“When I Iron My Son’s Shirt, I Feel My Maternal Role”: Making Women’s Invisible Work Visible

Abstract

This article seeks to learn how women perceive invisible work and how it affects their lives. This article contributes to the integration of different manifestations of invisible work into a conceptual whole, especially in light of the fact that most research has confined itself to only one aspect such as care work, housework, or volunteering. Nine group interviews were conducted with Israeli mothers from differing ethnic, religious, class, and age groups. Analysis reveals that the distinctions between aspects of invisible work, such as housework and care work and between activities belonging to the private and public spheres are much more blurred in women’s lives than might be inferred from the academic literature. Furthermore, throughout the life course of women the meanings and expressions of invisible work evolve creating a continuous struggle. In describing their everyday activities, women challenge the socially constructed binary oppositions in the context of the neoliberal economy.

Invisible work at work and the reproduction of gendered social service organizations

“…Office housework consists of several types of tasks: literal housework, such as planning parties or cleaning up after a meeting; administrative work, such as taking notes; and emotional work (Williams et al., 2016). Others have found that, regardless of their accomplishments and formal position in the organizational hierarchy, women in caring occupations (Kaplan et al., 2020), women engineers (Williams et al., 2016), and women in universities (Babcock et al., 2017; El‐Alayli et al., 2018; Guarino & Borden, 2017) are expected to do more—and indeed do more—than men in regard to all types of unpaid work.…”

“…Recently, increasing efforts have been invested in studying invisible work in the labor market (Hatton, 2017; Kaplan et al., 2020). Studies have framed such practices as various aspects of unpaid work in the labor force (Baines, 2004; Baines et al., 2017; Hatton, 2017; C. Williams & Nadin, 2012; J. Williams & Dempsey, 2018).…”

Lifting the curtain: Strategic visibility of human labour in AI-as-a-Service

“…While visibility is complex concept, engaging multiple multi-directional stakeholders (Kaplan et al., 2020), (in)visible work must have a potential observer for whom the work is rendered invisible or visible. In almost every conceivable case, the worker will observe and acknowledge that they are working, that they are engaging in an act of production, even if they cannot see the end results of their labour.…”

Ontological Security, Trauma and Violence, and the Protection of Women: Polygamy Among Minority Communities

“…During the last 4 years, we conducted four group interviews with 32 women, in polygamous and non-polygamous relationships, asking them about their lives, about their relationships, and about the topics of divorce and polygamy. The setting of group interviews is seen as uniquely suitable for facilitating critical feminist epistemologies in that group interviews can promote diverse forms of expressions of women's insights and the shared, co-construction of knowledge (Kook et al, 2019;Kaplan et al, 2020). The interviews were conducted with 32 women divided into four groups, each group including eight adult women, with an age range chosen to represent different generations -that is, from 21 years of age to 60 years old.…”