The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up conversations about labor conditions across the American economic spectrum, from hourly employees opting out of low-paying, physically punishing restaurant jobs to salaried staff members realizing that they’re not working from home—they’re living at work. What an opportune time, then, for labor reporter Sarah Jaffe’s
Work Won’t Love You Back, which was released by Bold Type back in January. Jaffe’s mission is to break down the late-capitalist ethos of “doing what you love,” a concept that she argues sets people up for overwork and exploitation rather than true pleasure in one’s daily activities. This critique applies to the insidious 18/6 schedule of “hustle culture,” as well as giant corporations pressuring employees to accept indignity after indignity under the guise of “family.” But Jaffe’s analysis goes further, dividing 10 types of work, from housekeeping to professional sports, into two broad categories. First are “caring professions” like teaching and retail work that are supposed to come naturally to women, and therefore aren’t considered worthy of a high salary. Second come “labors of love” like art and computer programming, traditional realms of the solitary male “genius” that are framed as more of a spiritual calling than an economic necessity. (The problems with both types of work are, of course, exacerbated by race, as Jaffe details in the chapter about immigrant domestic labor.) Jaffe lays the blame for both traps on the neoliberal policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, advocating for a return to early-20th-century modes of labor organizing to unite workers of all types in order to better their lives. [Katie Rife]