Questions & Comments? Email <[email protected]>In this episode, we set our sights on Chapter 3 where Weeks shifts her focus from “the development of an antiwork critique to the incitement of a postwork political imaginary,” (p. 32). We focus on Weeks’ rereading of the 1970s movement Wages for Housework. We discuss the 3 aspects of the movement she highlights as having valuable insights and innovative analyses:The Social FactoryRefusal to Work The Demand (as a process)In our discussion of The Demand as a process, we consider the two ways Weeks looks at it. The Demand as a perspective, and the Demand as a provocation. Looking at it as a perspective, we talk about demystification, denaturalization, and the invitation to cognitive mapping as they relate to demanding wages for housework. As a provocation, we examine the usefulness of wages for housework as an incitement of antagonism, collective power, and desire. In the second section, we offer our perspectives from the Artist’s Studio and the Office Cubicle. Benedetta uses examples from the art world to expand upon her earlier remarks on  demystification, denaturalization, and cognitive mapping. She proposes that these same discursive tools of analysis be applied to artistic labor. In her expansion on using the Demand process as a means to provoke, Nancy offers two examples from Organisational Psychology research and scholarship: flexible work, and debiasing hiring practices. She invites the audience to contemplate the value in trying to make change whilst working in a biased system, and attempting change by rejecting that system instead.  Art of the Episode: Triplice Tenda (1969), Carla Accardi. Triplice Tenda is an installation in the form of three polygonal tents, contained one inside the other, made of Sicofoil – a transparent plastic sheet. The surface is painted with a semiregular repetition of light pink waves, inspired according to the artist, by non-figurative Islamic decorative patterns.The theme of the work is a re-imagined domestic space that borrows structurally from nomadic cultures, and their close relationship to the surrounding environment. At the same time it represents a protected and solid space, by virtue of the multiple contained layers. The see-through aspect of the Sicofoil is intended as a support to overcome fear, allowing the person inside the tent to look outside from this sheltered space.Question of the Episode: If you were to hire someone to do your household labour, what would the job advert include? Works citedWeeks, K. (2011). The Problem with Work. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822394723Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124390004002002Banet-Weiser, S., & Kay, J. B. (2025). Through the looking glass: Feminism and reactionary politics in the digital hall of mirrors. European Journal of Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494241310721Chung, H. (2024). Flexible working: A deep dive into the impact of remote working on gender equity. Shape Talent White Paper.Costa, M. D., & James, S. (1975). The power of women and the subversion of the community.Davis, B. (2022). Art in the After-Culture. Haymarket Books.Goldin, C. (2021). Career & Family: Women’s Century Long Journey toward Equity. Princeton University Press.Krivkovich, A., Field, E., Yee, L., McConnell, M., & Smith, H. (2024, September 17). Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-anniversary report. McKinsey & Company.La Berge, L. C. (2019). Wages Against Artwork. Duke University Press.Van Der Zee, R. (2025, April 2). Hiring women, rather than just talking about it, works. That doesn’t mean all men are on board, it turns out. The Guardian.World Economic Forum. (2022). Global Gender Gap Report 2022. https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2022Cover artwork by ⁠Simone Hutsch⁠ from Unsplash.Music by Tech Oasis from Pixabay.

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