Hull, K. (2006). Same-sex marriage: The cultural politics ...users.humboldt.edu/mvirnoche/domtech.pdf · Piercesan, 1.(2005). Courts, liberalism, ... and Catherine Beecher and Harriet

Hull, K. (2006). Same-sex marriage: The cultural politics oflove and law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Piercesan, 1. (2005). Courts, liberalism, and rights: Gay lawand politics in the United States and Canada.Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Pinella, D. R. (2006). America's struggle for same-sexmarriage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Domestic technology encompasses a wide range ofhome appliances and household techniques and prac-tices related to cleaning, cooking, and child care. Thedevelopment and use of modem domestic technologieswas spurred by urbanization and the rise of science.Their proliferation in Western households has signifi-cantly affected the organization of the home with impli-cations for race, class, gender, and global stratification.

In the early 1800s, more than 90 percent of theU.S. population lived in rural areas. The preindustrialhome was the center of production for daily life.Family members helped with the production of veg-etables, bread, clothing, soap, candles, and even med-icines. The industrial revolution and urbanizationshifted many types of production outside the home.The vacuum in home production generated debateabout expectations for home life and women's respon-sibilities to private and public life. The debates weredriven partly by the development of the domesticscience movement. A stream of advice manuals andbooks such as Lydia Maria Child's American FrugalHousewife (1828) and Catherine Beecher and HarrietBeecher Stowe's The American Woman's Home(1869) became household manuals.

Given the elimination of many home productionactivities, such feminists as Oliver Schreiner andCharlotte Perkins Gilman advocated that womenjoin men in the public sphere. Yet theirs was radicalthought amid the fledgling, yet clearly patriarchal,institutions of postcolonial America. Precolonial andpostcolonial America witnessed a growing emphasison public education and literacy unmatched elsewherein the world. Yet women's education was legitimizedby emphasizing their responsibility in training theirsons for entrance into civil society.

The lifework of Ellen Swallow Richards and hercommitment to domestic science were a more palatable

match for the given systems of patriarchy. In 1871,Richards became the first female student and then fac-ulty member at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology. Having trained at Vassar in laboratory tech-niques then in their infancy, Richards found that her lovefor science found greater acceptance among men andwomen when directed toward the female domain ofhome. Ironically, Richards's focus on the home wasmore of a concession than a driving vision. She trainedsecondary education teachers to make a place for herselfand other women in science and the academy.

Richards applied laboratory techniques, epidemiol-ogy, and germ theory to social problems connectedwith the home. The American city of the late 1800swas rife with health and safety issues driven by grow-ing urbanization and overcrowding. Richards engi-neered systemic and home sanitation standards,product testing, food science, ventilation, and hygieniccleaning techniques.

Richards believed that domestic science providedan opportunity to elevate women's status. The care offamily and home were not just a vocation, but now aprofession based on specialized training. Proper home-making required formal education in domestic science.As with the rationale for women's literacy in earliertimes, the rationale for women's training in the princi-ples of science was legitimized through their responsi-bility to home life. Cleaning and sanitation became amoral responsibility of every good homemaker.

Although key scientific contributions such as watersanitation, waste management, and immunizationsimproved public health, many other elements of thedomestic science movement contributed to greatersocial stratification. Domestic education applied"Taylorism," the scientific management techniques usedin factories to increase efficiency and production, tohome life. Rather than freeing women for leisure or paidwork, time "saved" was used to prepare more elaboratemeals and scrub floors and walls on a regular basis.The focus on in-home production also created economicoppOltunity for technological innovation. Yet, manyappliances labeled "time saving" actually increased theamount of time that women spent on household labor."Wash day" became every day, instead of once a monthas when laundry was done by hand.

Domestic science home visits became a method forassimilating urban poor families into middle-classAmerican desires, if not luxuries of life. A new sense oforder for family was conveyed: family schedules, clean-liness standards, food choice, and food preparation were

framed in the vision of "right living." Poor women stilllabored in factories or did piece work in their homes.Material and time resources restricted their ability toconform to middle-class standards. Rising expectationsfor the ideal home further challenged the moral andfeminine identities of the working poor.

Test kitchens such as the "Good HousekeepingExperiment Station," established in 1900, put the sci-ence of food chemistry into corporate practice. Yet,the influence of these kitchens was as much aboutmarketing and sales, with the "Good HousekeepingSeal of Approval," as it was about science. Photosof female home economists dressed in lab coats inkitchens gave scientific credibility to products such asCorning Ware and helped convince homemakers touse them in their own kitchens.

The influence of the domestic science movementreached beyond women's in-home labor: it alsoaffected changes in women's participation in the publicsphere. For example, domestic science provided a dis-course that allowed women to retain their femininityand accept the new scientific training requirementsinfused into the field of nursing in the late 19th century.

The foundations of domestic science are retained inhome and work organization of modern Western soci-eties. Although men are now more likely to participatein child care responsibilities, women still performabout twice as much routine housework as men do. Inall wealthy nations such as the United States, womennow represent almost half the paid labor force. Yetmiddle- and upper-class men and women's labor forceparticipation is often supported by the home labor ofpoor and working-class women. Many of these womenare immigrants who tend to the housekeeping andchild care needs of a family. The home and markers ofproper living today exist at the intersections of racial,gender, social class, and global stratification.

Mary E. Virnoche

See also Domestic Labor; Education: Gender Differences;Scientific Motherhood

Bashford, A. (2000). Domestic scientists: Modernity, gender,and the negotiation of science in Australian nursing,1880-1910. Journal of Women's History, 12(2),127-146.

Leavitt, S. (2002). From Catharine Beecher to MarthaStewart: A cultural history of domestic advice. ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press.

Ogburn, W. F., & Nimkoff, M. F. (1955). Technology and thechanging family. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Wajcman, J. (1991). Feminism confronts technology.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Domestic violence-also known as "interpersonalviolence," "battering" and "family violence"-is awidespread and serious public health problem, in theUnited States and internationally. The United NationsDevelopment Fund for Women estimates that one inthree women around the world will be beaten, coercedinto sex, or otherwise abused in her own lifetime. Thisentry looks at definitions of domestic violence, histor-ical perspectives, domestic violence statistics, causesof batter, effects of domestic violence, children of bat-tered women, and response and prevention.

The notion of a "battered woman" derives from thecriminal violation known as "battery" or the willful orintentional touching of a person against that person'swill by another person, or by an object or substance putin motion by that other person. The notion of "batteredwomen," with its emphasis on physical violence, failsto entirely capture the various ways in which intimatepartners of either gender can be manipulated andabused and as a consequence, the term has been largelyreplaced by domestic violence (DV), intimate partnerviolence (IPV), and the more generic family violence.

During the past 15 years, there has been a growingrecognition that IPV is a highly prevalent publichealth problem with devastating effects on individu-als, families, and communities. The term family vio-lence has been used to describe acts of violencebetween family members, including adult and adoles-cent partners, between a parent and a child (includingadult children), between caretakers or partners againstelders, and between siblings. Although sometimesused interchangeably, the term domestic violence isgenerally seen as a subset of family violence betweenintimates so that the term intimate partner violenceappears to be replacing domestic violence for the sakeof definitional clarity.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund defines IPVas a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors that