The problem of this study was to determine if the sex role identification, age, education, and income of employed married couples were related to their perception of who should and does perform household tasks. The forty-five couples were volunteers from organizations for working women. Each spouse completed a Bem Sex Role Inventory and a Household Task Inventory. Using Chi-square and t-tests no significant differences were found between sex role identification, education level, income level, and the sharing of household tasks. When a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was used, age and sharing of household tasks were found to have an inverse relationship with the young sharing more tasks. The study concluded that couples expect household tasks to be shared but females tend to perform the traditional feminine tasks and males the traditional masculine tasks.

This thesis focuses on the transformation of domestic ideology in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. It traces the emergence and development of the doctrine of separate spheres in the Revolutionary and early national periods and then examines the rise of the home economics movement in the post-Civil War period as an agent and expression of the demise of the separate spheres ideology of domesticity. The doctrine of separate spheres developed from a longstanding sense of separateness from the public world of men experienced by colonial women. The emergence of this doctrine was facilitated and shaped by the events of the Revolutionary War, the development and spread of commercial and industrial economic activities, changes in religious practises and new notions about the nature and nurture of children. The complex interplay of these factors strengthened women's sense of disjunction from the male-dominated sector of society, but bolstered women's sense of moral authority and autonomy within their sphere, the home. Women saw their domestic role as essential to the preservation of traditional values and morality and therefore critical for the preservation of social harmony. Supported by the doctrine of separate spheres, women organized to protect and project home values, hoping to reform society by their influence. Noted domestic theoreticians such as Sarah Hale and Catharine Beecher helped articulate this doctrine for women, but their work should be viewed as expressions of widely felt notions about women's place in the family and society. The emergence of home economics is viewed as a challenge to the basic precepts of the doctrine of separate spheres, thereby calling into question the universality of the acceptance of this doctrine by middle class women in the nineteenth century. As urban reformers, scientists and college educated women, home economists found the doctrine of separate spheres inadequate and outmoded as a guide for modern living. These women sought to replace traditional homemaking practises and ideals with a new domestic ideology, home economics, which they thought would more effectively meet the needs of the family in the twentieth century. Home economics developed as a social reform movement in two phases, each one dominated by a different generation of women. The pioneer generation of home economists were traditionally educated women who sought to inculcate working class and immigrant women and children with middle class domestic values and ideas. They initiated programs of education in various institutions, ranging from the public schools to church-sponsored mission classes, to teach girls and women homemaking skills such as cooking, sewing and budgeting. Although traditional in their goals, these women created new forms which quickly led to developments which went beyond a re-assertion of domesticity expressed in the doctrine of separate spheres. Home economists began to see themselves as scientifically-trained experts, not as ordinary homemakers. This development both coincided and was furthered by the rise of the second generation of home economists, who were largely college graduates and subsequently professors and administrators in institutions of higher learning. This group of women shaped home economics to meet some of their own needs, both personal and professional, and in the process changed the focus of the movement. Home economists became more concerned with reforming the middle class home and homemaker in this period. Home economics became embedded in colleges as a new inter-disciplinary course of study for women and as a new profession. Home economists promoted a new ideology of domesticity which had as its foundation the emulation of certain aspects of men's sphere: business values of efficiency and rational organization, the use of technology and a reliance on expertise. A belief in the reforming power of science replaced traditional notions of piety in the home economics ideology. Home economists created elaborate hierarchies of expertise based on achieved levels of education, thereby undermining the sense of sisterhood supported by the doctrine of separate spheres. Insofar as women adopted the home economics ideology of domesticity, the homemaker role lost its authority and autonomy and women's sphere lost its boundaries and sense of mission which had informed nineteenth century women's notions of their role in society. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

CAPES / Neste trabalho, temos como objetivo investigar as associações entre tecnologias domésticas e tipos de feminilidades na revista Casa & Jardim como mídia de pedagogias de gênero. O recorte de estudo tem como foco os discursos textuais e imagéticos sobre tecnologias do lar veiculados na revista Casa & Jardim durante as décadas de 1950 e 1960. Neste período, as revistas direcionadas para públicos femininos buscavam criar uma identificação das mulheres com o espaço e o consumo domésticos, apresentando as tecnologias do lar, especialmente os eletrodomésticos, como recursos capazes de garantir o conforto doméstico, facilitando as rotinas das donas de casa e proporcionando maior bem-estar às famílias. Neste registro, as tecnologias do lar tanto favoreciam quanto glamourizavam as atividades cotidianas. Contudo, em paralelo, os padrões de limpeza, organização e administração do lar também tornaram-se significativamente mais exigentes. A partir de uma abordagem qualitativa de natureza interpretativa, visamos compreender como eram configuradas as representações da “dona de casa ideal” na revista Casa & Jardim. Percebemos que, nos discursos do periódico, as tecnologias do lar assumiram um papel importante na construção de expectativas sociais acerca das práticas de consumo das donas de casa das camadas médias, cuja identidade social estava estreitamente vinculada às imagens de esposa e mãe. / This paper proposes to investigate the associations between domestic technologies and types of femininity in the magazine Casa & Jardim (House & Garden) as gender pedagogies media. The outline of the study focuses the discourses of textual and image about domestic technologies in the magazine Casa & Jardim during the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, the magazines aimed at female audiences sought to create an identification of women with space and domestic consumption, presenting the home technologies, especially appliances, as resources that could ensure domestic comfort, facilitating the daily routines of housewives and providing more welfare families. In this record, the household technologies both favored as charmed everyday activities. However, in parallel, the standards of cleanliness and organization of homes also become significantly more demanding. From a qualitative interpretative approach, will understand how they were configured representations of "ideal housewife" in the magazine Casa & Jardim. We point out that the discourses in the magazine of the household technologies played an important role in the generated expectations regarding the middle class modern housewife role, whose social identity was closely tied to images of wife and mother.

CAPES / Neste trabalho, temos como objetivo investigar as associações entre tecnologias domésticas e tipos de feminilidades na revista Casa & Jardim como mídia de pedagogias de gênero. O recorte de estudo tem como foco os discursos textuais e imagéticos sobre tecnologias do lar veiculados na revista Casa & Jardim durante as décadas de 1950 e 1960. Neste período, as revistas direcionadas para públicos femininos buscavam criar uma identificação das mulheres com o espaço e o consumo domésticos, apresentando as tecnologias do lar, especialmente os eletrodomésticos, como recursos capazes de garantir o conforto doméstico, facilitando as rotinas das donas de casa e proporcionando maior bem-estar às famílias. Neste registro, as tecnologias do lar tanto favoreciam quanto glamourizavam as atividades cotidianas. Contudo, em paralelo, os padrões de limpeza, organização e administração do lar também tornaram-se significativamente mais exigentes. A partir de uma abordagem qualitativa de natureza interpretativa, visamos compreender como eram configuradas as representações da “dona de casa ideal” na revista Casa & Jardim. Percebemos que, nos discursos do periódico, as tecnologias do lar assumiram um papel importante na construção de expectativas sociais acerca das práticas de consumo das donas de casa das camadas médias, cuja identidade social estava estreitamente vinculada às imagens de esposa e mãe. / This paper proposes to investigate the associations between domestic technologies and types of femininity in the magazine Casa & Jardim (House & Garden) as gender pedagogies media. The outline of the study focuses the discourses of textual and image about domestic technologies in the magazine Casa & Jardim during the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, the magazines aimed at female audiences sought to create an identification of women with space and domestic consumption, presenting the home technologies, especially appliances, as resources that could ensure domestic comfort, facilitating the daily routines of housewives and providing more welfare families. In this record, the household technologies both favored as charmed everyday activities. However, in parallel, the standards of cleanliness and organization of homes also become significantly more demanding. From a qualitative interpretative approach, will understand how they were configured representations of "ideal housewife" in the magazine Casa & Jardim. We point out that the discourses in the magazine of the household technologies played an important role in the generated expectations regarding the middle class modern housewife role, whose social identity was closely tied to images of wife and mother.