Defining Work: Gender, Professional Work, and the Case of Rural Clergy

For rural clergy, the lines between private life and professional life can become blurred. Their offices are often in their homes, parishioners are also neighbours, and professional duties are intertwined with emotional caregiving and volunteer activity. In a society that defines work as paid, public, and intellectual, the ambiguity inherent in the life of the rural clergy poses unique challenges.

In Defining Work Muriel Mellow considers how men and women in this occupational group conceptualize "work" in the context of their unique circumstances and shows how their experience raises questions for feminist theories of work.