I thought I would use this final post in the More Work for
Mother series to explore our current circumstances. For those who missed Part 1, Part 2, and Part
3 (links?), this series of posts is based on Ruth Schwartz Cowan’s book More Work For Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave.
By
the end of her book, Cowan concludes that technological
developments over the last century haven’t reduced housework for women.
Instead, they have leveled the playing field, allowing families across
all social classes have achieved the same basic standard in
food preparation, house cleaning, and personal hygiene. Today, nearly
everyone in the U.S., not just
the wealthy, bathes regularly, wears laundered clothes, and receives
basic
nutrition. Nevertheless, housework still
takes time and most of it is still done by women.
Are we stuck with this dynamic for the foreseeable
future? Or is society shifting towards a
more balanced division of household labor?
I don’t think we have an answer, but I’d like to bring up two recent
phenomena.
New Domesticity:
I don’t know a huge amount about this and would like to read more. If anyone has suggestions please
comment! By “new domesticity” I mean the
recent growth in home-based activities like canning, pickling, jam making, knitting,
etc. In More Work for Mother, Cowan mentions the appeal of
traditional
self-sufficiency in our society and calls these activities a “backward
search
for femininity.” I wonder if the trend
is somewhat more complicated. While
people have many reasons to participate in traditional home cooking and
crafting activities, might the trend reflect reactions to the frantic
rat-race
in modern business? Or the recent backlash against processed food?
We’re stressed at work and don’t trust our
food. Why not fall back to traditional
tasks we can trust? Maybe so, but I wonder if society has just
rationalized increases in women's labors as a default alternative to
addressing the underlying issues. Surely this is a fertile topic for
broader feminist
discussions.
Stay-at-Home Dads:
But! I hear you say. What about the rise
of stay-at-home dads? Many popular media
outlets have highlighted stay-at-home dads and more equal balances in housework
generally. Again, I am not an expert
here and would welcome hard data on this topic.
Are stay-at-home dads just an artifact of this most recent economic
downturn? Or do they represent a substantial shift in the way families approach
the household and its labors? Hopefully they reflect a societal shift in gender
roles, but Cowan would not be hopeful.
Apparently such talk pops up once a decade.
I am so happy you brought up the topic of "new domesticity!" I have been thinking about this A LOT recently. There are so many more DIY things one is "supposed" to do to be healthier and avoid toxins in our food/household (search out the most affordable organic meat/veg, make your own granola, grow tomatoes, make your own non-dairy milk because of BPA, make your own soap etc). But who is usually doing all that 'new domestic' work? Women. And many women seem to be embracing that type of work as some extension of the 'nurturing mother' role. It is really hard to run a household like that and hold full-time job (our modern economy is literally built so you can't do this) so a lot of women I read about doing this work are stay-at-home moms . . . so this sort of intensive lifestyle/health engineering for the whole family gets lumped rather dismissively into carework/domestic work. I think two things bother me (1) the ease with which our society just accepts this type of work as 'women's work' despite it's very different motivation and what it is in response to [I think the 'backward search for femininity' really applies here] and (2) the work is not respected or even acknowledged as distinct from other care/domestic work, despite its existence being a reaction to very big and contemporary issues. Just as carework is not respected, the task of trying to prevent your family from being (literally) poisoned by society is not respected as an big task requiring skill, time, resources, commitment, energy, and intelligence.
ReplyDeleteAs per the "stay at home dad" section, Eric seems very interesting in achieving this title in the future. I am not sure if it is a change in societal norms or because he saw it work well for his parents when his father fell ill, but it does seem to be significant!
ReplyDeleteI think to an extent it is more socially acceptable, to be a good father is now defined as doing things with you kids whether they are sons or daughters.