Semiothic Of The Kitchen, By Martha Rosler

In the 1950’s, women were working and being transformed into the American housewife, while their husbands went off to corporate careers. In Ingalls and Johnson, women were said to have careers however, could only succeed at “motherhood substitute jobs” such as teaching, nursing, administrative assistive, and social work (I&J, 51). This culture portrayed woman as only being capable of household jobs. When looking for the perfect suburban home, General Electric said women would head straight for the kitchen because this was where she would be spending most of her time. General Electric’s Wonder Kitchen made it even easier for women to save time, space, and work, allowing for wives to have more leisure time. The Chase & Sanborn advertisement reinforces the culture of women having to do everything to please their husbands. The picture on the ad depicts a man spanking his wife across his lap because she disappointed him with flat and stale coffee. Not only are women conforming to this domestically pleasing life style, but men also had

Taking a look into the ways of her household solidified the fact that housewives were set apart from their counterparts because of their responsibilities. Their knack for multi-tasking and running a home efficiently was never held to very high standards. Now, with a look into these three women’s homes, it seems that everyone should take with them the notion that no matter the woman’s wealth or social status, her work in the home is pivotal to the success of her family.

Friedan, however, was no ordinary housewife. Before starting her family, she had worked as a newspaper reporter; even after her children came, she wrote regularly for the major women 's magazines. By 1957 she was fed up with the endless stories about breast-feeding, the preparation of gourmet chip dips, and similar domestic fare that was the staple of ‘Redbook‘, ‘McCall 's‘, and ‘Ladies ' Home Journal‘. She had noticed many women like herself who worked outside the home and felt guilty because their jobs threatened their husbands ' roles as providers or took time away from their children. Thus Friedan began to wonder not only about herself as a woman, a wife, and a mother, but also about the role society had shaped women to play.

The book: The Maid’s Daughter was an amazing account and it was a very fascinating read that talks about the life of a Mexican woman whose journey from Mexico to the United States by becoming a maid for the wealthy elites and in turn raising a daughter at the same time which is quite a story to read about. The author is Mary Romero who is currently a professor of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University. She has received several awards and has written many novels about Latino Culture. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from Regis College. I think the main reason why this author chose to write the Maid’s Daughter was because she wanted to talk about what it may be like for immigrant families that come to the United States and the struggles they may face. The Maid’s Daughter focuses on mainly the 1980s in Los Angeles where started working as a Maid and raising her daughter. There are many themes that show what life was like for the Maid’s Daughter such as the life of Carmen, life of Oliva and Carmen’s role as a mom and a maid. If it wasn’t for Carmen’s will to survive it would have posed a greater challenge for both Olivia and her mother to find work.

“America 's one of the finest countries anyone ever stole” is a quote from Bobcat Goldthwait. He is an American actor, comedian, and screenwriter that refers to Christopher Columbus as the thief. Following in the European settlers footsteps, Americans had no respect for the Indians’ homes or the people themselves. Similar to Columbus and his successors, the United States government has taken Native Americans’ land. The unfairness of this injustice led to the erosion of Indians’ rights, which has ultimately threatened their safety, especially women’s. In Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Round House, she indicates that understanding the lack of safety Native women face is vital in maintaining a civil community. Louise Erdrich reveals that

The main example for this is Guy Fieri’s Guy’s Big Bite, which presents a never-ending party atmosphere displayed through how Fieri’s kitchen equipped with drums, guitars, a pinball machine and a television screen. This is uncommon for women’s cooking shows. Cooking as Leisurely Entertainment - men make cooking time an event. Only cook to entertain others on special occasions. Males cook in groups and talk about how they are family. Women cook alone because it is their domestic duty to feed each other. Men are applauded at the end of the meal where as it is expected that the women makes a great meal contribution and gains less

Cook, clean, please, repeat. This was the typical lifestyle for women throughout most of history. Women were the charming possessions that belonged to their husbands; their power was their husband’s power. They were not individuals, and it was infrequent for a woman to rise above her peers and do something important with her life. Currently, much has changed.

American poet and Civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said “Eating is so intimate. It 's very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you 're inviting a person into your life.” Throughout the history of humans, food has been a constant in cultures, traditions and everyday life. People have evolutionized to crave food because it gives us the nutrients and minerals that are needed for survival. Interestingly, as things like transportation, shelter, warmth, health and ideology have changed over long periods of time to become more efficient, food has remained close to the same. The food that is given to humans today from the time they are a small child is quite similar to the food eaten hundreds and even thousands of years ago. Food has become such a large part of the human culture that it has not advanced to the degree that other things such as the human home has changed in order to become economical. In the article “The End of Food” by Lizzie Widdicombe, Widdicombe discusses the story of Rob Rhinehart who embellishes the idea of changing food to become more useful and efficient to humans. While working long hart hours, Rhinehart creates Soylent, which is a mixture made up the necessary nutrients and minerals for survival, in order to reduce the amount of time and money he spends on eating everyday. In other words, unlike Maya Angelou, Rhinehart does not view eating as intimate or sensual. He views eating as an inconvenience that

Based on the poems “Gravy” by Corrie Lynn White and “She lives in a Pat of Butter” by Jade Ramsay, women are forced to be a role model in family life and domesticity. Although women generally need to give a great amount of effort to be the best mother or wife, the social expectations from both of the poems want women to be perfect especially in domestic life. In fact, there was even a time when female domesticity became the culture of some upper and middle class Americans back in the nineteenth century (The Cult of Domesticity). Their purpose was to limit woman’s influences only to family life or handling chores around the home. Both of the poems show that the expectations of seeing every woman must definitely have a happy life after marriage

Television, since its inception, has had a knack at being a mirror for the current state of society. Through this medium, one is easily able to spot the changes our culture has gone through since TV was first created. One example of this social shift, is that of the woman's role in television starting from the 50’s to the present. In 1950’s

It is not the production of food in and of itself that is Rosler’s target but the taken for granted role of a happy housewife and selfless producer that the tape intends to spotlight. Her work deals as much with the role of women as with the role of representations. In her video we also see the invisible and visible labour through her actions of using kitchen utensils in the video and behind the video in reality and the way in which her body is inscribed by domestic arts. The frustration that is seen in her actions is because a woman does not become a woman because of her sex but because of the domestic work that is labelled on her

These houses were amalgamation of retained social expectations of housework but also more progressive architectural ideas. The period saw great change thanks in part to the influence of the Garden City Movements and Raymond Unwin. Unwin semis featured additional living space on the ground floor, running hot water, internalised kitchen and bathing facilities. The extra living space on the ground floor provided an area for families to engage with everyday life and again a parlour in the front of the house to entertain with. The changed position of the kitchen to inside the house really demonstrates the change of gender perspective during this time, it lessened the separation of house tasks by bringing them closer to the family. The provision of hot running water, electricity and internal washrooms helped ease some of the labour of housework, beginning to liberate the housewife. It was however still expected that she would prepare and serve all foods. Therefor the housewife found herself in a funny situation of being both privileged with modern conveniences but still bound to being unseen doing her task in a small space as if a

What I found most interesting was the topics of menarche and menstruation were framed in the video. There is a great deal of positivity about menstruation that I am unaccustomed to seeing here in the United States. In western culture, menarche is not treated as a time of celebration; instead, it is treated as a source of shame and embarrassment (Lorber, 2002). The video does the exact opposite. When the girl first gets her period, she refers to it as “the red badge of courage”.

This provides a satirical look at work place relations between men and women in the 1950s. The video is blatantly sexist and is meant to tell the viewer that the sexism of the twentieth century, as well as sexism today is unacceptable. As Peacocke asserts, “The message of the clip denounces and ridicules sexism rather than condoning it” (305). As Peacocke asserts, the creators of the show are not intending for sexism to be viewed as acceptable. While she makes a good point that the particular instance is purely satirical it is rather limited due to the credibility of a show such as Family Guy.

Produced in 1975, the video is reminiscent of television cooking shows reminiscent of the likes of Julia Child (fig 1). These shows, geared towards women, provide guidance in the kitchen to help women and perhaps lessen the stress of their domestic duties. What separates Martha Rosler’s video from mass media cooking shows is her parodic performance. A single camera is focused on an expressionless woman, the housewife, in a kitchen. This “anti-Julia Child” proceeds to pick up, name, and demonstrate the use of kitchen utensils in alphabetical order (Polan 272). With each object demonstration,