Home Sweat Home

Perspectives on Housework and Modern Relationships

Edited by Elizabeth Patton, Mimi Choi

Publication date:

23 January 2014

Length of book:

284 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442229693

Coeditors Elizabeth Patton and Mimi Choi argue that an in-depth examination of media images of housework from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century is long overdue. Modern depictions often imply that certain concerns can be resolved through excessive domesticity, reflecting some of the complicated and unfinished issues of second-wave feminism. Home Sweat Home: Perspectives on Housework and Modern Relationships reveals how widespread the cultural image of “perfect” housewives and the invisibility of household labor were in the past and remain today.

In this collection of essays, contributors explore the construction of women as homemakers and the erasure of household labor from the middle-class home in popular representations of housework. They concentrate on such matters as the impact of second-wave feminism on families and gender relations; of popular culture—especially in film, television, magazines, and advertising—on our views of what constitutes home life and gender relations; and of changing views of sexuality and masculinity within the domestic sphere.

Home Sweat Home will interest students and scholars of gender, cultural, media, and communication studies; sociology; and American history and appeal to anyone curious about housework, gender relations and popular culture.

Dedication
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Hung Out to Dry: Laundry Advertising and the American Woman, 1890-1920 by Kristi Branham

Chapter 2: Snapshot Photography, Women’s Domestic Work and the “Kodak Moment” 1910s–60s by Nicola Goc

Chapter 3: From Chimney Sweeps to House Elves: Housework, Subject Formation, Agency, and British Children’s Fantasy Literature 1863-2007 by Hannah Swamidoss

Chapter 4: Appliance Reliance: Domestic Technologies and the Depersonalization of Housework in Postwar American Speculative Fiction by Andrea Krafft

Chapter 5: Making Easier the Lives of our Housewives: Visions of Domestic Technology in the Kitchen Debate by Nicole Williams Barnes

Chapter 6: Supernatural Housework: Magic and Domesticity in 1960s Television by Kristi Rowan Humphreys

Chapter 7: Every Day Should Be Like Sunny Weather: Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon Channel Carol Channing to Resolve the Politics of Housework for a New Generation of Parents by Mimi Choi

Chapter 8: Spaces of Masculinity and Work: Bringing Men Back into the Domestic Sphere by Elizabeth Patton

Chapter 9: Kauering “Home” in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet by Gust A. Yep and Ryan Lescure

Chapter 10: Good Luck Raising the Modern Family: Analyzing Portrayals of Sexual Division of Labor and Socioeconomic Class on Family Sitcoms by Nancy E. Bressler

Chapter 11: No Longer Whistling While You Work? Reanimating the Cult of Domesticity in The Incredibles by Christopher Holliday

Chapter 12: I Couldn’t Do It without Her: Big Love, Sister Wives, and Housework by Rita M. Jones
Suggested Reading
About the Contributors

Inspired by seminal works in feminist literature, editors Patton and Choi have assembled 12 articles examining gender stereotypes surrounding housework from the late 1800s through the 20th century. Contributors emphasize the role of culture and media in developing idealized aspirations of modern domesticity, in addition to researching housework trends. Chapters cover topics such as the use of modern appliances, parenting, and men's roles in domestic tasks. . . .[T]hose within higher education will find that chapters are well researched and written and cover novel areas of inquiry. The detailed index, along with the table of contents and list of figures, will aid readers in easily navigating to sections of interest within the work. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers/faculty.