Gender, households and sustainability

Disentangling and re-entangling with the help of 'work' and 'care

Bibliographic Data

ID4464595
AuthorsJoseph Murphy (0000-0001-6215-5188, University of Edinburgh), Sarah Parry (0000-0002-9730-3547, University of Edinburgh, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume4
Issue3
Pages1099-1120
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/2514848620948432
OpenAlexW3118914733
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited82

In rich, developed countries, many stakeholders are focusing on households as settings where progress can be made on environmental and sustainability issues. Related research, policies and interventions, however, tend to ignore gender dynamics, thus treating them as irrelevant, or exploit them to achieve sustainability goals. We challenge this regressive treatment and show how household sustainability can be progressive in relation to gender and sustainability simultaneously - doubly progressive. Specifically, we ask: How do gender and sustainability intersect in households? What are the normative implications of these intersections? To answer these questions, we disentangle the perspectives of 'work' and 'care', drawing on feminist and gender scholarship, and explore both in the domestic setting by focusing on sustainable technologies and sustainable consumption. In this way, the twin normative agendas of equality of work and expansion of care emerge as ways of linking gender and sustainability in households. Our conclusion considers tensions and overlaps between work and care to identify how they can be re-entangled. We argue that re-entangling work and care requires holding them in dynamic tension with care being the context for work and in this way a doubly progressive approach to household sustainability emerges

Care work · Consumption (sociology · Context (archaeology · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Normative · Political science · Psychological intervention · Scholarship · Social science · Social sustainability · Sociology · Sustainability · Sustainable consumption · Work (physics · Law · Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access