Rory Hyde: What are your thoughts on what is happening now with the pandemic? How do you think it could change the way we live in suburbia?
Dolores Hayden: What the pandemic has done, in its strange and terrible way, is to focus our attention on necessary work. When people were confined to the household because they were worried about contagion, children at home needed parental care and help with remote schooling. Men and women doing paid work remotely needed quiet time and space. Cooking, cleaning, laundry and shoring up people’s emotional wellbeing all took place in the same household space.
Soon people noticed all these activities colliding. Women wondered why men at home couldn’t manage to do half the housework and childcare. Some women decided they had to quit their remote paid work because the level of unpaid work was so high, there weren’t enough hours in the day
