Avail Yourself Women's Work: A Reckoning With Work And Home Crafted By Megan K. Stack Displayed As Copy

is much more of a personal memoir and much less of a journalistic expose than I expected from the blurb or articles Id seen.
Its an easy read, and engaging,
But. Its incredibly difficult to use very personal experiences as a medium for telling a universal story well, and Im not sure this succeeds, At times its very relatable, but at others its very cringeworthy, being told from a place of unappreciated or unrecognized privilege,
Having lived in China and employed ayis myself, I can definitely understand some of the dilemmas she faces, Having read this book after the double whammy of reducing our ayis hours and finding her replacement work AND being at home constantly with two rambunctious kids and no help because of school closures due to COVID, even more so.

Perhaps because employing another woman to help in your home is such a personal thing to do, regardless of whether you treat them like family or like no more than an employee, I dont feel like Ive been particularly enlightened by the read.
It was an interesting read that will likely create interesting discussions at book group, but it wasnt the revelation I thought it would be, As another reviewer eloquently described, this book left me with complicated feelings, The writing was enjoyable and the stories somewhat relatable, I was exceptionally excited to read the description of this bookas a society, we need more of these discussions, Given her journalistic experience, I had expected Stack to dig deeper into this topic vs, get entrenched in her own, individual perspective on these issues, I found myself feeling really angry with her treatment of her employees, How many times must we be told that the nanny said something that was maybe confusing or unexpected and then the author responded as if she has no idea what the person could possibly mean.
I also couldn't ever get over the irony that this woman who has clearly reflected on the role of gender either a is married to a total jerk who doesn't respect her as an equal as evidenced by his inability disinterest in learning where diapers are! or taking even one day off of work OR b she vastly mischaracterizes him to such a degree that he must be should be mortified.
While the book poses questions about the ethics of domestic work, it also walks its own fine line, The women don't ever truly speak for themselves, The stories they do tell are questioned or all out doubted by the author, In conclusion, this could have been/should have been so much more, Surprisingly though, she's a strong enough writer and the subject matter intriguing enough on its own that I was hooked start to finish, Memoirs about motherhood are exceedingly common, but Womens Work dares to explore the labor arrangements that often make such books possible, . . Stack writes sharp, pointed sentences that flash with dark insight, . . ruthlessly selfaware and fearless.
Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

Womens Work hit me where I live, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.
The discomforting truths Stack reveals about caretaking and labor transcend cultural and national boundaries this book is relevant to everyone, no matter how or where they live.
Stack uses her reporting acumen to illuminate domestic workers' struggles, but also fearlessly reveals the most vulnerable details of her own life in order to make her point.
The masterfulness with which she tells these intertwined stories makes this book not just a work of brilliant journalism but a work of art,
Emily Gould, Author of Friendship: A Novel and And the Heart Says Whatever

If Karl Ove Knausgaard himself were a woman and had given birth, he might have written a book a little like Womens Work.
Megan Stacks mastery of language and attention to detail make magic of the most quotidian aspects of life, But the subject matter here is hardly banal, Stack goes beyond her own experience of motherhood to focus on the Chinese and Indian nannies who helped her raise her children at the expense of their own.
She brilliantly dissects the contradictions of motherhood by analyzing how motherly love becomes a commodity in this modern, globalized word,
Barbara Demick, Author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Megan Stack is willing to confront hard questions that so many of us flinch from: the relationships between women and the women we hire to take care of our houses and our children, to do the traditional womens work that gives “liberated women” the time to do traditional men's work.
Womens Work is a book of vivid characters, engrossing stories, shrewd insights, and uncomfortable reflections,
AnneMarie Slaughter, President amp CEO of New America, and author of Unfinished Business

Womens Work is an incredible followup to Megan Stacks celebrated book of war reportage, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar.
It is a fierce and furious and darkly funny book about the costs of motherhood: the psychological costs, the costs in time and energy and spirit, and finally the costs imposed on other women, most of them also mothers, who leave their own children so they can take care of ours.
I cant think of a work that speaks more directly to our age of increasing inequality, starting with housework and child care, the oldest inequalities of all.

Keith Gessen, Author of A Terrible Country

A selfcritical and heartfelt narrative, . . beautifully written, informative, and sometimes harrowing as she recounts the joy, fear, and exhaustion of becoming a mother, What women and men can learn from Stack's story is that “women's work”, in all of its complexity and construction, should not be only for women.
STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus

Megan Stack obliterates the silence that upholds one of our greatest taboos: our universal reliance on domestic labor that women women of colour especially are expected to supply freely or cheaply.
With journalistic rigor, Stack centres the complicated lives of women who clean our homes and care for our children, but its her willingness to shine a light into the dark, typically untouched corners of her own family, privilege, and ambition that makes this book soar.

Angela Garbes, author of Like a Mother

Stack writes, unflinchingly, about what it was like for her world to shrink and her life to entwine with the lives of her hired help who left their own kids behind in order to work in her home.
. . Stacks writing is sharp and lovely, especially in the first section of the book as she deftly describes her plunge into new motherhood and yearlong journey to find herself again.

Erica Pearson, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Stack truly becomes aware of the hardships facing the women she employs: alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty.
She delves into their stories with searing honesty and selfreflection Womens Work is a brave book, an unflinching examination of privilege and the tradeoffs all women make in the name of family.

Amy Scribner, BookPage

Stacks engaging style will have women everywhere nodding in recognition, FIVE STARS
Robyn Douglas, Adelaide Advertiser

Stack, who had stints in Jerusalem, Cairo, Moscow and Beijing for the Los Angeles Times, is a natural storyteller with an eye for detail.
. . This is a painfully honest investigation of what kind of compromises women make by hiring other women to do the grunt work, . . Stack confronts a reality that many try not to think about: Who are the women who care for my children and clean my house, . . a doubleedged indictment: of those, including Stack, who exploit domestic helpers in their desire to remain relevant in work but also of the men who abdicate responsibility.
. . In an unflinching way, Stack pulls the curtain back on the truths of womens lives, especially the domestic part: how women make it work,
Debra Bruno, The Washington Post

Stack is admirably honest about her reactions and responses, Her prose is often a joy to read: sharp and full of insight,
Henrietta McKervey, The Irish Times I read about this book and ordered it right away, it's about how middle class women are able to have careers by hiring lower class women to take on their household tasks, stack happened to be abroad in china and india when she had her children and hired household help, but it's applicable to what happens domestically as well, because many housekeepers and nannies here are immigrants.


I was taken aback at first by the poetic writing, more so than I expected in a nonfiction book the work stack outsourced the cooking, cleaning, and childcare in order to do was writing a novel and then this book.
what I love about the author is she is unflinchingly honest, she says at one point that if she could only save her husband or the woman who did her housework and childcare from drowning, she would have let her husband drown.


I don't think she uses any statistics until the end of the book she gives the narrative of her relationships with three women she hires as household help.
it's very the personal is political, she points out that it's a relationship filled with guilt these women are away from their children to take care of hers, it's also very messy. she gives up privacy. her home is a job site, the things she tries to do to make things better sometimes seem to make things worse, it's hard to see the boundaries of employer/employee in this emotional relationship, it's hard to navigate the differences in privilege,

it's just very well written, very open, very well done, and although she herself doesn't do it in her own life, she bluntly writes about the heart of the problem and the solution to the problem:

"all those wellmeaning men who say progressive things in public and then retreat into private to coast blissfully on the disproportionate toil of women.
"

"in the end, the answer is the men, they have to do the work, they have to do the damn work!, . . it's a daily and repetitive and eternal truth, because if we press this point we can blow our households to pieces, we can take our families apart, we can spoil our great love affairs.
this demand is enough to destroy almost everything we hold dear, so we shut up and do the work, "

"cooking and cleaning and childcare are everything, they are the ultimate truth, they underpin and enable everything we do, the perpetual allocation of this most crucial and inevitable work along gender lines sets up women for failure and men for success, it saps the energy and burdens the brains of half the population, . . how do you manage to be out in the world, and if you are here, who is there"

I mean, there it is, laid out plainly.
we know women continue to do more housework and childcare, we know that even when male partners do these chores, it is usually women who do the project management of the household who remember who needs to be where when and with what, who plan and prepare, who delegate and explain the work.
so in order to work outside the home, women must either take on this second shift, as arlie hochschild puts it, themselves or outsource it to poorer women, at great cost to those women's children.

If she had cut out all the sections about her birth story memo to authors: I know everyone's birth story is harrowing, but it's so so boring to hear, this book would have been a

completestart.
Still, her writing is so beautiful and the topic is so rich and important that it still getsstars, I was so riveted by the book and I relate so much to the stories, I had mixed feelings about her and the help throughout the book, which I think is to be expected, I felt like the author was incredibly privileged and just as I would start to get annoyed, she would beat you to it by admitting her flaws.
Her husband does not not come off very well, but that I guess is also predictable and relevant, Excellent writing and topic. It made me want to read more books like it, I made quite a few assumptions about where this book was going but ultimately it took me nowhere, Though the author was being vulnerable by sharing her real time thoughts about motherhood and it ultimately read as being a judgmental white lady who very clearly didnt understand cultural context.
This book was well written and had a clear voice but it didnt deliver on content and felt extremely out of touch, The subject matter here is compelling: the extent to which middle and uppermiddleclass women, usually, white, depend upon the exploitation of workingclass women for their success.
And at times her writing and analysis are really on point, But the book is more of a memoir than the title claims it focuses almost entirely on the author's own experiences employing nannies and housekeepers in China and India.
Stack makes considerable effort to explore the position of her employeesshe interviews her current nanny and housekeeper as well as her prior onesbut it doesn't seem like enough really to develop her argument about how exploitative the system is.
She raises the typical objections she hearsin developing countries, impoverished women appreciate the low wages and hard work of domestic laborand has good responses, but because the book is so fully anecdotal, I do not see them persuading a skeptical audience.
In particular, the book feels like it could have used another revision after she's interviewed her workers the lastpages of the book, she starts reckoning with the ways in which they have coerced choices in their lives.
This makes some earlier passages, where she describes one housekeeper joyfully and obsessively planning recipes to delight her husband, ring even more falsely than they had on my first reading.
I read this and immediately thought, is this housekeeper doing this simply out of love of cooking and pleasing, or prudently, because she recognizes that the husband has the ability to fire her At one point Stack says, as she puts her experience into context, "I could give you a ton of statistics about women's work" in the developing world, but that she won't, because it's not the point.
That just struck me as excusemaking, I've marked a few passages that I will want to use and refer to, but there's very little otherwise that surprised or enlightened me, Which is a shame, because there's a real need for this kind of work in feminism, .