What question did this study set out to answer?

The study examines the significance of housework, particularly feeding the family, and its impact on gender roles.

October 1, 1993

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

Key Points

The study examines the significance of housework, particularly feeding the family, and its impact on gender roles.
Conducted interviews in 1982-83
Utilized a diverse group of American households
Analyzed the social organization of caring and nurturance
Housework is often trivialized in public discourse, masking its essential role in family life.
The effort involved in cooking, shopping, and serving meals is revealed as skilled work.
Household responsibilities can reinforce oppressive social relations for women, maintaining their subordinate status.

Abstract

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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