“Either women are going to be fully in it or they’re not. “The workplace is here to stay,” she writes. homeward bound by emily matchar Homeward Bound explores the movement of people (mainly women) back to more labor-centric hobbies and lifestyles, whether that means cooking everything from scratch, starting an Etsy business, homeschooling, gardening on a serious level, or living off the grid. Noting that the majority of her subjects are married and have outside sources of financial support, she argues that their retreat from the workforce could further disadvantage women who must by necessity remain. She also points out the contradictions in these modern homesteaders’ ideology. In Homeward Bound, acclaimed journalist Emily Matchar takes a long, hard look at both the inspiring appeal and the potential dangers of this trend she calls. Matchar persuasively identifies causes of the trend, among them the paucity of labor laws and social services to support new parents, entrenched gender inequality in the workplace, and widespread fear about the quality of the food supply.

All believe their return to the domestic sphere to be empowering. They grow their own vegetables, knit their own clothes, and homeschool their children.

This exploration of what Matchar calls the “New Domesticity” follows college-educated, middle-class American women who have rejected cities, consumerism, and corporate culture in favor of very old-fashioned house- and family-keeping. The new domesticity movement doesnt just place a burden on women to be nurturers: it places that burden on individual women to find their way and make their.

Homeward bound emily matchar