Housewife, Lisa Selin Davis
Housewife, Lisa Selin Davis
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Housewife
Why Women Still Do It All and What to Do Instead

Author: Lisa Selin Davis

Narrator: Lyssa Browne

Unabridged: 9 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Legacy Lit

Published: 03/05/2024


Synopsis

Discover the complete social history of the housewife archetype, from colonial America to the 20th century, and re-examine common myths about the “modern woman.”
 
The notion of “housewife” evokes strong reactions. For some, it’s nostalgia for a bygone era, simpler and better times when men were breadwinners and women remained home with the kids. For others, it’s a sexist, oppressive stereotype of women’s work. Either way, housewife is a long outdated concept—or is it?
  
Lisa Selin Davis, known for her smart, viral, feminist, cultural takes, argues that the “breadwinner vs. homemaker” divide is a myth. She charts examples from prehistoric female hunters to working class housewives in the 1930s, from First Ladies to 21st century stay-at-home moms, on a search for answers to the problems of what is referred to as women’s work and motherhood. Davis discovers that women have been sold a lie about what families should be. Housewife unveils a truth: interdependence, rather than independence, is the American way.  
 
The book is a clarion call for all women—married or single, mothers or childless—and for men, too, to push for liberation.  In Housewife, Davis builds a case for systemic, cultural, and personal change, to encourage women to have the power to choose the best path for themselves.
 

Reviews

Goodreads review by Molly

Reading Housewife feels like hanging out with your cool smart best friend. She’s come over with snacks and a bottle of wine and is talking you through the creation of society as women know it. It’s informative without feeling like someone is talking at you. Davis managed to work her way from hunter......more

I found this book incredibly engaging. It was able to seamlessly blend narratives, facts and historical accounts into one palatable bite. Thank grand central publishing for this complimentary copy.......more

This book was so Fair-Play coded; I’m tired of reading about how women just need to “manage expectations for tasks” with their partners or “figure out how to balance motherhood”. 1) Why would you marry (and worse, have kids with) anyone you have to dictate tasks to and, 2) why are men not being aske......more

Goodreads review by Melissa

Probably a 2.5 I agreed with some of the ideas and disagreed with others. I just really thought the book was written poorly. I felt like her ideas weren't well developed, thought out, or expressed. I also felt like some things were repetitive. I wouldn't recommend this book. There are many other boo......more

Goodreads review by Abby

I went into this with an open mind and really enjoyed it! Davis doesn’t really argue about whethr women should be housewives or find joy outside the home - it’s much more about how we understand and shape our ideas about women’s roles in the home and society at large. While it’s definitely USA-centr......more


Quotes

Housewife is a deeply researched, passionately-argued pro-choice book—for women's work. Davis entertainingly looks beneath the hood of housewifery and finds all kinds of surprises: Paleolithic huntresses; radical working class housewives accosting men with sausages (really!); the exploited labor of the First Lady; and ‘tradwives,’ reinventing a ‘tradition’ that was actually an anomaly. Her quest: to figure out how women and mothers can choose the life they want, and how society needs to shift to make that happen.”—Peggy Orenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Girls & Sex

"In Housewife, Lisa Selin Davis masterfully dismantles the myths, stereotypes, and misconceptions associated with a term that so many of us use but so few of us truly understand. Through compelling research and engaging narrative, she underscores the extent to which women through history have been oppressed, undervalued, and degraded, and how the remnants of what we might think of as long forgotten societal norms and mores continue to reverberate and shape so much—from our economies to our identities and beyond. A deeply insightful and educational—but also witty and fast-paced—book that provides a profoundly important perspective on women, the labor market, and where things have gone terribly awry."—Josie Cox, author of Women Money Power

"In this involving, broad-spectrum, cheerfully impertinent book, Lisa Selin Davis investigates one of the most vexed and contradictory figures to persist in the American imagination: The housewife. Part cultural history and part cri de coeur, Davis shows, through dozens of examples, that the housewife, no matter what form she assumes (sequined backbiter, aproned hearth sweeper, even smiling First Lady) always seems to get the short end of the mop. Only through a combination of system-wide and individual commitments to change will it ever be otherwise."—Jennifer Senior, New York Times bestselling author of All Joy and No Fun