Labour that involves intimate and often messy contact with the bodies of others through touch or close proximity. Body work has been and continues to be undertaken primarily by women, and is based on a sexual division of labour that assigns to women the care of bodies and the spaces they inhabit. Body work—for example, care work, childcare, and beauty therapy—is generally done by those on the lower rungs of the job ladder; see McDowell, Dyer, and Batnitzky (2008) PHG 33, 46. C. Wolkowitz (2006) describes body work as involving the ‘care, adornment, pleasure, discipline, or cure’ of others’ bodies.