Women's Studies 2050 Spring 2003
Weeks 11-12 Women and Work
Readings: chapter 8
response topic #10: What changes do you think need to occur to create equitable systems of work for all women?
In 1983 Ruth Schwartz Cowan
published her now-classic text More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the
Open Hearth to the Microwave. Cowan argued that household technology has made more work for women of the house. This is ironic
because these modern conveniences are often thought to be time-saving devices -
the problem arises because standards of living and the structure inside a
household have greatly changed since new technologies were first introduced to
Americans. Our lives now are vastly different from the early nineteen hundreds,
when standards of cleanliness were vastly different, and most families had
outside help that would assist with whatever needed to be done. It is
amazing to realize that as more and more families were able to afford new and
improved household technologies, women were expected to do more and more around
the home with less help then the previous generation had. That scares me - right
now I can imagine all the work that my mother does - she works probably 40-50
hour work weeks, and then she still needs to cook, clean, and do laundry. I feel
like she works all the time, and I try to imagine me (as the next generation)
trying to accomplish even more than she does with less help - seems impossible.
So when I stop and consider this happening in the past - well it's amazing.
Cowan gives us several examples of how various technologies
changed women's lives. Looking at an invention such as the washing machine is
one great example. Without the context discussed thus far, one would think that
the washing machine cut out so much time and helped women out vastly with their
household chores. However, if before the washing machine came about, women hired
help who would come in and take care of that chore, or sent their wash out to be
done elsewhere... then we begin to see the difference. This was the case as
Cowan presented it in her book. Some people would have to perform the difficult
of washing the clothes on a scrubbing board or bought a hand-cranked machine
that still was a difficult task - but most people hired a laundress or went to
an outside service. Then the electric motor came along, and you could buy a tub
that did your scrubbing. But you still would have to wring out the clothes and
hang the clothes to dry. Still a lot of work - so most people still took the
option of hiring a laundress or sending their clothes out to be done.
Then after WWII came the automatic washing machine but by this time there is a
lot more laundry then previous generations had, since standards of cleanliness
are much higher, and there is no more help like the laundress or outside
laundries to assist the mother with the laundry - so more work is created for
most of the families.
As Cowan points out, the "technological and social systems for doing
housework had been constructed with the expectation that the people engaged in
them would be full-time housewives. When the full-time housewives began to
disappear, those systems could not adjust quickly."
Families of today are expected to work, cook, care for
children, transport children and spouses (or themselves) to work, school, or
social gatherings, among many other chores - and lots of this work still falls
upon the mother. More Work For Mother paints a grim portrait for the
amount of work that needs to be done in a household. Studies that I looked at
last semester in my Sociology of Gender course showed that basically a second
shift of work existed in the household - and with most household being two
parent working families, that second shift of 40 hours often falls on the
mother. Some households try to divide things up equally among the parents, but
it depends on the household dynamics.
Cowan concludes her book well: "We can best solve the
problems that beset many working wives and their families not by returning to
the way things used to be, not by destroying the technological systems that have
provided many benefits, and not by calling for the death of the family as a
social institution - but by helping the next generation to neutralize both the
sexual connotation of washing machines and vacuum cleaners and the senseless
tyranny of spotless shirts and immaculate floors." (Either that or create
even better machines that do everything for you?)
History Matters provides supportive materials: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4990/
The Homemakers' Bill of Rights, 1979: http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/early5.html
"Unequal share of housework causes depression in women, study says" http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau//1998-99/98-093.html
From Dartmouth College a study on the possible links between mothers working outside the home and child obesity: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2003/jan/012003.html
International statistics on women's work: