“Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work” In his New York Times piece “Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work” Craig Lambert focused mainly on “shadow work”, the term was recognized by Illich (1981) who described the unseen labor undertaken in modern day society. It’s probably has not been long since people bag their own groceries, clean their own dishes or pump their own gas. Craig Lambert points out that everybody does “shadow work”. Regardless of how people make livings- exchanging time, talent, ability and getting a lot done for a more marketable commodity, money, to trade that indirect good for needs and beyond. But his tone makes us to think twice why we spend so much of our time doing unpaid tasks. Shadow works are employments that were once done by somebody; we now do it without anyone else's help. Shadow work is discovered all around, from owning, protecting, keeping up and filling your own particular vehicles, to paying bills and shopping online. Lambert makes us realize that the digital world has …show more content…
For Illich gender divisions in modern society have led to values being defined by consumers and producers (19). “Parallel with second-class wage-work organized for women, first at the sewing machine, then at the typewriter and finally on the telephone, something new, the disestablished housewife came into being”, according to him. Agrees to Illich, Lambert writes that as machines replace low-level workers at places such as gas stations and make some jobs outmoded, we are actually forced to take on more ourselves. He says it is a sign that “the robots have won”. “We thought that robots and technology was going to free us of menial things, but ironically quite often technology actually gives us more trivial or menial tasks and actually throws these things back on our laps,” Lambert claims