This is the 5th installment of Strange New Work, a special series that explores how speculative fiction can help us imagine radically different work futures.
Think the future of housework looks like Rosey the Robot from The Jetsons? Or maybe just a fleet of Roombas keeping every inch of a house free of dust or dirt?
Think again. Housework is ready for a much, much bigger disruption. Of course, housework is rarely portrayed in pop culture space cowboy science fiction. And when it is, it's all about the high-tech solutions to trivial issues like making dinner or scrubbing dishes. But many quieter (and more constructive) speculative stories do consider how housework might evolve in a completely different direction.
How we restructure housework—domestic and reproductive labor—is key to rethinking how we approach the future of all kinds of work. How we live impacts how we work. And how we work impacts how we live. And this episode is going there.
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What is What Works?
"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.