A few things people have said about this newsletter:
Meg Conley is doing some of the smartest and most challenging writing on intersection of women, home, money, and care. She is an exquisite writer, constantly surprising me with the turns and clarity of her prose. - Culture Study, Anne Helen Petersen
It’s incredible how she can always be funny, incisive, and eloquent, all at once. Actually, it’s maddening that she’s this good. - Historian, Benjamin E. Park
If you’ve ever wished you could have been a part of Tolkien’s Inklings or swirl a drink by the fire with Emerson and Alcott, Meg’s writing is pretty damn close. I’ve never paid for a subscription so fast. - children’s book author, Camille Andros
A masterwork on modern capitalism, care work, and sexism, honestly. Subscribe to the homeculture newsletter and pay for it—worth every penny - Matriarchy Report, Lane Anderson
Truly never happier to receive an email than when Meg Conley’s newsletter arrives in my inbox. - TV production extraordinaire, Emily Keaney
Welcome home(culture)!
This newsletter is an exploration of home. I use reporting, research and unexpected connections to pick apart the stories that make homes. Then together, we weave new ideas about what home can be.
My work appears in places like Harper’s Bazaar, Slate, and The Guardian. I also get talk on shows like NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and in documentaries like The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe.
But there’s nowhere like homeculture. (Do you see what I did there.)
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I am so happy you are here!
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Mini podcast episodes little wonderings and chatty check-ins
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When you sign up for a paid subscription, you’re giving me 12 minutes a month to write about economic justice, care and culture in the home. I promise not to waste a second.
Hi, I’m Meg. It’s so lovely to get to be your host.
My work has appeared in places like Harper’s Bazaar, Slate, and The Guardian. I also get talk on shows like NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and in documentaries like The Rise and Fall of LulaRoe. It’s kind of more than I ever dared to hope.
I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s a religion with eternalized versions of the separate spheres. As a little Mormon girl, I was taught I belonged in the domestic sphere. A woman’s work was the same on earth as it was in heaven. Women were supposed to perform the maintenance of creation. I was never sure what that meant for my afterlife, but I understood what it meant for my life - I’d make dinner, I’d make babies, I’d make beds, I’d make home a heaven on earth.
I became a homemaker at 24 when I had my first baby. After years of work in the domestic sphere, I became disillusioned. I felt disempowered and disconnected. I thought maybe the lean in feminists were right. Maybe the domestic sphere was oppressive, maybe liberation could only be found through the market sphere. When my family moved to the Bay Area, I was anxious to see how a world built by a nearly unfettered tech market liberated the home and the people within it.
Instead, I saw the market extract value from home while denying people within homes the rights of a stakeholder. People who were not white people in tech suffered the most. As lean in white feminists preached the saving grace of the market, they underpaid their nannies and voted to protect their own compound interests. I finally realized that my religion and the market were selling me the same exploited version of Home. I’m done consuming it, I’m done being consumed by it.
It’s kind of funny, I guess. I was raised to do house work and I do. I write to make and unmake the home every day.
Need to get in touch? Email me at meg@megconley.com
