The Housewife Onscreen - Why She's Devalued

this video is brought to you by bright cellars the go-to wine club that pairs you with wines you'll love to you a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial she has no depth no intellect no interests the housewife on screen is often portrayed as a depressing figure trapped by the confines of the home a shorthand for the oppressed female at the same time she's long been an aspirational symbol of luxury and success after all having one spouse not work is only achievable through high economic status so really what fills your days eating bonbons hitting tennis balls with the needy in capitalist terms housewives as a group are highly influential shaping everything from department store stock to global politics but whether she's framed as an object of envy or pity the housewife figure is routinely disrespected in our culture both by people in her life who take her unpaid labor for granted and by a society which frequently dismisses her as unskilled and anti-feminist well maybe you should stick to baking and leave interpreting the law to the lawyers here's our take on the housewife's history how she's been portrayed and politicized and why we need to start valuing her and her work more on screen and off from now on keep your conversation on how much you hate getting toast crumbs in the butter and leave the thinking to me we are so excited to announce that we now have a line of weird girl merchandise which weird girl are you are you the dreamy space cadet living on your own planet are you the delightfully spiraling basket case are you the ferocious goth are you the awkward misfit are you the smart ass make sure to order now to get it before the holidays the holidays are fast approaching and that's why i'm toasting to this video's sponsor bright sellers it's the best monthly wine club that matches me with my favorite wines right now they're offering a whopping 60 off your first four bottle box just click the link in the description below brightsellers.comtake2 and stock up now to save yourself so much stress later at this time of year i find it beyond helpful to have some extra bottles around that i can gift to my friends or look forward to drinking at home after a long day and especially as winter begins and we start staying inside more it's so convenient to have bright cellars delivered right to my doorstep i gravitate towards bold reds as the days get colder and after i took breitzeller's seven question quiz about my preferences they matched me with these fantastic wines that are perfectly curated to my taste each bottle comes with a wine education card outlining the tasting notes suggested pairings best serving temperature and origin so i could impress my friends and family with my new wine expertise so do yourself a favor and try bright cellars now for all your holiday needs click the link in the description below to get a 60 discount on your four bottle box [Music] betty draper didn't just spring fully formed into the kitchen she was part of a process which began in the early 1800s when married women were encouraged to reject gainful employment in favor of staying at home and taking care of their families in a now iconic 1966 article entitled the cult of true womanhood 1820-1860 historian barbara welter observed that the true woman or the ideal early housewife of that 19th century period had four essential attributes piety purity submissiveness and domesticity marmie from little women is an example of welter's true woman a fundamentally good and gentle wife committed to maintaining the perfect home even while her husband is away fighting in the civil war meanwhile her daughter joe challenges the cult of true womanhood because she longs to make a living as an independent writer i don't believe i believe in mary i'm happy as i am but the book's author louisa may alcott ultimately still felt pressured to end her novel with joe finding a husband and happily beginning a domestic life media and storytelling have always played a key role in perpetuating the myth of domesticity an early film by the lumiere brothers was 1895's baby meal showing a couple feeding their child while the popular weepy genre sought to evoke selfless feelings in mothers among the audience in the post-war era that began in the 1940s the housewife was reinvented as a capitalist symbol she became defined by her whiteness middle-class position and relative wealth the housewife therefore became a coveted consumer and cornerstone of the capitalist market she's exactly who we're after well-off educated with plenty of time to shop and it's important for her that she's the perfect hostess the perfect wife in contrast to the dark femme fatale of post-war noir the wholesome housewife also represented the societal expectation for women who joined the workforce during world war ii to return home thus she was an inherently political figure used to personify the conservative belief that america thrives when women focus on domesticity the housewife's importance as a politicized consumer was highlighted by the famous kitchen debate in 1959 when then vice president nixon argued to khrushchev premier of the soviet union that america's emphasis on housewife-oriented consumer goods made it superior to russia to quote nixon in america what we want to do is make life more easy for our housewives meanwhile khrushchev's response your capitalistic attitude toward women does not occur under communism has been interpreted by food historian b wilson to imply that these machines were only trapping women in the home in film and tv explorations this entrapment becomes apparent and portrayals capture how the power afforded to the housewife as a consumer during this time doesn't translate to other aspects of her life in the feminine mystique betty friedan refers to the fact that so many housewives of the 50s and 60s were deeply unhappy as the problem that has no name madmen's betty draper encapsulates this dissatisfied housewife archetype perfectly are you unhappy of course i'm happy with her immaculate beauty she serves as a literal trophy wife for her husband kept at home with the modern appliances that signify her family's upper middle class status her housewife label is actually a major source of pride for betty she loves telling people she's a housewife i'm a housewife with all the class and womanly achievement that term connotes but betty detests the reality of being a housewife i'm here all day alone with them outnumbered and there's a suggestion that on some level dawn's and betty's advertising-led culture has hood-winked her into chasing a lifestyle of shiny domestic perfection that's unsatisfying the stepford wives written by ira levin in the early 1970s and adapted into a 1975 film uses the horrific metaphor of women being killed and replaced with perfect housewife machines suggesting that in order to adhere to the feminine mystique women must trade in their human desires and personality the story also airs the dark idea that despite what more liberal men may say even they secretly still want a housewife who's a robot a woman under the influence is another 70s movie that tracks how the housewife's impotence in every aspect of her life leads her to feel unhinged from reality she's not crazy so don't say she's crazy this woman cooks sews makes the bed washes the bathroom what the hell is crazy about that the film follows mabel having an emotional and psychological breakdown but what her husband and those around her fail to understand is how her existence and value are so intrinsically linked to her husband and her psychological issues stem from failing to fit into the mold that he and society has created for her tell me what you want me to be how you want me to be i can be that even though film and tv have historically played a key role in perpetuating the cult of domesticity for a long time more critical portrayals of the housewife have investigated why her situation makes her fundamentally unhappy published in 1856 flaubert's madame bovary aimed to capture the reality of the housewife's experience which flaubert characterized as one of boredom restlessness and lack of meaning emma bovary tries to compensate through unsatisfying extramarital affairs and spending beyond her means your debt has become quite formidable but you know that well enough by now and flaubert uses the character to express contempt for bourgeois domesticity with its shallow materialistic values and lack of intellectualism or spiritual life journalist charlotte jones calls emma the original desperate housewife one after another the day's come always the same bringing nothing numerous modern stories looking back on housewives of the 19th and 20th centuries lean even more into the oppressive atmosphere that fosters the housewife's unhappiness but i don't mind it'll be more comfortable in the house sex life's billy is hurt by her husband's declining sexual interest in her and feels bored and isolated by her housewife status even with his support i've never caught him looking at another woman hell i've never even caught him in a lie so what's the problem right the show suggests that even in a caring environment women still need to sacrifice the more free and sexual sides of themselves in order to fill the homemaker role i used to simply accept cooper's waning passion as proof this is what happens when you grow up get married get into a routine another key factor in the existence of the housewife is money in close to home a materialist analysis of female oppression feminist sociologist christine delphi explains that while the labor market pays workers based on their job two housewives can perform the same task for example raise three children while receiving very different benefits she writes it is impossible for married women to improve their own standard of living by improving their services the only solution for them is to provide the same services for a richer man thus the logical consequence of the non-value of women's family labor is the hunt for a good marriage as a woman there's no way for me to make my own money not enough to earn a living don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition because it is but even though the upper middle class housewife has often been depicted as a symbol of materialistic plenty her financial situation is often characterized by a feeling of precarity delphi notes that being married to a rich man does not make a woman independently rich her wealth can be lost along with her husband and if she seeks to re-enter the job market or remarry upon divorce her options may be limited belgian art house film jean dielman 23 quanti chemist 1080 brasel which explores the mundane existence of widowed housewife jean dielman in a near-real-time approach shows her turning to sex work in order to provide for her son in the 1980s and 90s post-feminism emerged with the idea that women could now choose their position either at home or at work the reality was murkier as we see reflected in the media created both then and now but a strong supposedly feminist area of thought began to cast the housewife as someone to be pitied lacking agency and surely miserable in 1991's thelma and louise thelma's only way out of the trap of domesticity is ultimately through death starting in 2004 desperate housewives explores a group of women with stepford-like beautiful bodies and homes who frequently find themselves caught up in serious crimes the veneer of their picture-perfect existence allows some of the wives to get away with murder there's even an implication that if they weren't at home alone all day they wouldn't get themselves into so much trouble in the same decade iconic anti-hero housewives were powerless to stop their husbands misdeeds yet ended up complicit in them i love my husband but my life is financed by crime his crime in the 2010s modern family highlighted how the contemporary expectation for women to work has led us to often view the housewife in one of two ways she's either an early season claire a woman whose world is small and encapsulated by the chaotic day-to-day of her family or alternatively a gloria often a second wife who may be accused of being a money-grabbing threat to the sanctity of home did you really have to call her that a gold digger in later seasons claire goes back to work leaving gloria as the show's only housewife which is an interesting comment on the type of woman that we now envision the housewife to be someone afforded the luxury of staying home thanks to her family's wealth and abundance rather than depicting her as someone who is stuck at home she is painted as both enviable and even indulgent gloria has fired five nannies i don't like another woman in my house i want to be the star this reflects the cultural shift of the 2010s which had many women feeling like the pursuit to have it all was too exhausting and that being a housewife was a more attractive option this modern view of the housewife is perhaps best embodied in the real housewives reality tv franchise where the glamorous lives of housewives are dramatized for entertainment i hear the economy's crashing so that's why i pay cash for many women not working is unrealistic so these shows act as a form of escapism where we can tune in to experience luxurious lifestyles decadent wardrobes and fantasy feuds while as always with housewife narratives passing judgment on the absurdities or smallness of their concerns [Music] what is typically defined as women's work has always been undervalued and this isn't accidental delty writes that the exclusion of household labor from the market is part of a deliberate devaluation and oppression of women unpaid household labor jobs like cooking cleaning and child rearing holds enormous economic value because of both the time and skill that it takes to get done however this labor isn't even included in the gross domestic product gdp which measures a country's economic success in 2018 a survey found that mothers spend 98 hours a week over the equivalent of two full-time jobs on child rearing dropped off malcolm picked up grease dinner's in the oven what is it i have the next 25 minutes free what are you gonna do i don't know in 1972 johnny tillman activist and chairperson of the national welfare rights organization wrote of the connection between female oppression and poverty if i were president i would solve this so-called welfare crisis in a minute i'd just issue a proclamation that women's work is real work i'd start paying women a living wage for doing the work we are already doing child raising and housekeeping housewives would be getting wages too a legally determined percentage of their husband's salary instead of having to ask for and account for money they've already earned i only have 40 swing by the bank should be at least 200 and you're checking there's plenty you have no more money this belittling of the work that women have long been told is both their duty and their purpose pervades all aspects of their lives their husbands and children may act disrespectfully towards them i need help with matt why can't i help you because you can't do math in grace and frankie brianna hires her sister mal a divorced former housewife out of pity even as mal proves herself to be a hard worker brianna treats her like an unskilled nuisance because of her lacking resume this under appreciation on both a societal level and a familial one is shown to result in either the housewife suffering from chronic self-esteem issues like mal or betty draper why would a cute guy like that be into a divorced glorified intern who birthed half a baseball team or her dramatically rebelling like bethan goodgirls wendy in ozark or allison in kevin can himself on a purely logical level the ridicule of domestic work simply doesn't make sense because it's so essential feeding and disciplining children or keeping the house in order are necessary jobs and not fun ones at that i don't like being you nobody does and it's not just that these women are devalued by their families and male dominated society they have traditionally been judged by other women you chose the mother you're the mommy the yummy mommy mama person recently feminist theorists have critiqued betty friedan's construction of the home as a prison for being too combative in sentence to everyday life feminism and the housewife sociologist justine lloyd and cultural historian leslie johnson write the second wave feminist treatment of the housewife was antagonistic from the feminine mystique onwards there's been a widespread assumption that housewives are somehow lacking in agency an implication that no intelligent woman could ever choose this life but of course this is beyond reductive a key reason hillary clinton brought controversy on herself with these notorious offhand comments in 1992 i suppose i could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what i decided to do was to fulfill my profession which i entered before my husband was in public life of course many highly intelligent and educated women choose to be housewives or stay-at-home moms and it shouldn't even need to be said that investing your work and value in your family is one of the most valid choices you can make still many others stay at home out of necessity whatever the reason the housewife deserves as much respect and centrality in feminist discourse as any other woman the the real housewives franchises allow women to be their truest selves and we see the mess and we see the amazing friendships and everything in between and when women are allowed to be their fullest selves that's the most feminist thing we can do [Music] just because my dreams are different than yours doesn't mean they're unimportant i want a home and a family with today's shifts we are finally acknowledging that being a housewife and being a feminist should not be mutually exclusive and that the issues of undervalued domestic and emotional labor need to be addressed i support your career i babysit the kids all the time it's not babysitting if they're your kids now that we recognize the agency of the housewife we can see how disparaging and devaluing her impacts wider society for example the devaluation of domestic child rearing means that people who work in professional caregiving roles also tend to be underpaid there's also a tendency to expect free domestic labor especially child care from women even if they do work men are not encouraged to identify to nearly the same degree with their fatherly roles and males who actively participate at home have traditionally been emasculated they threw a switch good luck and he became the lady of the house this is beginning to change for decades parenting has replaced housework as the focal point of the cult of womanhood and more recently with the rise of parent influencers on social media people are increasingly opening up about the harder aspects of raising kids women are more comfortable asserting that they need help while on-screen depictions of motherhood have become more honest about reflecting the impossible expectations on women men are being held more responsible for their roles as caregivers and the modern on-screen father is often portrayed as a hands-on dad in the incredibles 2 pixar goes so far as to represent the role of stay-at-home father as more difficult than being a professional superhero they want us to do it i don't know that way why would they change math math is still these realistic representations don't bridge the gap between devaluation and re-evaluation the modern even somewhat hands-on dad can be widely lauded for very small contributions while a wife's much larger load remains invisible and expected actually since the housewife's heyday and the advent of second wave feminism women's lives have become harder in terms of the sheer number of hours they spend working both outside of and within the home and in the u.s system fixes like affordable child care and sufficient paid family leave remain fantasies for most so it almost makes sense that there's a growing desire to return to what might be perceived as the more simple life of the traditional housewife the right-leaning hashtag tradwife movement advocates for women to leave their careers and return home to say on one hand you can go into the working world and compete with men yet you're not allowed to stay home that's actually taking your choice away and this repackaging of the 50s housewife has emerged in tv too with shows like wandavision and kevin himself taking the traditional sitcom housewife and using a fantasy of this figure to cope with the traumatically unwholesome details of the character's reality women have been disproportionately affected by the impact of the covid19 pandemic on the domestic sphere at 1.8 times higher risk of losing their jobs than men management consulting firm mckinsey and company stated that if nothing is done to counteract the loss of women in the workplace global gdp growth could be one trillion dollars lower in 2030 than it would be if women had lost their jobs at the same rate as men the researchers also claimed that the covid setback followed a period of scant progress to start reversing these trends we need to think differently about everything and we can start by giving housewives working moms and women of all status and labels the support and respect they deserve i know you've always been crazy this is just the first chance you've ever had to really express yourself this is the take let's take the tropes home with us we are so excited to announce that we now have a line of weird girl merchandise it's not just a question of am i the weird girl you have to ask yourself which weird girl am i are you the dreamy space cadet living on your own planet are you the delightfully spiraling basket case are you the ferocious goth are you the awkward misfit are you the smart ass i think there's power in owning the weird girl in all of us you can now express it through posters mugs a backpack t-shirts wear it on your sleeve announce that you are the weird girl we had so much fun conceptualizing these characters and drawing from our favorite weird girls of film and tv to create our vision of the five types one of our favorite designs is this beautiful line art rendering of the weird girl she's got the iconic goth visual it just looks great whether you're doing a cute backpack a hoodie you can grab a tote or a poster with all of the weird girls or another approach is to mix and match so you grab your space cadet water bottle your misfit hoodie and your basket case poster behind you i love these shirts it's also super soft like really very soft i really feel like i could live in this lovely click the link in the description below to order from spring right now and get the best possible deals on your merch put your order in right away to get it before the holidays to the weird girl to the weird girls in all of us which weird girl are you [Music] you

Channel: The Take

Views: 198,574

Keywords: Little Women, Madame Bovary, Lady Macbeth, Stepford Wives, Betty Draper, A Woman Under the Influence, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More, Safe, Fried Green Tomatoes, Joy, Malcolm in the Middle, Modern Family, Fresh off the boat: Jessica, Wandavision, Kevin Can Fuck Himself, Catastrophe, Motherland, Workin Moms, Queens Gambit, Mad Men, Claire, Gloria, Lois, Father Knows Best, Make Room For Daddy, Donna Reed Show, Leave It To Beaver, The Incredibles 2, Jessica, Grace and Frankie

Id: UKkpqictoBY

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021