Abstract
This chapter draws from four qualitative research studies conducted in Wales, UK. The chapter explores the ways in which white working-class women construct gendered identities in relation to the everyday management of hearth and home. The home is presented as an intersectional space where gender, class, age, and locality produce complex and nuanced power relationships. The chapter sets out how these relationships play out and are made visible by examining the tensions between domesticity and paid employment; how gender, age, and class intersect; and the role of place and stigma in forming gendered subjectivities. The chapter positions the home as space within wider spaces and ideologies of acceptable femininity, considers discourses of class, locality, stigma, and ‘otherhood’—and illustrates pervasive inequalities in the domestic sphere and their broader impacts.
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Notes
- 1.
In study one and study four, the pseudonym for place was derived from Welsh language words reflecting the geographical location. In study one, a combination of the words ‘hi’ (her) and ‘stryd’ (street) were combined to create the pseudonym Hystryd. In study four, ‘Hiraeth’ a Welsh word meaning nostalgia, yearning, or longing, which was pertinent to the findings of the study was the pseudonym for the research site. In study one, participants originally selected their own pseudonyms, and however, this became problematic when participants chose the names of other participants. Therefore, in all of the studies participants’ pseudonyms were decided by the researcher.
- 2.
There were four men involved in study three and twelve men and boys participated in study four. Their accounts did not feature discussions of housework. However, it is worth noting that the data on housework in study one was shared with young men in a community workshop. Reflecting on their own experiences, they suggested that as working patterns change a more equitable sharing of the domestic sphere could emerge where practices are not fixed in conventional, outdated gendered discourses (see Mannay, 2016b).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the organizations and departments that provided funding for the studies discussed in this chapter, the Economic and Social Research Council (study one), the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) as part of the Economic and Social Research Council Transformative Research Seedcorn Initiative (study two), the Cardiff Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (study three), and Cardiff University’s AHSS College Investors in Excellence scheme (study four). We would also like to thank the co-researchers in studies two and three, and all the participants who engaged with these studies and generously shared their experiences.
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Folkes, L., Mannay, D. (2023). ‘You Feel Like You’re Throwing Your Life Away Just to Make It Look Clean’: Insights into Women’s Everyday Management of Hearth and Home in Wales. In: Zurbriggen, E.L., Capdevila, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41531-9_6
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