Sentenced to everyday life : feminism and the housewife / Lesley Johnson and Justine Lloyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johnson, Lesley, 1949-

Contributor:

Lloyd, Justine.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminism--United States.

Feminism.

United States.

Housewives--United States.

Housewives.

Physical Description:

x, 182 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Berg, 2004.

Summary:

The history of the housewife is a complicated and uneasy narrative, rife with contradictions, tensions, and unanswered questions. What is the relationship between women and the home? And why are women reluctant to call themselves housewives? Starting with an exploration of why 1940s housewives became associated with drudgery, this book examines how magazines and advertising articulated connected women with the domestic sphere, while 1950s films explored the shifting boundaries between social, family, and individual desires and constraints for women. Johnson and Lloyd also study the home as a site of boredom, and the balance between work and family in the modern world. By situating their examination in a still unresolved and contemporary topic, Johnson and Lloyd offer us both a backward glance and a forward-looking perspective into domesticity and the modern self.

Contents:

Only a housewife

Defining the housewife : contemporary feminism

Defining the housewife : early second wave feminism

Reviewing the 1950s

Feminism and the subject of modernity

Good-enough feminists?

Whom does she represent?

The future in her hands

As housewives, we are worms

The meanings of home

At home and at work

Dream stuff

The housing problem

The housewife speaks

The importance of looking

On the kitchen front

The view from the kitchen window

The three faces of Eve

Homework and housework

Definitions of melodrama

Putting on the apron

The childless housewife

A doubled plot of femininity

Harpies like Mildred

Boredom : the emotional slum

Time to burn

Housewife's corner

Finding time

Declining audiences : an afterword on the housewife.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-175) and index.

ISBN:

1845200314

1845200322

OCLC:

56420258