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>>How's that possible? How can the *average* family have servants?
children were regularly shipped out to work for distant relatives. young children were often hired to help with chores. please read the ruth schwartz cowan book, yer avg middle class family, not working class, middle class, had some form of servants (help) in the home.
again, i was talking about HISTORY, not comparing 1900 to today. the concern that women spent 12 hours washing clothes was the target of my first rant. my point was that while they spent 12 hours doing a load or whatever, they did it once a month! cowan's point is that technological revolutions benefited men first and made more work for mother. again, this is historically. she also points out that we spend considerable more time waiting and driving places to get things done. waiting in the physician's/dentists office, waiting in line. we no longer have door to door sales people, delivery services, affordable neighborhood stories, etc.
in brief, technology is both good and bad. makes work more efficient AND makes more work.
cornell has a nice library, i used to hang out there. you can find cowan's book there. in fact, i first read it while taking a course at cornell!!
always amazes me. whenever a claim about women and women's scholarship is made on this list, there is a chorus of "don't believe that" from the peanut gallery. not one of you bother to pick up a book and read for yourself and THEN get into over the scholarship, the research, etc.
blah.
why do i waste my time.
ok. for my sanity since i have a butt load of work, i'm going to mass delete lbo mail for a few days.
kelley