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  • What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

    What’s on Her Mind by Daminger, Allison;

    The Mental Workload of Family Life

      • GET 10% OFF

      • The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
      • Publisher's listprice GBP 25.00
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        11 943 Ft (11 375 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 10% (cc. 1 194 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 10 749 Ft (10 238 Ft + 5% VAT)

    11 943 Ft

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    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Product details:

    • Publisher Princeton University Press
    • Date of Publication 4 November 2025
    • Number of Volumes Print PDF

    • ISBN 9780691245386
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages248 pages
    • Size 234x155 mm
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 3 b/w illus. 1 table.
    • 769

    Categories

    Long description:

    The mental labor that keeps families afloat—and why women do most of it

    Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered differences in the ways women and men think? What’s on Her Mind provides an illuminating look at the cognitive labor that families depend on and reveals why this essential aspect of family life is disproportionately handled by women—even in couples that aspire to practice equality.

    While most accounts of household labor center on how people use their time, Allison Daminger focuses on a less visible and less easily quantifiable aspect of family life. She introduces readers to the concept of cognitive labor—anticipating, researching, deciding, and following up—and shows how women in different-gender couples do most of this critical work. She argues that cognitive labor has less to do with personality traits—for example, she’s type A while he’s laid-back—and more to do with learned skills that men and women deploy in distinct ways. Yet not all couples fall into the personality trap. Daminger looks at different-gender couples who achieve a more balanced cognitive allocation while also exploring how queer couples carve out unique relationships to the gender binary.

    Drawing on original, in-depth interviews with members of different- and same-gender couples, What’s on Her Mind points to new ways of understanding the interplay between who we are as individuals and the cognitive work we do on behalf of our families.



    "It is exactly [the] notion of how gender is embedded in our minds that Daminger’s What’s on Her Mind tackles, helping readers understand how couples negotiate the mental load of family life. . . . Daminger points us to the importance of centering the mental load in our discussions and not dismissing it as a ‘woman’s issue,’ carefully articulating why having women bogged down in worries about lost socks and dirty dishes is a problem for everyone."---Leah Ruppanner, Science

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