Humanities & Social Sciences
Description
An illuminating look at the world of cleanfluencers that asks why the burden of housework still falls on women.
Housework is good for you. Housework sparks joy. Housework is beautiful. Housework is glamorous. Housework is key to a happy family. Housework shows that you care. Housework is women's work.
Social media is flooded with images of the perfect home. TikTok and Instagram 'cleanfluencers' produce endless photos and videos of women cleaning, tidying and putting things right. Figures such as Marie Kondo and Mrs Hinch have placed housework, with its promise of a life of love and contentment, at the centre of self-care and positive thinking.
And yet housework remains one of the world's most unequal institutions. Women, especially poorer women and women of colour, do most low-paid and unpaid domestic labour. In The return of the housewife, Emma Casey asks why these inequalities matter and why they persist after a century of dramatic advances in women's rights. She offers a powerful call to challenge the prevailing myths around housework and the 'naturally competent' woman homemaker.
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Reviews
These popular depictions of housework have a long and stubborn history. Today, social media is flooded with images of the perfect home, with online 'cleanfluencers' dedicated to reproducing images of women cleaning, tidying and ordering their homes. Housework, with the promise of a life of love and contentment to those who commit to it, has become central to the recent self-care and positive thinking movement. And yet the reality is that housework remains one of the most unequal institutions globally. Women, especially poorer women, and women of colour do most of the low-paid and unpaid domestic labour. This book asks why these inequalities matter and why they persist. The Return of the Housewife offers a powerful call to challenge the prevailing myths around housework and the 'naturally competent' woman homemaker. Written in a lively and accessible way, drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary examples from literature, radical magazines, popular culture and politics, the book features anecdotes about the housewife in her various guises throughout.
Author Biography
Emma Casey is a Reader in Sociology at the University of York. She is the author of the book Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience (2008) and has contributed to the BBC Thinking Allowed podcast.
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Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press is a leading UK publisher known for excellent research in the humanities and social sciences.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Publication Date April 2025
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781526170972 / 1526170973
- Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
- FormatPrint PDF
- Pages232
- ReadershipCollege/higher education; Professional and scholarly
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 X 156 mm
- Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 5806
- Reference Code15288
