Women's Work

A National Book Award finalist's devastating account of raising her children abroad with the help of Chinese and Indian women who are also working mothers, a compromise that leads her to examine the underbelly of cheap domestic labor—and to realize that the work of the household is where gender inequality beginsWhen Megan Stack left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have a baby and work from her home in Beijing writing a book, she quickly realized that childcare and housework would consume the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned and babysat in her home and she grew increasingly...