Who does the invisible work?

Centered on migrant Filipino domestic workers, Parreñas develops the international division of reproductive labor and offers a foundational account of global care chains, transnational families, and migrant women's labor.

Grace Chang traces how immigration policy, welfare reform, and global capital create a low-paid, stigmatized, yet socially essential workforce of immigrant women.

Nicole Constable centers Filipina migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, showing how recruitment, employment, live-in rules, resistance, and negotiation shape care labor in an Asian global city.

This anthology reframes globalization through women's migration, domestic work, sex work, and care deficits, showing how household convenience in wealthy countries depends on emotional and bodily labor from the Global South.

Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy trace how voice assistants, domestic robots, and intimate technologies encode wifework into the future home, then propose a feminist reboot.

First-generation Filipino American author Angela Garbes combines memoir with cultural analysis to critically examine mothering expectations and assumptions, revealing how American society depends on yet often overlooks the essential contributions of mothers and family caregivers.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha frames disability justice as practical knowledge from sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown communities, centering collective access, care webs, and liberation where no one is left behind.

This groundbreaking book introduces the concept of 'emotional labor' through an examination of how service workers, particularly flight attendants, are required to manage their emotions as part of their job. Hochschild explores how capitalism commercializes human feelings and the gendered implications of emotional work in the modern economy.

Bridget Anderson analyzes how migrant domestic labor is organized by employers, states, and border regimes, exposing the race, class, gender, and citizenship politics behind household work.

Lila Avilés's debut centers a hotel room attendant in Mexico City, using minimalist drama to show hidden cleaning labor, fantasies of mobility, and women's isolation.

This Brazilian drama uses the conflict between a live-in housekeeper, her daughter, and an employer's family to expose domestic labor, separated motherhood, class boundaries, and women's dignity.

There's no rioting, protesting, or marching for civil rights here. Jeanne Dielman, single mother and sometime sex worker, has a simple life: laundry, dinner, the occasional john. The mundanity of being a housewife is on achingly tedious display for three-plus hours in Chantal Akerman's experimental film. And that's why it's brilliant.

Written, directed, edited by, and starring Isabel Sandoval, this film brings trans identity, immigration status, care work, and intimacy into one fragile story of a Filipina caregiver in New York.

Writer and director Alfonso Cuarón has described Roma as a love letter to all the women who raised him. It's a beautiful rumination on all the 'hoods' women go through: girlhood, womanhood, motherhood. A domestic drama about a maid and the middle-class family she cares for in Mexico City, the story is told in crisp black-and-white, but it doesn't take long to see that a woman's work never ventures far out of the gray area.

A widowed single mother Amelia and her young son confront the mysterious terror creature Babadook in their home. This Australian psychological horror film breaks traditional gender stereotypes in horror cinema, exploring profound themes of loss, grief, maternal stress, and women's inner darkness from a mother's perspective.

If you can't get something done, do it yourself. Ava DuVernay took this adage to heart and wrote, directed, produced, and financed this family drama about a woman grieving the death of a loved one. It made just a blip on the box office radar, but her debut feature offers a peek at the woman behind the camera.

In this TEDWomen talk, Ai-jen Poo frames domestic workers, nannies, caregivers, and cleaners as invisible infrastructure and argues for rights, wages, and dignity.

In this video essay, oliSUNvia critiques the cultural backlash against 'choice feminism' and the rise of stay-at-home girlfriend discourse. She argues that autonomy must include the right to make non-normative or traditionally feminine choices without being dismissed as brainwashed or anti-feminist. Through nuanced commentary and community responses, the video explores the tension between agency, internalized norms, and feminist respect for individual paths.

Ali Wong's groundbreaking comedy special Baby Cobra features her performing at seven months pregnant, using sharp humor to challenge Asian American female stereotypes and explore gender discrimination, motherhood penalty, and workplace inequality.

In this TEDIndia talk, playwright and activist Eve Ensler explores the concept of the 'girl cell' - a universal source of empathy, vulnerability, and strength that society teaches us to suppress. Through global stories of resilience, she argues that embracing this inner girl is key to healing and transformation.

This TED audio episode discusses why domestic workers, child care workers, caregivers, and household employment relationships should be treated as infrastructure and policy questions, not merely private arrangements.

Feminist Survival Project is a podcast hosted by twin sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski, specifically designed for those who feel exhausted in feminist practice while still constantly doubting themselves. The two hosts are also authors of the bestselling book 'Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.' The show focuses on stress cycles, nervous system regulation, trauma recovery, and emotional labor, combining psychological research with personal experiences to help listeners find ways to survive in patriarchal society. Its style is warm, frank, and insightful.

The Gender at Work Podcast is hosted by Aruna Rao and Joanne Sandler, featuring conversations with global feminist activists, scholars, and community practitioners. The show takes a critical perspective exploring issues of love, policy, war, and cross-cultural alliances, emphasizing the intersection of decolonization, anti-militarization, and emotional politics.