Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women's Work, and the Betrayal of Family Values

At the very time when most women’s lives are defined by a lack of income, time, and energy, and when being stressed-out is for them more common than the common cold, politicians and other professed guardians of public virtue are stridently lamenting the loss of what they define as family values. Even as women enter the workforce to provide essential income for their families while attending to children, spouse, and the endless round of domestic chores, every sort of social ill from drug addiction to unwed mothering is laid at their door. In a book that combines learning, eloquence, and wit, she explains how this paradox symbolizes the new face of family life in America’s post-industrial economy. Hitting Home carefully documents the growing abandonment by business and government of their social responsibility to sustain the well-being of families. She exposes family-friendly policies as being in fact policies that are friendly primarily to the profit-oriented goals of the corporate world. Albrecht amasses compelling data which are illuminated by portraits and stories of the real people whose daily lives are the grist of economics. Throughout her book, Albrecht maintains that authentic family values require an equal social commitment to two connected goals: women’s equality and the well-being of families.