Due to continued industrial expansion during the beginning of the 20th century, most innovations were economic and technological in nature. American businessmen in search of higher profits discovered scientific management or efficiency as one technique. After listening to a discussion between her husband and a business acquaintance Christine Frederick decides efficiency doesn’t only apply to the industrial world but can help the household. In her article “The New Housekeeping: Efficiency Studies in Home Management” published in 1912 by Ladies’ Home Journal declares more efficient housekeeping techniques provide women less work and more happiness. Her objective, bias, and substance only become clear after critical analysis.
By writing the article in a women’s home journal she specifically targets females, however more importantly housewives. She goes even further to claim this is problem only confronting the middle-class. Stating the poor aren’t complex enough while the rich will always buy service. Singling out of the middle-class shows her economic bias. Surely the occupation of housekeeping isn’t unique to one socio-economic class. However, the assumption becomes that the readership of Ladies’ Home Journal is primarily made up of middle-class women. Her objective appears that she is concerned about current frustrations among women working in their homes.
The idea in her writing is that she wants to revolutionize housekeeping. To validate this innovative concept of efficiency in the household she uses expert advice from Mr. Watson an efficiency engineer. Mr. Watson provides explanation of the twelve steps of science management in the workplace to help relate the concept to the home. Claiming there are no efficiency...
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...shed in the articles last diagram depicting the ideal kitchen layout. The efficient household would be more simplified thus reducing the steps of the housekeeper’s work. The home would in turn shift from cultural and aesthetic principles to efficiency. Mrs. Frederick uses an example of hanging pots and pans thus to save one from bending over needlessly and repetitively. Much like Catherine Beecher, Mrs. Frederick’s article claims that a woman’s occupation is homemaking. Mrs. Frederick however compares her modern home to that of a factory. Where Mrs. Beecher believed the home should be Christian-like and pleasant.
Through a thorough analysis of the article the mission is clear to promote a modern and efficient household. However the motive is less obvious. Mrs. Frederick provides insight on how and why women should want to change their home.
Are women still seen as being homemakers in modern-day society, and are they being sold a domestic lifestyle? It appears that Martha Stewart believes so and desires to continue a trend. For example, in the July/August 2014 issue of Martha Stewart Living, one could argue that women are stereotypically represented as being homemakers in a KitchenAid advertisement, which shows a woman placing a dirty pan in a KitchenAid dishwasher. Moreover, the eye-catching, bold headline, shown on the ad of the American home appliance brand is “cook like you don’t have to clean.” The ad goes further with promoting an ideal familial status of women by using subliminal advertising and product placement techniques to represent the ultimate kitchen. Furthermore, it targets the values and lifestyles of the typical wife with its controversial headline, and it goes on with a plain-folks pitch, which focuses on a conventional established role of women in society.
As a Victorian woman of the 20th century, the housewife had to manage her family’s
The majority of cultures around the world believe women belong in the household and are responsible for cooking, cleaning, raising children and taking care any and all needs of the man. While fulfilling all these task women are also except to look their best at all times. Being a maid requires the worker to take the roles of cleaning, looking their best as they clean, and in some cases raise the children. Ehrenreich states that maids have to dress “In the most eye-catching elaboration of the home-as-workplace theme”. The typical attire of a maid is a tight, black and white short dress that leaves little to the imagination. In the sixties to seventies, maid service was viewed as the “Great Equalizer” that allowed women to leave the house and work by utilizing the skills they are supposed to know. The Great Equalizer was growing to the extent that in “1973 congressional hearings on whether to extend the Fair Labor Standards Act to household workers”. This hearing would grant maids a minimum wage pay of 7.25 per hour, overtime pay eligibility, record keeping, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers. Ironically a great counter argument was provided "the demand for household help inside the home will continue to increase as more women seek occupations outside the home." This argument proved very troublesome since it strongly suggests to keep women oppressed by gender standards and maintain the cultural values of the sixties to seventies. Even with this counter argument the act was extended to domestic workers in
... to the domesticated woman urging her to care for her family providing food for the body but to also care for herself in providing food for her mind: A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body” (602). Murray, also makes suggestion for reform, encouraging women not to abandon their familial roles, but, rather tend to their family’s domestic needs dynamically saying “while we are pursuing the needle, or the superintendency of the family, I repeat, that our minds are at full liberty for reflection; that imagination may exert itself in full vigor” (405). In saying this she encourages women not to be passive but to be active and dynamic in their supposed roles as women, to defy the notion of the archetypal woman who tends to her family and has nothing that pertains to her solely and enrich the mind and subsequently herself.
As will be discussed, becoming a domestic servant in the nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic change in viewpoint from the previous century, as the role was no longer considered a calling from God . During this period, writers who produced household manuals to be used as a guidebook within a household, such as Isabella Beeton, also became a popular resource for servants lucky enough to have been employed to serve in a servants position within a household. These household manuals have helped to reveal that the job of being a maid of all work was a labour intensive job which was only made more complex by ensuring that her duties were completed in a way that was least disruptive to her employers, meaning she must be unobserved in her work.
A house is not a home if no one lives there. During the nineteenth century, the same could be said about a woman concerning her role within both society and marriage. The ideology of the Cult of Domesticity, especially prevalent during the late 1800’s, emphasized the notion that a woman’s role falls within the domestic sphere and that females must act in submission to males. One of the expected jobs of a woman included bearing children, despite the fact that new mothers frequently experienced post-partum depression. If a woman were sterile, her purposefulness diminished. While the Cult of Domesticity intended to create obliging and competent wives, women frequently reported feeling trapped or imprisoned within the home and within societal expectations put forward by husbands, fathers, and brothers.
In the early 1900’s, around the time the story takes place; women were expected to be care takers of the home, to be clean, well dressed and mannered. All of these
The Market Revolution caused many women now to see that they were capable of more than just tending to the home. As the
This article talks about the growing movement of hiring maids for household work. This article starts off as being about gender inequality, but then turns into an issue of class and moral standards. The author explains her own experiences of house cleaning. She also describes how “wealthier class’s children are being raised with the attitude”. (Barbara Ehrenreich) That the people that clean up after them are “lower” than everyone else. Additionally she talks about how the hiring of house hold workers will increase and eventually move on to the middle class homes.
and was notable for the energy with which she ran the household.” ( Carpenter and Prichard 97).
The portrayal of gender in this text shows the husband as the prime breadwinner of the household while the wife stays home to clean the house and tend for the children. This is clearly our traditional family lifestyle of a household. Now although this can be considered traditional, we clearly see this lifestyle outdated in our twenty-first century society today. The text is demonstrated to show the young daughter her place in society, and teach the young girl the everyday tasks she will need to know in order to run a household smoothly and successfully. It is also clear that the mother’s life reflects all of these ideals that a husband should be the one working and the wife is to be happy and content by taking great pride and satisfaction in the caring for her home. The mother also has strong view on the behavior for a women in society and throughout the story gives many warning on her daughters behavior such as “on Sundays try and walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”. (Kincaid 56) This is a clear statement from the mother tha...
While the girl loved the work outside she hated to do the ‘woman’s work’ inside. She disliked her mother for making her do it, and believed that her mother only made her do it be...
“Home Economics Study Teaches Girls at School to be Good Housewives: Dull Meals Probably to Be in Limbo of Past as Result of Course,” The Globe and Mail, August 29, 1939, 13.
However, women have made optimistical progress towards equality and their role in the society has been changed dramatically since the last century. Many women stepped out of their home and start to work at factories and offices. The number of working women with children has more than doubled in the past 50 years. While working conditions for women may have improved, there is a lack of appreciation for the notion that work for most women doesn't end at the door of a factory or office. Despite an increase of women's participation in the labour force, women's share of housework has hardly changed in 50 years.
Gender is defined as the scopes of genetic, physical, mental and behaviour characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and feminity, meanwhile inequality is defined as in a situation where there is an unfair situation or treatment in which certain people have more privileges or better opportunities or chances than other people. Thus, from the definition stated gender inequality refers to unequal or unfair management, treatment, or perceptions of persons or individuals are based on their gender. In a parallel sense, gender inequality can be said as the world in which there was discrimination against anyone based on gender. In this introductory, the general understanding of gender inequalities will be discussed further into three significant factors that influence the allocation of housework between men and women. Household chores can be classified as cleaning, cooking and paying bills. Division of housework serves as an important element in the continuation of the function of a family and it requires contribution from both spouses (Tang, 2012). However, current society’s perception on housework is based on gender, so the three major factors that influence the division of household chores within the couples are education level, economic resources, and time availability (refer to Figure1 in Appendix 1).