Solid Work

On Ivan Illich, the "mental load", and Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuit mix

A few weeks back I started what I promised would become a series on Ivan Illich. In that first instalment, I argued that what magazine grievance-feminists decry as “the mental load” is real, but is better understood as what Ivan Illich called “shadow work”. That is, it comprises all those domestic activities whose intrinsic dignity, as work, was hollowed out by “the destruction of gender” in modernity - but whose presence and necessity was never fully erased.

So I’ve been mulling over that argument since, and wondering: if this is true, what now? If “the mental load” is real, and better understood as “shadow work” which kind of sucks, what are the options?

A caveat before I go on: even feeling like you have options on this front, as a mother, presupposes that you’re at least somewhat bourgeois, and that your marriage is basically fine. That level of optionality doesn’t apply in the same way to mothers in poverty, or whose husbands are abusive or lazy or addicts or whatever. But because the mind is restless, we can safely assume that many in this fortunate group will still be wondering, with Betty Friedan, “is that all there is?”

I think this is legitimate. There’s no obvious reason to me why those with choices should be shamed for wondering what to do for the best, with the extra optionality you are blessed to enjoy. With that anti-universalist footnote, the rest of what follows is about what Friedan called “the problem that has no name”, or alternatively the “mental load”, or what Ivan Illich called “shadow work”.

What Makes Work Shadowy - Or Not?

This last week was half term. These days I pretty much work full-time, but I didn’t this week and we’ve spent a ton of time pottering about the house. Hanging out with my daughter over that time has crystallised some of the thoughts I’ve been kicking around on the question of Illich, shadow work, and the “mental load”.

The first of these is that some element of that “mental load” is inescapable, if you’re mum, even if that feels unfair. Or rather, escaping shadow work entails a far more complete surrender of domestic control than most mothers would be willing to tolerate. But that means you have to put up with the mental load! I think there’s more to say about this, though, than “suck it up, buttercup”. In particular, we might be able to approach the challenge more creatively by addressing not the existence of shadow work, but its shadowiness.

First, though, we need a term for domestic work that’s not shadow work. “Non-shadow work” is surely a double negative. So if, to cast a shadow, a thing must be at least somewhat solid, what about “solid work”? This feels of a piece the intuition I’ve been weighing up since I finished the first Illich essay, that some kinds of work feel more real, more solid in fact, than others. And that seeking solidity may be a more fruitful avenue for restoring dignity to the home, than fighting the persistent presence of shadow work.