Carolyn Steedman on housework:

"I take a furtive and secret pride in the fact that I can do all these things, that I am physically strong, can lift and carry things that defeat other women, wonder with some scorn what it must be like to have to learn to clean a house as an adult, not having the ability laid down as part of the growing self. Like going to sleep by contrasting a bed with a pavement, I sometimes find myself thinking that if the worse comes to the worst, I can always earn a living by my hands; I can scrub, clean, cook and sew; all you have in the end is your labour."

Carolyn Kay Steedman, Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey 1987, p.43