Sentenced to Everyday Life Feminism and the Housewife

The history of the housewife is a complicated and uneasy narrative, rife with contradictions, tensions, and unanswered questions. What is the relationship between women and the home? And why are women reluctant to call themselves housewives? Starting with an exploration of why 1940s housewives became associated with drudgery, this book examines how magazines and advertising articulated connected women with the domestic sphere, while 1950s films explored the shifting boundaries between social, family, and individual desires and constraints for women. Johnson and Lloyd also study the home as a site of boredom, and the balance between work and family in the modern world. By situating their examination in a still unresolved and contemporary topic, Johnson and Lloyd offer us both a backward glance and a forward-looking perspective into domesticity and the modern self.

Lesley Johnson is Deputy Vice-Cancellor (Research) and Professor of Cultural Studies, Griffith University, Queensland.

Justine Lloyd is Visiting Professor in Australian Cultural Studies and Australian Postdoctoral Research Fellow.