Please note the first part of an essay at POLITICS:

The Tea Turned Cold in the Cup,

or, Why Women’s Work is No Work

I.

When I was a teenager, my parents agreed that I was academically gifted, but had no practical talent whatsoever (by contrast to my brother); this was despite the fact that I had been capable of cooking and baking and taking over the household to the same exacting standards, whenever the need arose, from the age of twelve.

This must mean that domestic work is no practical work and no skilled work either.

Read more here.

Home-made Christmas cakes. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2012.

A new chapter will be added to this essay for several months running.