Girl, Goddess, and Grown-Up: Enacting the Feminine Feminist According to The Neodomestic Movement by Elizabeth A. Wright A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts School of Journalism and Communication Carleton University August 2007 © Elizabeth A. Wright 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-33779-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-33779-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. i * i Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract This analysis explores the respective relationships of second-wave, third-wave and post-feminisms to femininity, in the contemporary neodomestic genre. Nuancing feminism’s ongoing ‘housewife’ debate, it questions the way in which power operates according to neodomesticity, with respect to the body, the home, and the heterosexual relationship. The central cast of characters which collectively constitute neodomestic femininity, including the ‘domestic goddess,’ the ‘50s housewife,’ the ‘perpetual girl,’ the ‘artist,’ and the ‘grown-up,’ as well as those which delineate what she is not, ‘the censorious feminist,’ and ‘the mother,’ are examined in order to elucidate the feminine- feminist identity championed by neodomestic discourse as a new and powerful feminist subject position. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgements I wish to extend my great appreciation to my advisor, Professor Sheryl Hamilton, for her support and guidance in this process, as well as for continually challenging me to achieve a rigorous intellectual standard. I share the success of this project with her. I thank my committee members, Professor Eileen Saunders and Professor Andrea Doucet, for their insightful comments and suggestions. I also wish to acknowledge Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication for their generous financial assistance. This project would not have been possible without the loving support of my parents, Trish and Bob Wright, my sister, Katie Wright, and my partner, Heidi Anderson. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Literature Review 6 Theoretical Framework 21 Methodology 30 Conclusion 44 Chapter 2: ‘Homework’: Defining a Genre 46 Chapter 3: ‘Control Freaks’: Neodomestic Feminism as Fantasy of Control 61 The Mother—Mythic and Material 66 The Grandmother, Remembered 74 The Husband—Real or Anticipated 76 The Self-as-Image 84 Conclusion 91 Chapter 4: ‘Home-Made’: Recipes for Reconstituting Innate Femininity 94 Embodied Knowledge: Smell and Taste 96 Abstracted Bodies: An Emotional Aesthetics of Taste 105 Domestic Storytelling: ‘Natural’ Femininity via Consumption 110 Conclusion 122 Chapter 5: ‘Home-Schooled’: Lessons in Neodomestic Praxis Elucidating the Neodomestic Philosophy of Homework 124 The Home, Personified 131 Reconnecting with One’s Inner-Girl 137 Body-Projects: Identifying with One’s Home 141 Conclusion 150 Chapter 6: Conclusion: Towards a Neodomestic Movement 152 Bibliography 160 Illustrations 171 Appendices 179 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Illustrations Illustration Description Page A The iconic 1950s-era housewife 171 B The Neodomestic 172 C The ‘ethnic’ Neodomestic 173 D Stitch ‘n Bitch2000) { 173 E Happy Housewives (2005) 174 F Darla Shine 174 G A Visual Lesson in the Creation of Sacred Space I 175 H A Visual Lesson in the Creation of Sacred Space II 175 I “Sprinkling clothes by hand to dampen for ironing” 176 J Garten: still-life with fruit 176 K Lawson: pretty in pink 177 L How to Be a Domestic Goddess (2000) 178 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. List of Appendices Appendix Description Page A Corpus: Publication Information 179 B Corpus: Sub-Genre and Country of Origin 180 C Corpus: Cultural Significance 181 VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Chapter 1: Introduction Nigella Lawson, in her best selling 2000 cookbook/lifestyle manual How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art o f Comfort Cooking,expounds on the pleasures inherent in the act of baking: “feeling good, wafting along in the warm, sweet-smelling air, unwinding, no longer being entirely an office creature” (2001: vii). The ‘fairy cake,’ a “plain bottomed prettily iced cupcake,” is a favourite treat of Lawson’s—the cover of her manual bears its image; it allows her to play the part of domestic goddess as she succumbs, “pre-rationally,” to the tiny cakes and decorates each one with fifties- pistachio-green-coloured icing beneath a pale-pink rice paper rose (2001: 39). Inevitably her dinner guests, for whom Lawson has whipped up a batch of individually iced ‘fairy cakes’ upon her return from work, also fall for the “imagination and artistry” of her creations, validating her domestic efforts to accentuate one of Lawson’s principal claims: “the reason making cakes is satisfying is that the effort required is so much less than the gratitude conferred” (2001: vii). Equally important to Lawson’s manifesto is the claim that prowess in the kitchen allows women to enact a sexualized yet innocent vision of femininity: “the unexpressed ‘I’ that is a cross between Sophia Loren and Debbie Reynolds in a pink cashmere cardigan and a fetching gingham pinny” (2001: vii). Lawson does not want to suggest the kitchen be women’s only place, perhaps because she herself is career-oriented, or because she does not want to incur the wrath of her feminist-identified readers. She does, however, imply that her version of domestic femininity exists in complex relation to both a previous mode of domesticity, and the (second-wave) feminist critiques of that 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 mode. Drawing on these discourses she constructs domesticity as above all, symbolic, stating “this is hardly a culinary matter, of course; but cooking, we know, has a way of cutting through things, and to things, which have nothing to do with the kitchen. This is why it matters” (2001: vii). What emerges from Lawson’s whimsical and seemingly innocent celebration of sweetness is actually a well-defined prescription for appropriate feminine behaviour, one which likely challenges the readers’ own understanding and experience of what it means to be feminine. Femininity is an elusive concept. Although feminist scholars have made countless attempts to identify its essence, free it from stereotype, and break down the system of patriarchal binary thought which structures it, there is no consensus on what it means to be or to act feminine. Popular brands of feminism compete to produce and promulgate a definitive cultural mode of femininity, often in the form of icons such as the ‘superwoman,’ the ‘50s housewife,’ or the ‘grrrl,’ and the results are both contradictory and confusing. As Dorothy Smith notes, femininity is an indeterminate, socially constructed phenomenon; the concept itself groups miscellaneous instances of that which it describes under the heading ‘feminine.’ The label is their only coherence (Smith 1988: 37). Despite its lack of theoretical consistency as a concept, femininity functions as a descriptor because it refers to actual, lived practices: we know what it is and we can produce examples