Housework and housewives in modern American advertising : married to the mop

An analysis of how since the end of te 19th-century advertising agencies and their housework product clients utilized a remarkably consistent depiction of housewives and housework, illustrating that that although Second Wave feminism successfully called into question the housewife stereotype, homemaking has remained an American feminine ideal. by Jessamyn Neuhaus. "This book traces the surprisingly persistent depiction of housework as women's work in advertising from the late 1800s to today. Asserting that advertising is our most significant public discourse about housework, Neuhaus draws on advertising such as print ads and TV commercials, as well as ad agency documents and trade journals, to show how the housewife figure framed household labor as exclusively feminine care for the family. Paying particular attention to the transitional decades of the 1970s and 1980s, the author demonstrates that when overtly stereotypical images of housewives became unmarketable, advertising continued to gender housework with the more racially diverse and socially acceptable "housewife moms" that appear in today's advertising"-- "This book traces the surprisingly persistent depiction of housework as women's work in advertising from the late 1800s to today. Asserting that advertising is our most significant public discourse about housework, Neuhaus draws on advertising such as print ads and TV commercials, as well as ad agency documents and trade journals, to show how the housewife figure framed household labor as exclusively feminine care for the family. Paying particular attention to the transitional decades of the 1970s and 1980s, the author demonstrates that when overtly stereotypical images of housewives became unmarketable, advertising continued to gender housework with the more racially diverse and socially acceptable "housewife moms" that appear in today's advertising"-- Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-17 The Laundry Room....Pages 19-68 The Bathroom....Pages 69-105 The Kitchen....Pages 107-173 The Living Room....Pages 175-213 Conclusion....Pages 215-225 Back Matter....Pages 227-273