Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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The persistence of traditional gender norms in housework
Ian Sinclair talks to PROFESSOR ANNE McMUNN about why the burden of unpaid domestic work is so unequally divided between men and women
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
FROM the Everyday Sexism Project, to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s bestselling essays and the #MeToo movement, there has been a huge upsurge in feminist activism in recent years.
Professor Anne McMunn
However, while the topic of unpaid domestic work, aka housework, was a key concern of second wave feminism in the 1970s, it seems to be largely ignored by contemporary mainstream feminism.
In an attempt to get a handle on the issue, Ian Sinclair asked Anne McMunn, professor of social epidemiology at University College London, about her new co-authored article Gender Divisions of Paid and Unpaid Work in Contemporary UK Couples, published in the journal Work, Employment and Society.
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