Shared Spaces, Shared Responsibility: An Exploration of the Gendered Division of Labor in Cohousing Communities.

Saturday 4:30 – 5:30 pm
The members of cohousing communities choose to live together and share resources, including material possessions, skills, time, and labor. In doing so, they become involved in each other’s lives, but they are also forced to negotiate gendered divisions of labor and the separation of public and private spaces in ways that are different from the rest of the population. To examine the influence of collaborative living upon the gendered division of labor in cohousing communities, I surveyed members of cohousing communities throughout the United States and Canada via an online survey. In my analysis of their responses, I examine how the gendered division of labor in cohousing communities compares to the gendered division of labor in traditional single-family homes, and I explore whether sharing spaces and resources through collaborative living provides a viable alternative to the single-family household, or whether traditionally gendered expectations and behaviors are simply perpetuated in cohousing communities

PRESENTER: Lindsey (Lina) Menard grew up in Seattle, WA and has lived in Walla Walla for seven years. She learned about cohousing in a Human Ecology class at Nova Alternative High School and decided that instead of just building her own home someday she’d like to help design her own neighborhood. Lina is taking a Sustainable Building Adviser course in Spokane this year and hopes to consult on creating more sustainable homes, neighborhoods, and communities. She serves on the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation Design Committee and on the board of directors for the Sustainable Living Center and Daily Market Cooperative. Lina wrote her sociology thesis at Whitman about cohousing and is part of the Core Group for CoWalla, a forming cohousing group in Walla Walla, WA.