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The Science of Housework: The Home and Public Health, 1880-1940

Online ISBN:
9781447369653
Print ISBN:
9781447369615
Publisher:
Policy Press
Book

The Science of Housework: The Home and Public Health, 1880-1940

Ann Oakley
Ann Oakley

Professor of Sociology and Social Policy

UCL Social Research Institute
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Published online:
23 January 2025
Published in print:
25 July 2024
Online ISBN:
9781447369653
Print ISBN:
9781447369615
Publisher:
Policy Press

Abstract

The Science of Housework is about an international movement to make housework a scientific subject and to introduce household science courses into higher education on a par with other sciences. The book charts the author’s journey from writing about the sociology of housework in the 1970s to studying the science of housework today. It considers the history of housework and housewives, and the reasons why the household science movement has been neglected in this history. Feminist scholars have mostly dismissed the household science movement as oppressive to women. The prominence in anthropological work of ideas about purity and danger has diverted attention from the public and private health importance of housework, and it is this role which underpins everyday life today.

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