The Post-Fordist Sexual Contract

"What does the sexual contract look like in times of contingency and precarity? How is contemporary post-Fordist capitalism rewriting the regulatory ideals of earlier eras? These are questions that the contributors set out to answer in this challenging and provocative collection which ranges from migrant workers to mommy bloggers and the affective attachments of academics. A fascinating and compelling collection that will be a must-read for anyone interested in work and life today." - Rosalind Gill, City University, UK

"Conventional experiences and depictions of work and employment and the worker and non-worker self are falling away. We are aware of the norms that have been lost, but we are still only starting to explore how to understand what is emergent, both in the nature of the worker, labour, the self and the home. It is a change that has consistent social drivers for change, expressed in the emergence of forms of contractualism that are individualised but where compliance implies particular social and sexual identities. Exploring these diverse experiences and their contradictions is the means by which understand the complex dimensions of that contractualism. This book is an outstanding combination of theoretical innovation and analysis of particular gender and race experiences of change. It is a statement of how to proceed analytically. In combination, the studies in this collection will contribute enormously to our understanding of social change in work, employment labour and home." - Dick Bryan, University of Sydney, Australia

"The last thirty-five years have been ones of profound social and economic change, exacerbated by the financial crisis and austerity programmes in the new millennium. The old Fordist breadwinner model of male full-time employment, paying enough to support dependents, which was once significant in western economies, has dissolved and a new sexual contract is emerging. This fascinating and provocative collection of essays examines the nature of change in divergent circumstances and places and will prove invaluable to all interested in the intersection of gender relations and economic transformation in the cold new world of post-Fordism." - Linda McDowell, University of Oxford, UK

"This important collection explores the gendered experience of workers and would-be workers in the contemporary context of post-Fordist capitalism. It argues that implicated in the often-cited ideals of entrepreneurship and financial independence, self-actualisation and investment in the self, is a new sexual contract by which women are enjoined to ever greater effort and responsibility in an escalation of demands which can never be met. The contributors to this volume provide significant insights into the problems confronted by women today in all aspects of their lives: professional, familial, financial and intimate. I recommend it to gender scholars across the social sciences." - Stephanie Taylor, The Open University, UK