3 - The Housework Problem

Summary

In this chapter, I argue that feminist responses to the ‘servant problem’ cannot be reduced to a narrative of selfish middle-class women refusing to share their new-found emancipation with their domestics. They must also be considered in relation to a wider problem of housework. Whether performed by a servant or a housewife, the burden of housework during this period was immense. Keeping a house involved a great deal of heavy manual labour, carried out in unhealthy conditions. Feminists argued that the housework problem affected, and indeed united, women across the classes, whether they were single or married, professional women or mothers. Housework was viewed not just as a practical problem, but also as a political issue. It was widely recognised that the all-absorbing and time-consuming character of housework prevented women from taking an interest in the world outside the home and especially from participating in movements for social and political change. Housework was also politicised by opponents of the suffrage movement, who fixated on domestic labour – or rather, women’s failure to do it – as shorthand for feminism’s destructive influence.