It was one of those days, typical of England, when you have to work very hard to remember that above the thick, white cloud the sky is always blue. I was cycling up Cheltenham Road, feeling increasingly angry, when I saw a giant advertising hoarding had been erected around a disused car showroom that had, until recently, been a residential squat. It read: ‘New Development, a mix of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom flats. Prices start at just £199,000’. The advert included pictures of smart-looking kitchens, shiny surfaces, and anonymous faces grinning inanely at their fictional bathtubs. I started to cycle harder with each raging thought. I had woken up feeling dismal and my mood had become progressively worse as the day went on. At that time, I worked as a junior programme maker at BBC Radio 4. I had been told in a meeting that I needed to establish a ‘celebrity angle’ on a story that I was working on. It maddened me. What relevance do celebrities have to ordinary people’s lives? This was 2007. The Global Financial Crash was just months away. Back then I resembled a slightly scruffy, more politically engaged Bridget Jones. Single and painfully middle class, I smoked roll-up cigarettes and spent most of my time feeling frustrated that both national and international politics appeared to be moving to the Right while I, and millions of others, protested but got nowhere. Massive peaceful anti-war protests had been ignored by Britain’s ruling elite, and direct action carried increased risk of criminalization. Some saw violence as a resort—albeit the last one—but it was never my style, so instead I just felt increasingly frustrated. I was sick of joining ‘movements’ to quickly become nothing more than a ‘clicktavist’, and was not prepared to turn my back and sink into a state of total apathy. I felt extremely powerless and that made me angry. ‘Rachael!’ I heard someone call my name. It was Jim Dixon, an old friend and fellow graduate of the University of Bristol’s MA in Historical Archaeology.
Doing Gender with Class: Gender Division of Unpaid Work in Russian Middle-Class Dual Earner Heterosexual Households