In Episode 6 we’re talking about contemporary gendered inequalities of academic labour. Our guests are Katherine Twamley, Professor of Sociology at UCL’s Social Research Institute and Charlotte Faircloth, Associate Professor of Social Science also based at UCL’s Social Research Institute. As well as discussing their recent study exploring how families with children experienced the COVID-19 pandemic which lifted the curtain on gendered dynamics underpinning everyday life, we’re getting their take on what it’s like to be an ‘academic wife’ today.

Credits

Guests: Katherine Twamley and Charlotte Faircloth
Hosts: Ros Edwards and Val Gillies
Producer: Chris Garrington
Music: The Beat of Nature, Olexy 
Artwork: Krissie Brighty-Glover

Guest Bios

Katherine Twamley is a sociologist and founding Programme Director of the UCL BSc Sociology undergraduate programme (2018-2022). She chairs the UCL Sociology Network - the cross-university group for sociologists at UCL - and is an editorial board member of The Sociological Review and editor of the Routledge Sociological Futures book series. Katherine’s research focuses on gender, love and intimacy, social policy, and families, with a particular interest in India and the Indian diaspora. Katherine recently led the British Academy funded FACT-COVID study (with Charlotte Faircloth and Humera Iqbal) which explores how families with children have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic across ten different countries. She tweets @KTwamley.

Charlotte Faircloth is an Associate Professor of Social Science in the UCL Social Research Institute. With colleagues in the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at Kent, Charlotte is co-author of Parenting Culture Studies published by Palgrave (2014, with a new edition due out in 2024). She also recently co-edited Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics published by Routledge and is co-editor of numerous journal special issues, including Sociological Research Online, the Journal of Family Issues and Anthropology and Medicine. She is co-editor of Family Life in a Time of Covid: International Perspectives (2023).

Episode Resources

• “Academia as the (com)promised land for women?” in Academic Working Lives: Experiences, Practice and Change - Sandra Acker and Michelle Webber
• Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Plant – and What We Can Do About It - Nancy Fraser
• Mumsnet Academic Common Room thread:  Male academics with wives/partners who don't work. Anyone else noticed this?

Find out more about Thanks for Typing at The Sociological R