Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-rnj55 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-08T12:36:38.911Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Series Editors’ Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2021

Vicki Dabrowski
Affiliation:
University of York
Get access

Summary

We are delighted to have this book in a series that aims to bring original sociological thinking to bear on contemporary gender relations, divisions and issues of concern to feminists. It is our aim for the series that it will challenge received wisdom, offer new insights and expand the scope of sociology both theoretically and substantively, and we are convinced that this book by Vicki Dabrowski does all of those things.

This preface is being written after three months of ‘lockdown’ as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The gendered impacts of lockdown are adding to the long-term effects of austerity, as outlined in this book, and rendering the lives of many women even more challenging. While so far more men have died of COVID-19 in the UK, women may suffer more from the long-term effects, as these will be added to the already higher levels of morbidity in older women. Evidence is also emerging about the higher levels of childcare, domestic work and home schooling undertaken by women during lockdown, and of course for women who are single parents this extra labour will be completely their responsibility. It is also the case that more women have been furloughed and are concerned that their jobs may disappear, and that women are disproportionately represented in the sectors of the labour market most likely to shrink. In this book, Dabrowski writes about the symbolic connections between austerity and the post-war period of ‘thrifty housewives’ and this symbolism has been rolled out frequently over the last few months. While not always explicit, the image — like a picture from a 1950s Ladybird book of a mother in the kitchen, teaching her small daughter to bake a cake — is in the background of many discussions about managing lockdown. Traditional assumptions about the so-called nuclear family have been at the fore and the likelihood of women losing their jobs and/or having increased caring responsibilities looms large, while at the same time the state withdraws the extra, albeit limited, support put in place during the crisis. All of these factors will have a far greater impact on those women who are already dealing with the austerity policies which have been in place since the economic crash of 2007–8.

Type
Chapter
Information
Austerity, Women and the Role of the State
Lived Experiences of the Crisis
, pp. xi - xiv
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×