Stellenbosch Business School, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
School of Management Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
PLoS One. 2023 Jan 25;18(1):e0280179. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280179. eCollection 2023.
This article shows how the meaning of home and 'working from home' were fundamentally transformed by the pandemic-enforced lockdown for women academics. Drawing on the experiences of more than 2,000 women academics, we show how the enduring concept of home as a place of refuge from the outside world was replaced with a new and still unsettled notion of home as a gendered space that is a congested, competitive, and constrained setting for women's academic work. In this emerging new place for living and working, home becomes a space that is claimed, conceded, and constantly negotiated between women academics and their partners as well as the children and other occupants under the same roof. Now, as before, home remains a deeply unequal place for women's work, with dire consequences for academic careers. It is therefore incumbent upon women academics and higher education institutions to develop a deep understanding of the social meanings of home for academics, and the implications for the 'new normal' of working from home.
本文展示了疫情强制封锁对女性学者的家的概念和“在家工作”的意义产生了怎样的根本转变。本文借鉴了 2000 多名女性学者的经验，展示了家作为躲避外界的避难所的持久概念是如何被一种新的、尚未确定的观念所取代的，即家是一个充满性别差异的空间，是女性学术工作拥挤、竞争和受限的环境。在这个新兴的生活和工作场所中，家成为女性学者及其伴侣以及同一屋檐下的孩子和其他居住者之间需要争取、让步和不断协商的空间。现在，和以前一样，家仍然是女性工作极不平等的地方，这对学术生涯有着可怕的影响。因此，女性学者和高等教育机构有责任深入了解家对学者的社会意义，以及对在家工作的“新常态”的影响。
