If you follow intellectual trends in popular and academic Western feminism(s) about the labor that women perform in the home, then the phrase the second shift is almost pro forma. It was popularized and entered general parlance after the 1989 book by the same name published by Arlie Hochschild1 whose rigorous interview study with fifty married couples led her to coin this phrase. The second shift stands for the unaccounted and unpaid labor that women perform in the home after a day’s work in the formal workforce. The study came out in the period between first- and second-wave feminism in the United States. In brief, first-wave feminism was about securing the right of women to vote; it was succeeded by the economically oriented second wave, followed by the culturally oriented third wave. Hochschild’s study sits comfortably within second-wave feminism, which waned in the 1980s. If you are reading this...

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