Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work
Housework—often trivialized or simply overlooked in public discourse—contributes in a complex and essential way to the form that families and societies assume. In this innovative study, Marjorie L. DeVault explores the implications of "feeding the family" from the perspective of those who do that work. Along the way, DeVault offers a new vocabulary for discussing nurturance as a basis of group life and sociability.

Drawing from interviews conducted in 1982-83 in a diverse group of American households, DeVault reveals the effort and skill behind the "invisible" work of shopping, cooking, and serving meals. She then shows how this work can become oppressive for women, drawing them into social relations that construct and maintain their subordinate position in household life.
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Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work
Housework—often trivialized or simply overlooked in public discourse—contributes in a complex and essential way to the form that families and societies assume. In this innovative study, Marjorie L. DeVault explores the implications of "feeding the family" from the perspective of those who do that work. Along the way, DeVault offers a new vocabulary for discussing nurturance as a basis of group life and sociability.

Drawing from interviews conducted in 1982-83 in a diverse group of American households, DeVault reveals the effort and skill behind the "invisible" work of shopping, cooking, and serving meals. She then shows how this work can become oppressive for women, drawing them into social relations that construct and maintain their subordinate position in household life.
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Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work

Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work

by Marjorie L. DeVault
Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work

Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work

by Marjorie L. DeVault

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Overview

Housework—often trivialized or simply overlooked in public discourse—contributes in a complex and essential way to the form that families and societies assume. In this innovative study, Marjorie L. DeVault explores the implications of "feeding the family" from the perspective of those who do that work. Along the way, DeVault offers a new vocabulary for discussing nurturance as a basis of group life and sociability.

Drawing from interviews conducted in 1982-83 in a diverse group of American households, DeVault reveals the effort and skill behind the "invisible" work of shopping, cooking, and serving meals. She then shows how this work can become oppressive for women, drawing them into social relations that construct and maintain their subordinate position in household life.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226143606
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 07/15/1994
Series: Women in Culture and Society
Edition description: 1
Pages: 284
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Marjorie L. DeVault is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Women’s Studies Program at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: The Work of "Feeding a Family"
1. Doing Family Meals
2. Provisioning
3. Constructing the Family
Part Two: Organization of the Work
4. Feeding as "Women's Work"
5. Never Done
6. Conflict and Deference
Part Three: Feeding Work and Social Class
7. Affluence and Poverty
8. The Significance of Style
Conclusion
Appendix: Profiles of Named Informants
References
Index
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