Discussion about this post

User's avatar
EJH's avatar

I wonder how much of the *performance* of calendars/life maintenance/Instagramification of domestic life is because these are some of the only ways women (of means and privilege) get validation that the unpaid/emotional labor of domestic life is actually hard work. To have all that organization documented and shared publicly becomes a kind of KPIs for the home, a measurement and means of recognition in a culture that has chosen not to value the actual labor or end results. Especially in a society that sets an unrealistically high standards, refuses to acknowledge unequal playing fields, and rewards extra points to the appearance of effortlessness, these modes of performance demand an acknowledgement of the work and the worker that we're otherwise reluctant to provide-- an attempt to claim agency within a fucked up system.

Expand full comment
H R's avatar

“Depending on the institution, a lot of those demands have to do with 1) ongoing, chronic, debilitating budget cuts, diminished public funding, and the imperative to educate more students with less; but also 2) the foundational transformation of higher ed into a “business” with corresponding structures and profit imperatives.

To be clear, these changes yield net negative outcomes on the quality of instruction and quality of life for basically everyone in higher ed.“

This is a side note comment but one I had to make as someone in higher ed. I think there’s something else going on in regards to why there’s a bigger demand for time. We have a lot more standards regarding accreditation than in generations past, and a lot of that has to do, I think, with the fact that more people of color attend college than ever before, and therefore as funding has declined for public institutions, the need to “prove” your institution does a good job had gone up. When college was largely for white men, and a handful of white women, we required much less proof from institutions about their effectiveness.

The upside of this is that there are real measures put into place that absolutely change institutions for the better, and especially for people of color and other marginalized groups. The quality of instruction is, I would argue, broadly higher now at every single institution in the country than it was 30 years ago.

This is a real area of interest of mine, and one I probably should write about. And it’s not what your piece is about. But I see these assumptions all the time and feel compelled to say something.

Expand full comment
73 more comments...

No posts