Housework: Nonfiction and Martha Stewart

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Greetings!

I like Martha Stewart's magazine, LIVING.   I like the exploration of
the "ordinary" things, I like the artistic display of these everyday things.

One way to view Martha Stewart LIVING, is to regard it as a FANTASY!
It's like candy for the mind! One can IMAGINE the things that one sees
in the magazine--it's something that is representative of a place, a way
of life, that for most of us, is a dream. It's an IDEAL TYPE.

I like the explanations of simple things. These simple things are often
forgotten to us because, more true than not, we have lost the memory or
knowledge of, certain things that our grandmothers may have known about,
seen, or the ways that they did those things.

Think about LIVING as a contemporary version of the 19th century books
that presented recipes, crafts, and home remedies!

I also think that the vision of perfect dinners, perfect rooms, plants,
crafts, and pie crusts, is just fine. I can vicariously enjoy these
things--I don't have to run out and try to do them!!!

Joan

^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^
Joan I. Biddle Ph.D.
Sociologist
LTC, USAR (ret)
jandjb  @  erols.com   Jbiddle  @  straxmobile.com
!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!

Hi Folks:

I watched that Martha Stewart show about pie making at 3 am after working on
my thesis all day.  I used her recipe for pumpkin pie filling and the
"crenellated" pie crust the next day for my contribution to Thanksgiving
dinner. It looked like a medieval fortress and held all the filling in. .
and tasted great.
Why is home baking, or learning tricks to make it more efficient or tastier
part of the "backlash"? Or growing herbs, vegetables and flowers? Are we as
feminists required to eat stuff made from mixes filled with preservatives
and asphalt derivatives?

wishing I had a piece of home made pumpkin pie right this minute
Helen Wishart
Valdosta State University
hawishar  @  valdosta.edu

At 12:28 PM 11/28/01 -0600, you wrote:

>In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
>aired this week, a (formerly nonhuman) character is convinced that Martha
>Stewart is a witch because no mortal could do all that she does so quickly
>and easily.

Another buffy freak!  how nice.  Anyhow, I could offer 2 takes on
Stewart.  

1] She teaches people who made money during the 90s and had tons of it
what to have the people they hire do for them -- paint turkey
carcasses mauve.

2] At a time when few of us have the time to entertain even friends,
she does for us what none of us can do.  The heyday of housework was
in the 50s, the immaculate home. Most of us now can just scrape off
the heaviest dirt occasionally.  I love to cook\ as relaxation from
writing -- but most of my women friends will not go into the kitchen
for fear they will turn into their mothers.  Basically none of us can
do all that feminine\ stuff -- deck the halls with boughs of whatnot
and whip up a fruitcake to give as doorstops to people we hate, spend
seven hours making a centerpiece, etc.  She shows us what we can't do
-- and either you are amused [some of the women I know who watch it
won't even make themselves tea] or you feel that that's what you
should be doing -- keeping an immaculate showplace house, presumably
while dropping valium.

marge piercy hagolem  @  c4.net

Marilyn and all

A year ago or so, if not on this list, perhaps H-women it was pointed
out that Martha Stewart's product, TV show, magazine etc. was gender
neutral. There is never any commentary that appears addressed only to
women or men and there not an evident assumption that women are the
show's audience.

I like MS and agree that she does provide useful information. True some
of it is over the top and projects that no sane person would take up,
but increasingly the projects are simple, and recycle items people may
have at hand. Many of us academics, professionals, whatever, take
pleasure in craft types projects, setting an attractive table, or
gardening and remarks that "put down" these activities put down all of
us who take pleasure from these activities. Increasingly she is willing
to poke fun at herself. Her witch costumes prior to Halloween were
anything but flattering, and for a woman who has a reputation of not
having a sense of humor she is really working on her image, which on her
show is hardly what one would consider glamorous.

Without getting 'psycho-analytical' there may yet be some angst out
there about women trying to escape from domesticity and take on other
roles. The important issue I think is Choice; to-day I may chose to
write a academic paper, to-morrow I may make cookies. One feminist
academic, commented when she was a graduate student, female students
were criticized and intimidated for knitting, in the student common
room, by male students who spent their time sitting around talking about
football games. At the end of the day the female students had something
to show for their non academic labors.

What has been missed in the critique however is the overpowering
imposition of ideals based on 'class' and a hegemony of Anglo-Americana
culture with only minor and typically food excursions into Asian and
Latin American culture.

Janet Forbes
janetforbes  @  stn.net

I suspect that there are many of us cookie-baking feminists out there.
Baking is something that  has been passed through my great grandfather
to my grandmother to my mother to me; baking cookies and cakes that
have been in my family for generations is a very rewarding and
satisfying activity for me and a way for me to nurture myself and
others.  While aspects of Martha Stewart certainly are problematic (to
use a catch-all word),she does have some good qualities.  Her baking
tools at K-Mart are affordable (when the only other option seems to be
a high-priced store such as Williams Sonoma) and accessible to folks
in rural areas.  She has made an effort lately to introduce people to
"multicultural" food and customs.  I agree that many of her projects
require the kind of leisure and money that most women and men do not
have, but she in fact does quite rigorous outdoor work (carpentry,
gardening) herself rather than having others do it for her.

One other point about baking that I'd like to toss out there.  At a
time when women are under tremendous pressure to diet/weigh a certain
amount/not eat, Martha Stewart's magazine does not carry any articles
about losing weight.  She does not offer tips on avoiding the "holiday
five," or however much weight men and women are terrified about
gaining each December.  I would contrast her magazine to women's
magazines that juxtapose cookie recipes with articles on weight loss
and with advertisements for weight-loss products.  I think there's
something to be said for women refusing to be scared of eating and for
being encouraged, in a guilt-free manner, to enjoy eating wholesome,
delicious food.  At some points in this culture, eating a brownie and
not feeling horrible afterwards is a small, but subversive, act.

Anya Silver

*******************************************
Dr. Anya Krugovoy Silver
Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies
Director of Women's and Gender Studies
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Ave.               "Tell me, what is it you plan to do
Macon, GA 31207-0001            with your one wild and precious life?"
(912) 752-5641                                         --Mary Oliver
silver_ak  @  mercer.edu

Phillipa Kafka wrote:

> Catherine Beecher wrote a book on how to make housework easier for
> individual women and even sketched out how kitchens should be set up. And
> later, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (her niece?) expanded this interest to
> include whole groups of women in a more communal vision.


Jane Smiley makes extensive and generally humorous use of Catherine
Beecher's book
in her __The all-true travels and adventures of Lidie Newton__ , a novel
set in 1850s Kansas. She contrasts Beecher's proscriptions with the
reality of rough-and-tumble life on the prairie made worse by skirmishes
with slave state Missouri, a prelude to the Civil War.


--
Phyllis Holman Weisbard
University of Wisconsin System
Women's Studies Librarian
430 Memorial Library, 728 State Street
Madison, WI 53706
608-263-5754
pweisbard  @  library.wisc.edu
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/

One of the best analyses of housework is found in Beauvoir's Second Sex.
Several people today in a different thread (Birth of the Women's Movement)
mentioned the importance of The Second Sex.

So  many of the issues/concepts  central to development of Women's studies as
an academic enterprise are  contained in The Second  Sex ; Beauvoir   mapped
the terrain.

And unfortunately some of those who were clearly influenced by her have not
given her credit.  Freidan's critique of housework in Feminist Mystique was
clearly induced by Beauvoir. ( She did not acknowledge Beauvoir's influence
until many years later.)   I also suspect that Ann Oakley's Women's Work
(published sometime  in early 70's) was to some extent (perhaps indirectly)
influenced by Beauvoir.

karen bojar
kbojar  @  ccp.cc.pa.us

Phyllis Holman Weisbard wrote:

> Jane Smiley makes extensive and generally humorous use of Catherine
> Beecher's book
> in her __The all-true travels and adventures of Lidie Newton__ , a novel
> set in 1850s Kansas. She contrasts Beecher's proscriptions with the
> reality of rough-and-tumble life on the prairie made worse by skirmishes
> with slave state Missouri, a prelude to the Civil War.

I don't believe I'm writing a pro (sort of) Martha Stuart post, but I
think she does tap into something important--the creative possibilities
in every day life. Most of us will never be great artists,  but we all
have that creative urge which comes out in a variety of ways including,
cooking, interior decorating, gardening etc.

This thread sent me searching my bookshelf for Alice Walker's In My
Mother's Garden (unfortunately not there).  Walker's mother lacked
creative outlets other than those available in domestic life.  Walker does
describe her mother's gardening as a kind of  compensatory act, BUT  as I
recall there is also real respect for the everyday creative impulses which
enrich women's lives.  I can't imagine life without my garden and I
confess when I'm killing time in the train station I always check out
Martha's garden columns.

karen bojar
kbojar   @  ccp.cc.pa.us

Why take Martha Stewart so seriously? She is, above all, a performance
artist. Some of her work is very beautiful and creative. Although I rarely
try her suggestions, I find her great fun to watch and I don't believe she's
part of a conspiracy to send women back to the 1950s.

And she's also a brilliantly successful businesswoman. What's not to like?

Carrie Hedges (carriehedges  @  aol.com)

        I cannot believe how much attention Martha Stewart is
receiving on this list, but here go some additional thoughts.  I
write as someone who studies the history of housework (of Black and
white working class women during the Great Depression) & who
practices it today.

        1.  MS is also about capitalism.  Creative, but none the less
capitalistic.  Consume products & services & make Martha rich. (7
houses!).

        2.  This is about ethnic bleaching.  Martha is Polish (as am I, my
mother's half). Being called Stewart and talking about her wonderful
grandparents' home is ignoring that her grandparents doubtless suffered
anti-immigrant slurs & actions, to say nothing of the fact that Martha
presents/performs herself as WASP.

        3.  Yes, all people need creativity, even feminist
academics.  But MS leaves out the drudgery & also leaves out the
combination of child rearing & housework that most women do for part
of their lives.  You can't leave partially completed projects and
open glue pots around toddlers.

        4.  Class and race issues:  the more drudgery, the less
creativity, the more you lack resources.  If you have to go to the
laundromat, if you live in an apartment, if you worry about where
the next meal is coming from, you have less time to arrange flowers
in little antique glass bottles.

        5.  In all the discussion, lesbians are invisible.  The
anti-housework attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s generation of
feminist are connected to heterosexual expectations.

        Just for clarity:  I cooked a huge turkey, cut herbs from my
yard and berries from my neighbors' yard to make a door decoration,
bought several kinds of peppers at the farmers' market for
centerpieces on the table, and spent several days non-stop cleaning
before Thanksgiving. But no one expects me to do this, I'm not a
wife or a housewife.  (And I read MS Living at the physical
therapists' office or when a housemate passes it on.)

        Lois Helmbold
        Coordinator, Women's Studies
        San Jose State University

I have some Martha Stewart theories.

1. She doesn't think the stuff up herself, she raids old craftbooks and
magazines (remember Workbasket?), has some underpaid and unacknowledged
lackeys do the work, has the results photographed in a trendy,
aesthetically pleasing way, and pays a copy writer to put trite yet
wholesome captions under the photo.  You could probably input all of her
adverbs and adjectives into a computer and come up with a quaint,
rustic, and limited thesaurus of Marthaisms.

As Carrie Hedges wrote:
> She is, above all, a performance artist.

2.  Some poor guy (or team) does all the gardening and she poses for the
picture.  If she has a dreadful potting soil stain on her knee, you can
bet the photographer's assistant put it there.  Martha is refreshing
because she leaves us with the illusion that we can undertake thrifty
craft and garden projects without too much mess, hassle, or cost, on
account you can get everything without too much expense at a "jumble
sale."

3.  Martha is in dire need of a faux-Marxist intervention (not wanting
to take her too seriously and all, but wanting to point out she's not
altogether harmless).  Her name is all over Kmart now; it would cost a
fortune to live the way her magazine suggests; she thinks wait staff are
de rigueur for "ordinary occassions." And, as Carrie Hedges wrote:

> And she's also a brilliantly successful businesswoman. What's not to like?

Fabulous equation!

Yours in soft-focus,
scout

ps. oh yes, bonus confession.  I like to look at the pictures.  There
MUST be a Martha Stewart slash/fan fiction (i.e. steamy) site . . .
anyone found one?

"clever quote here"
[test signature file]
scout,
informavore
scout  @  hoyden.org

Before Joan pulls the plug on this thread, let me offer
a clarification:

Lois Helmbold wrote:
<This is about ethnic bleaching.  Martha is Polish (as
am I, my mother's half). Being called Stewart and
talking about her wonderful grandparents' home is
ignoring that her grandparents doubtless suffered
anti-immigrant slurs & actions, to say nothing of the
fact that Martha presents/performs herself as WASP.>

Martha is "called" Stewart because she took her
husband's name when she married back in the Sixties. In
her writings she often refers to her birth name of
Kostyra, her Polish heritage, and the
middle-middle-class suburban New Jersey town where she
grew up. Whether she presents herself as WASP (and being
of Polish heritage she was presumably Catholic) may be a
result of "rising" in class as a stockbroker and
businesswoman. It is true that when an interviewer
expressed doubt that someone with a 9-5 job would be
able to stand at the stove making the perfect risotto,
she retorted, "What's so great about a 9-5 job?"

It's also true that many of the chefs and craftspeople
featured in the magazine are not women, and there have
been decorating articles on the homes of gay male
couples.

I read the magazine the way I read Vogue and Harper's
Bazaar as a teenager.

Anne Carson
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
arc3  @  cornell.edu

--- silver_ak  @  MERCER.EDU wrote:
I agree that many of her projects
> require the kind of leisure and money that most women and men do not
> have, but she in fact does quite rigorous outdoor work (carpentry,
> gardening) herself rather than having others do it for her.
> Anya Silver

But does she really?  I have trouble believing that anyone managing an
empire the size of hers has the time to do these things herself.  She may
have done them at one time and then turned her skills into a lucrative
business in which she teaches others how to do them, but I doubt very much
that at this point she does much if any of her own home and garden
projects, idea research, product design, or work on her magazine.  That,
to me, is the "danger" of Martha -- she makes it *seem* as if it is
possible to have it all, to be the businesswoman extraordinaire AND the
domestic goddess.  We were just talking about the demands of children on
academic women preparing for tenure; do we really believe it is less
demanding to run a multi-faceted business empire and simultaneously do
one's own decorative cooking, baking, gardening, etc.?

My only other critique is that some of her projects seem very silly.  I
mean, what possible reason is there to make a breakfast tray out of a
picture frame?  What next?  Picture frames made out of breakfast trays?
But I do like some of her K-Mart line, and although I've never gotten into
her show or her magazine, I can see why they have such appeal on a
creative level.

Jessica Nathanson

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Concentration in Women's Studies
State University of New York at Buffalo
janathanson  @  yahoo.com
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jan3

Okay, since we're still on a Martha roll, I must chime in with a brief 
note.  Did anyone see her holiday special a few years back, the one with 
Aretha Franklin as the guest?  It was positively appalling, as I remember: 
 Aretha looked extraordinarily uncomfortable, especially when Martha told 
her, "you'll have to sing for your supper." 

Jennifer


Jennifer S. Tuttle
Assistant Professor and Dorothy M. Healy Chair
Department of English
University of New England
11 Hills Beach Rd.
Biddeford, ME 04005
(207) 283-0171 x2709
jtuttle  @  une.edu

There is a front-page, substantial article on Martha Stewart in the Sunday,
November 25 Chicago Tribune's "Home and Garden" section entitled "It's Not
Easy Being Martha" (subtitled, "But who's complaining when you're an
American icon sitting atop a multimillion-dollar empire and living in any of
seven picture-perfect homes?).  It is written by Elaine Markoutsas of the
Universal Press Syndicate (section 15, pages 1 and 6 in the Chicago
Tribune), so it may have appeared nationally in other outlets.  The article
touts MS's $700 million net worth, while later mentioning that "...in many
respects, Stewart is just like her readers."  Along the lines of other WS
research I am currently doing on Oprah Winfrey and feminist identification,
I would argue that with this kind of stratospheric wealth, Martha Stewart
could not be more dissimilar to the vast majority of her readers.  Yet to
cultivate her "everywoman" image, MS must create the illusion that her
elaborate version of domesticity is both desirable to and obtainable by the
average woman who is without an enormous staff and multiple residences and
is often so crazed with juggling the demands of work, home, and children
that she can barely stave off the dust bunnies, let alone make her own paper
or blow her own glass.

Regarding how this might be discussed in teaching about MS in a women's
studies class:  I agree that MS Living can be construed as "fantasy."  In
fact, anecdotally, among those women I know who read it (including myself),
that is exactly how we view it--as sometimes useful, in a very diluted way
(e.g., take one of Martha's grandiose projects and boil it down to something
manageable, capturing the spirit of the idea rather than copying it
exactly), but mostly as a relatively unrealistic, utopian version of the
private space.  MS creates a version of the home at its extreme, magnifying
its possibilities on a grand scale that, for the average woman, is neither
financially or physically possible to achieve (and may simply be undesirable
for various reasons).  Consequently, I wonder whether MS Living, while
possibly a tool for fantasy, can also be construed as yet another way for
women, in particular, to be continually reminded of what they are *not* able
or willing to achieve in the home, where we still remain largely responsible
for the maintenance and beautification of the domestic space.  Perhaps MS
Living also serves as a source of guilt for some women, subconsciously
telling them that if they were only "better" homemakers, they too could
emulate the kind of perfect home that MS portrays in her monthly magazine.
Just like the "perfect" fashion models in women's magazines still make women
feel guilty about their body image because, although we *know* that their
pictures are airbrushed to remove "imperfections," we still aspire to an
unattainable goal, perhaps Martha Stewart's "perfect" model of the home
presented in her MS Living magazine still makes women feel guilty about
their image as homemakers because, although we *know* that Martha cannot
singlehandedly achieve these results, we still aspire to yet another
unattainable goal.

Jennifer L. Rexroat
Doctoral Candidate and Instructor
Gender and Women's Studies Concentration
Department of Political Science
University of Illinois at Chicago
1007 West Harrison Street (MC 276)
Chicago, IL 60607-7137
Phone:  (773) 381-5388
Fax:  (773) 381-5399
E-mail:  jrexro1  @  uic.edu
Web:  www.uic.edu/~jrexro1

Hi Joan...  I know you terminated the Martha Stewart thread, but I was
talking to a friend who's a horticulturist and discovered that we may have
missed a key issue in our discussion, regardless how much fun and how long it
may have seemed to have been going in circles...

I had mentioned to Carol, who is my horticulturist, the conclusion that
Martha was actually capable of parodying herself because of the note in the
thread that described a calendar notation about "vacuuming the lawn"...  my
friend did a doubletake and said we had slipped up in our analysis, that
people not only did vacuum their lawns but that she knew neighbors who did it
every day in the fall because they consider the autumn leaves to be
*debris*...

Furthermore she pointed out that the real underlying issue is the growing
distaste for nature which she finds particularly troublesome because not only
does this indicate a reaction against environmental issues and a return to
hi-tech fears but that, because women are more closely tied to nature through
our monthly cycles and our childbearing experience, that the antipathy for
the rough beauty of nature is a harbinger for changes in the roles of women,
particularly since it's being dished by a woman...

I can personally corroborate the trend toward antipathy to things natural
which we see in the legal issues in local zoning laws and how they're
applied...  the regulations for landscaping continue to become more onerous
and unreasonable...  state regulations that merely required clearance along
roadways for safe snow removal have been questionalby enlarged upon to become
manicuring instructions over the last few years with unsavory implications
for personal integrity and constitutional freedoms...  these aesthetic laws
are the handiwork of the real estate industry and the convergence of economic
factors and corporate dictates is wiping away our respect for individualism
and nature....  if women are the next targets, as we see more signs of
backlash against what little progress was made, this tenuous status of
liberties will be very difficult to handle..

Anyway, I was hopeful we could pick up one more piece of this picture since
we left an incorrect conclusion unchallenged and we missed the entire
connection to environmental issues and women...
JH Raichyk, PhD
Dectiri Publishing

re raichyk comment:  the issue is a real and disturbing one, but just
wanted to caution about specific link to "lawn-vacuuming"--most of the
people i know who do it empty the bags for use as compost or mulch--very
different dynamic and scope of consequences from those who bag and leave
for trash pick-up (and then purchase "processed" mulch etc.)...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

The April Fool calendar is in the April 1999 issue of
_Martha Stewart Living_, p. 14. It actually begins,
"April 1, send tax returns to calligrapher - April 2,
Lecture chickens, 'Better Egg Laying,' April 3, Annual
Easter egg hunt. Vacuum grass." It continues, "April 9,
Begin shopping for Christmas 2002 - April 10, Finish
shopping for Christmas 2002." You get the picture.

As for people literally vacuuming their lawns--and I
thought blowing leaves around was idiotic!

Anne Carson
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
arc3  @  cornell.edu