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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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It wasn’t as if the wife of a moderately successful professional man in 1910 was raising her own children or scrubbing kitchen floors the way modern “SAHMs” are expected to; she had maids to do that because wealth inequality was much higher back then and domestic staff much cheaper. Even a skilled artisan or low-level clerical worker would often have a maid in the house.

I'd also point out that college-educated rich women in 1910 were also doing basically non-profit work, they just weren't paid for it. There were many ideological varied movements being led by middle class and rich women of the time, no different from today. This idea there was a time when rich/UMC college-educated in urban areas were just sitting around, doing nothing but taking care of their kids has never really been true in like, the past probably 150-200 years, because of what you said.

In some ways, the 50's were the worst of both worlds, which is what led to feminism - technology has risen to where even middle class women didn't need to spend all day doing household work and because they were in atomized suburbs, there wasn't much to do but kvetch with your fellow other college-educated but at-home mothers about your life.

And they often needed that maid, because modern household appliances didn't exist yet.