Dorothy Pitman Hughes’s Activism Offers a Solution for the Coronavirus Gender Gap

by Laura L. Lovett

Dorothy Pitman Hughes' experience running a community childcare center highlighted not just the needs of working women, but the ways that childcare challenges were connected to all the big issues of the society. If we want a more just society today, Hughes' example and the COVID crisis show us where to look. 

Part of Being a Domestic Goddess in 17th-Century Europe Was Making Medicines

Historians Sharon Strocchia, Stephanie Koscak, and Elaine Leong offer insight into the roles of women in producing and administering medicine in the early modern period, both in domestic and public settings. The subject may receive increased attention through a digitization project of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. 

The Lockdown Showed How the Economy Exploits Women. She Already Knew

Silvia Federici's critique of the exploitatitve nature of domestic labor as the backbone of capitalist economies is beginning to gain traction as homes are converted to schools and (paid) workplaces, compounding gendered burdens borne mostly by women in America. 

When Schools Closed, Americans Turned to Their Usual Backup Plan: Mothers

"Mothers are the fallback plan in the United States in part because of persistent beliefs that they are ultimately responsible for homemaking and child rearing, and because of the lack of policies to help parents manage the load."

Alexandra Finley on Her New Book, An Intimate Economy

Historian Jacob Remes discusses the new book "An Intimate Economy" with author Alexandra Finley. 

Wages for Housework and Social Reproduction: A Microsyllabus

Arlen Austin, Beth Capper, and Tracey Deutsch present a list of readings about the history of movements to demand wages for the domestic and family work typically performed by women.

The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism

by Helen Lewis

When people note that Shakespeare and Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.