Two Book Reviews

Review Reviewed Work(s): The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work by Arlie Russell Hochschild Review by: Krista E. Paulsen Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jun., 2004), pp. 417-418 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4149413 Accessed: 24-02-2019 00:28 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide

range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and

facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

https://about.jstor.org/terms

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gender and Society

This content downloaded from 128.114.34.22 on Sun, 24 Feb 2019 00:28:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

BOOK REVIEWS 417

consummate rigor of a good philosopher. While Brookey does not add much to what others argue, he does offer a clear, short, and readable overview of a contentious topic that would be

very well suited to an undergraduate classroom.

STEVEN EPSTEIN

University of California, San Diego

REFERENCES

Stein, Edward. 1999. The mismeasure of desire: The science, theory, and ethics of sexual orientation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Terry, Jennifer. 1999. An American obsession: Science, medicine, and homosexuality in modern society.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. By Arlie Russell Hochschild. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 322 pp., $49.95 (cloth), $16.95 (paper). DOI: 10.1177/0891243203260737

"Moms have changed, shouldn't the minivan?" So queries the disembodied announcer advertising the Nissan Quest. The gunmetal gray vehicle sits perched on an urban rooftop, and one by one, attractive and interesting women interact with it. One loads up a surfboard,

another a saddle, and so on. All is peaceful as remote controls open the doors for her and the

rear seats effortlessly fold for easy storage of these bulky items. Although we know these women are today's moms, there are no children in the scene to pester her. Also absent is any

sign of help-except that provided by the minivan. This ad ran frequently as I read Arlie Russell Hochschild's The Commercialization of

Intimate Life, providing a ready illustration of the patterns this collection wrestles with. As we know from Hochschild's explication of the stalled revolution, moms have changed, but not much else has: not men, not workplaces, not the broader social and economic systems that might support family life. The commercial world is catching up, however, as commmod-

ified substitutes for care are increasingly available when Mom cannot help out or Dad will not. But the ad presents a very different image from the "woman with the flying hair" described in The Second Shift (Hochschild 1989), as our minivan driver is alone in the city,

removed from the delights and demands of family life. Mom's isolation appears liberating, but Hochschild's new collection problematizes this variant of liberation. If Mom is genu- inely detached, what are the costs of her cool modern stance? If her liberation is feigned, what are the costs of reconciling Mom's surface acting with the cultural rules guiding how she thinks she should feel?

If we understand advertisements as accounts of how audiences might want to live, we find

support for the trends Hochschild documents. And the ease of finding such support illus- trates what readers already know from Hochschild's earlier works: Her concepts are

This content downloaded from 128.114.34.22 on Sun, 24 Feb 2019 00:28:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

418 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 2004

immediately useful, and they sharpen our understandings of the problems late modernity poses for women and families.

In this volume, Hochschild turns a sociological lens on the most personal and private aspects of life: who and how we love, the degree to which we care about others, how we raise our children, whether we pursue a career, and how we understand our achievements as work-

ers, family members, and gendered human beings. The themes are familiar, as one might expect in a volume that collects nearly 30 years of thinking and writing about a coherent set

of ideas. Care is at the center as we delve more deeply into established lines of thought (e.g.,

emotion work, how economics and ideologies shape the care of family) and newer concepts such as the "care deficit" and the "global heart transplant" that occurs as immigrant women leave their own children in Third World countries to care for First World charges.

Hochschild has collected writings from diverse sources (journals, edited volumes, con- ference presentations), and many are updated to include contemporary references (e.g., to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001). Five thematic sections pivot around the issue of

care. "A Feelingful Self," the section on emotion, is perhaps the strongest. Here, central con-

cepts such as feeling rules and the economy of gratitude are examined from multiple angles,

providing a theoretical richness that extends beyond her earlier books (although much of the

empirical evidence is familiar). Other sections advance her project both empirically and the-

oretically. For example, the first section on culture provides a nuanced, albeit disheartening,

account of how advice books encourage women to manage the demands of family, work, and self. We get a rich empirical view of these works in "emotional investment counseling" (p. 14),

although the new concepts introduced to unpack them, such as the notion of "cultural deals" struck between competing cultural ideals (p. 60), would benefit from further development.

The collection strikes a useful balance between breadth and depth, allowing the careful reader to extract themes beyond those Hochschild addresses specifically. Scholars of classi-

cal theory or religion might appreciate the ongoing discussion of how work and efficiency have become sacred, while those examining childhood and socialization might find useful her elaboration of how insecurity and indifference are reproduced.

While Hochschild's style is as accessible and engaging as ever, this volume will have greater appeal to academics than to undergraduates and popular audiences. Nevertheless, some selections would certainly be appropriate for a broad variety of undergraduate courses. The collection is an excellent source for those reading in the sociology of emotions, work, gender, and culture.

KRISTA E. PAULSEN

University of North Florida

REFERENCE

Hochschild, Arlie Russell, with Anne Machung. 1989. The second shift. New York: Viking.

This content downloaded from 128.114.34.22 on Sun, 24 Feb 2019 00:28:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms