
See also:
Given all that, I have been thinking lately about what my work is as a writer, and whether I am doing it. One member of our (beautiful, inspiring) Writing Group said this week that they realized writing work must be comprised of at least three parts: writing toward a current project, practicing writing by cultivating new techniques, and finally, play.