Hetero-domesticity in Housekeeping
Hard-rooted in culture, especially American culture, is the essence of domesticity and the roles certain
people play. Imagine a hard-working man, coming home from a long day in the factory, warehouse, or
office, opening the door to a house smelling of a warm meal, to the exuberant shrieks of young children,
and to the comforting glance from a delicate, beautiful wife. This has long been the norm, and even
today, remains somewhat of the norm. It especially was in the 1950’s, where conformity was everything,
especially in the setting of a family, as millions of men returned from the second world war eager to start
families.
people play. Imagine a hard-working man, coming home from a long day in the factory, warehouse, or
office, opening the door to a house smelling of a warm meal, to the exuberant shrieks of young children,
and to the comforting glance from a delicate, beautiful wife. This has long been the norm, and even
today, remains somewhat of the norm. It especially was in the 1950’s, where conformity was everything,
especially in the setting of a family, as millions of men returned from the second world war eager to start
families.
Today, in 2019, we begin to see more abstract familial constructs, with families with two working parents
or a stay-at-home father, single-parent families, blended families, same-sex parents, you name it. Yet
there’s still that lingering expectation of heterosexual roles, as many queer couples will find themselves
rolling their eyes to the question, “who’s the man” and “who’s the woman”. These people clearly know
that the people they’re looking at are two men, two women, or people outside the binary, but the
stereotypical “male” and “female” roles are still expected. One of them must be more dominant,
bread-winning, and rugged, while the other must be more seductive, homely, and above all, a good
“housekeeper”. One who cooks, cleans, tends to any and all needs with little or no opposition to the
status quo.
As it becomes rather evident early on, Sylvie is clearly not your model “housekeeper”. Sure, she cooks
and cleans and keeps Ruth and Lucille warm and safe, but her personality and transient lifestyle is a far
cry from this rooted role, and she really can’t hide from this fact. In the scene where Lucille asks about
her husband, she tries to lie about him by bringing a random newspaper clipping of a soldier as a picture
of him, and it’s evident through this epically failed lie that she can’t pretend to play the role that Lucille or
society was expecting. Other than this moment, she never really mentions men or seems to have any
interest in them. It's also rather thanks to her that this novel WHOOPS the rest as far as the Bechdel test
- under Sylvie's care and given their family background, the girls don't really have any men to interact
with or talk about. To take her defiance of housekeeping to another level, Sylvie ends up burning the
house down in the end, walking over a bridge with Ruth, and continuing to live as a transient. The home,
which is traditionally supposed to be the woman’s domain, is given a solid flip of the bird by this radical
role-defying character in the final chapter.
and cleans and keeps Ruth and Lucille warm and safe, but her personality and transient lifestyle is a far
cry from this rooted role, and she really can’t hide from this fact. In the scene where Lucille asks about
her husband, she tries to lie about him by bringing a random newspaper clipping of a soldier as a picture
of him, and it’s evident through this epically failed lie that she can’t pretend to play the role that Lucille or
society was expecting. Other than this moment, she never really mentions men or seems to have any
interest in them. It's also rather thanks to her that this novel WHOOPS the rest as far as the Bechdel test
- under Sylvie's care and given their family background, the girls don't really have any men to interact
with or talk about. To take her defiance of housekeeping to another level, Sylvie ends up burning the
house down in the end, walking over a bridge with Ruth, and continuing to live as a transient. The home,
which is traditionally supposed to be the woman’s domain, is given a solid flip of the bird by this radical
role-defying character in the final chapter.
I do really like the way this book turns the "woman's world" on its head. It's filled with female characters who break the mold of what it means to be female, and like you said, "Whoops the rest as far as the Bechdel test". I enjoyed seeing Sylvie never quite embracing the housekeeping role, and teaching Ruth there's another way to live. It's unfortunate that the only way shown to live outside heteropatriarchal roles was to escape society entirely: but a good metaphor.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that Robinson never really writes about housekeeping as a gendered aspect of the 1960s American culture she depicts, although it clearly is. We get no mention of domesticity as women's "natural" domain, or the idea that Sylvie is an aberration in terms of her gender role--we see "housekeeping" and "settled" life as something that is attractive to *most* men and women, with Sylvie as a rebel because she rejects domesticity in favor of transience, since transience is more in touch with the actual facts of the human condition. But it's undeniable that, by embracing life as a "hobo," Sylvie is entering a mostly masculine realm (even though all of the 'friends' she refers to having met on the road are women), and her seeming inability to do housework in any conventional way is a profound form of gender-nonconformity. There definitely IS a gendered aspect to these issues in the novel; I just think it's notable that, for whatever reason, Robinson chooses not to frame the story in this way.
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