“Important note: What could be a more pleasant surprise for your wife at Christmas than the gift of a beautiful Hotpoint Automatic Dishwasher!”
I could think of more than a few more pleasant surprises…
grilledcheese_man on
Dad’s day job is “Manufacturing Workflow Engineer” at the auto plant, but the notion of helping his wife with the dishes never crossed his mind.
yblame on
They have a LOT of plates. Enough to make a wall between the kitchen and living room.
Why do they have so many plates and where does she store them and I wonder if they’re taking the place of a load bearing wall?
ArmadilloFour on
Nicole Rudolph has a pretty interesting video about the emergence of “open concept” houses, wherein she essentially presents a narrative where houses kept the kitchen mostly separated from the bulk of the house for a few reasons. Fire is dangerous and also hot, and food has smells which you might not want everywhere… but ALSO because we would prefer that The Help was out of sight.
But as the economics of the household changed and fewer middle class households had servants or help. There were fewer households with live-in maids or cooks, so more of these tasks fell onto the women in the house, which meant that women (specifically middle class) increasingly did actually find themselves with increased drains on their time and energy in ways that isolated them from the family.
So something like this seems really basic and sexist and cynical today but I think really is in communication with some interesting class- and gender-based societal shifts.
4 Comments
“Important note: What could be a more pleasant surprise for your wife at Christmas than the gift of a beautiful Hotpoint Automatic Dishwasher!”
I could think of more than a few more pleasant surprises…
Dad’s day job is “Manufacturing Workflow Engineer” at the auto plant, but the notion of helping his wife with the dishes never crossed his mind.
They have a LOT of plates. Enough to make a wall between the kitchen and living room.
Why do they have so many plates and where does she store them and I wonder if they’re taking the place of a load bearing wall?
Nicole Rudolph has a pretty interesting video about the emergence of “open concept” houses, wherein she essentially presents a narrative where houses kept the kitchen mostly separated from the bulk of the house for a few reasons. Fire is dangerous and also hot, and food has smells which you might not want everywhere… but ALSO because we would prefer that The Help was out of sight.
But as the economics of the household changed and fewer middle class households had servants or help. There were fewer households with live-in maids or cooks, so more of these tasks fell onto the women in the house, which meant that women (specifically middle class) increasingly did actually find themselves with increased drains on their time and energy in ways that isolated them from the family.
So something like this seems really basic and sexist and cynical today but I think really is in communication with some interesting class- and gender-based societal shifts.