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Woman's Hour: Susannah Constantine, How Work Fits into your Life

01/02/2021

Susannah Constantine, How Work Fits into your Life

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Susannah Constantine, How Work Fits into your Life

Do you love your job but work for next to nothing? Have we been sold a myth?

Susannah Constantine has recently written about her alcoholism. Sober now for seven years, she wrote the article because she felt a lot of women are struggling during lock down.

Susannah Constantine describes herself as an author, journalist, PA to three teenagers and middle-aged lapsed fashionista turned podcaster to the wardrobes of the superstars!  She has recently written about her alcoholism.  Sober now for seven years, she wrote the article because she felt a lot of women are struggling.  This is borne out by figures from Alcohol Change UK, who have seen a huge increase in the number of women coming their website since the first lockdown started, with 173,580 female visitors, an increase of more than 100% on the previous year.  Susannah joins Emma to describe the feelings of shame surrounding drinking, especially for women, and how it leads to a sense of isolation and loneliness.  And she talks about the positives of her life post drinking
Writer Sarah Jaffe joins Emma to talk about the ideas in her new  book, Work Won't Love You Back.  She argues we've been sold an idea that  certain work is not really work and should be done for the sake of passion rather than pay. She looks particularly at how gender and the labour of love myth interact, how the devaluing of work in the home has lead to a devaluing of certain work outside (eg childcare, domestic work,  nursing, teachers etc) . She examines the notion that paid work is a liberation  for women particularly when the amount of work women do in the home has not been significantly reduced.  She asks how the unpaid intern came about, the overworked teacher, the boss who describes the work place as 'like a family'', how the labour of love myth permeates almost every area of our lives and at what cost.

Presenter: Emma Barnett
Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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