This article explores narratives of boredom among young lower middle class women employed in the bourgeoning services sector in India, across cafes, call centres, malls and offices. These young women cite boredom from ‘sitting at home’ as a reason to seek employment. Adopting Bourdieu’s understanding of temporal relations as informed by ‘subjective expectations’ and ‘objective chances’, I place young women’s temporal narratives in the context of post-1990 socio-economic change in India. I show that there is a shift in young lower middle class women’s expectations, particularly on the basis of acquisition of higher education. By rendering the space of home – characterised by compulsion to participate in housework, pressure to get married and restrictions on mobility and friendships – as temporally insignificant, young women resist gender norms. Their narratives contribute to gendering scholarship on temporal disruptions in the context of socio-economic change, which is currently overdetermined by young men’s experiences.

中文翻译：

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“如果你呆在家里真的很无聊”：印度城市的女性、工作和临时性

本文探讨了受雇于印度新兴服务业、咖啡馆、呼叫中心、商场和办公室的年轻中产阶级女性对无聊的叙述。这些年轻女性将“坐在家里”的无聊作为找工作的理由。我采用 Bourdieu 对时间关系的理解，以“主观期望”和“客观机会”为依据，将年轻女性的时间叙事置于 1990 年后印度社会经济变革的背景下。我表明年轻的中下阶层女性的期望发生了变化，特别是在获得高等教育的基础上。通过将家的空间——其特点是被迫参与家务、结婚的压力以及流动性和友谊的限制——在时间上变得无关紧要，年轻女性抵制性别规范。