“But in fact, the movement to create a system of formal education about domestic matters was founded largely on the notion that nothing about cooking, sewing, cleaning, or parenting was intuitive—and certainly none of it was inherently feminine”

This week, Ebru encouraged me to check out Bitch Magazine as well as Shameless Magazine. Both magazines are feminist-slanted in nature, and include many compelling articles about current feminist issues. I was able to find two articles from each to discuss in my blog that I thought would add significantly to my feminist marriage topic in particular. So without further ado (which it seems I’ve gotten in the habit of saying a lot…I’ll have to come up with something else…) I present to you the first article from Bitch Magazine, “What Happened to Home Economics?” by Christen McCurdy.

Here’s the link: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/what-happened-to-home-economics-history-feminism-education  

In this article, McCurdy presents the history of home economics and offers some conflicting perceptions of the subject as both liberating and oppressive for women. While the subject is originally rooted in feminist-oriented goals (just as the first quotation I include below suggests), the take-over of the subject by universities and consequently males both reduced the prevalence of the subject in these institutions and stripped it of its importance as a discipline.  

“Early home economists sought to simultaneously elevate the perceived value of domestic work and to create career opportunities for women”

“At the same time, many arguments for elevating the status of domestic skills were shrouded in the rhetoric of the 19th-century ‘cult of domesticity,’ which stressed the nobility not just of female work, but of a selfless feminine affect”

Women had domestic work drilled into their minds as a “noble” and “selfless” undertaking, which I think connects well to this idea of a “labour of love.” It seems to me that women were essentially brainwashed (maybe that’s too harsh of a word, but I’m keeping it anyways) into believing that they had to stay home if they hoped to be valued members of their society. This attitude still persists today. As a personal example, as I’ve mentioned before my mother has always been highly career-focused. Contrary to being raised in a traditional Italian household with a mother who was solely responsible for the domestic work, my mother never took to this way of life and established her goals elsewhere. My father’s mother was always extremely critical of my mother’s choices and gave my father a hard time about the fact that he was cooking meals and performing other domestic tasks when (according to my grandma) my mother should be the one doing it all. Not only does housework continue to be portrayed as this beautiful selfless act (I can’t help but think of the mother’s day crafts we would do for our moms in elementary school…always geared towards thanking them for all they do around the house and for us, while for father’s day all I can remember is making cards and other crafts that either involved ties or were tie-shaped), it also continues to be portrayed as an expectation worthy of scorn if a woman sets aside domestic tasks for a career.

“But there was a significant gap between what founders intended to do with home economics—to recognize domestic work as a skill and to improve the efficiency and safety with which it was performed, and to raise questions about the economics and justice of the work itself—and what college administrations seemed to want home ec departments to do for women students—to perpetuate a patriarchal, capitalist status quo”

“Christine Frederick, a contemporary of Richards, penned the 1929 book Selling Mrs. Consumer, in which…she argued for more efficient and scientific management of the home, as well as suggesting that manufacturers deliberately give their goods short life spans to keep women buying. Frederick had previously written that ‘our greatest enemy is the woman with a career,’ and presaged the Phyllis Schlaflys and Caitlin Flanagans of contemporary America by making a tidy income arguing that women shouldn’t work”

It’s quite painful for me to read something like this, even though I know from my own experience that many women (even more painfully, still today) think this way. My grandmother is an example of one of these women unfortunately, however I’m not sure I would count her for much since she’s not a great person (understatement of the year. It seems awful that I’m speaking this way about a grandmother of all people, but since this blog has nothing to do with her and I don’t feel like going into a rant about my family history, you will just have to take my word for it). I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m one of those so-called feminists who just go around hating and blaming men for everything when I say this, but I genuinely wonder if a belief system similar to Frederick’s has come about as a result of deeply ingrained patriarchal structures, or if this is really, truly, sincerely what she thinks women should be doing. All beliefs have to come from somewhere, right? They don’t just fall out of the sky. So I want to know what has made her think this way and why. Perhaps I should read her book…

“As [the first home economics teachers began to retire in the 1950s and 60s], they weren’t replaced with an up-and-coming crop of female professors (most home economics graduates were women), but instead with male professors—who usually ended up earning far more. In many cases, home ec departments were eliminated, renamed, or folded into other departments, and funding was cut (although administrators’ salaries typically rose)”

Why am I not surprised? I swear, at this point in my research I don’t think you could tell me anything about Western society and patriarchy that would floor me.

“[Universities] pointed to the low proportion of doctorates among home economists and observed openly that most of its faculty consisted of women (usually 90 to 100 percent), especially older and single ones. To them such female domination constituted proof that the field was out of date. This became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as home ec curricula were made lighter and less interesting”

Apparently when women dominate a field, this is a tell-tale sign that said field needs to be devalued. When it comes to academics and careers, based on this statement and my previous research, a couple of things happen when the majority of students or workers in a particular field are female: 1) Men don’t want anything to do with it anymore, especially when women take over certain jobs. These jobs become “girl’s work” and are thus beneath the abilities of men. 2) Just like this example and the previous example suggests, when an academic department is taken over by women, men need to either take it back or render it unimportant.