Though the Madeleva lectures, from which this essay is taken, is devoted to the education and spiritual well-being of women, Kathleen Norris` luminous reflection on the spirituality of ordinary life is not for women only. The women`s work in the title can refer to any daily chore that leads to boredom, frustration, or despair -- whether housecleaning or mindless office work. Norris shows how such work can ground us in the world without grinding us down, how it has an incarnational reality that sanctifies everyday life.