After today's meeting, I am excited to start researching my topic. My 11th thing?...The Woman’s Handbag: Much More than a Man’s Pocket

2/6/06

Now in light of having done approximately 50 million loads of laundry upon returning from a weekend of skiing, I have revisited the idea of the washer (i.e. electric washing machine) as my 11th thing. Some notes:

• The washer was prevalent in homes following WWI; the home was industrialized. (The washer is a historically influential piece of technology!)
• The washer arguably alleviated some of the pressures placed on housewives. Clothes no longer needed to be scrubbed by hand; the only manual labor now involved sorting the clothes, pressing the appropriate buttons, and then transferring the wet clothes to the dryer. Much time was clearly saved as well.
• However, this "leisure time" only freed up more moments for more chores to be done. In other words, new work had to be created to fill this newly acquired free time. This new work was childcare, shopping/consumption of consumer goods, and excessive cleaning.
• "Housework, like so many other types of work, expands to fill the time available." (Cowan, "Industrial Revolution" in the Home)
• The number of women's magazines increased in the 1920s, and therefore, more ads dealt with the role of a housewife. Guilt was capitalized upon. (e.g. spotted clothes were taken as a sign of a dirty home and bad parenting.) This guilt also led to the purchase of more kitchen and cleaning appliances and to an expanded job description of a housewife due to increased societal/cultural pressures/expectations ("pervasive social illness.")
• The washer, along with other technological achievements in the household, led to the disappearance of paid and unpaid laborers. In other words, all of the chores fell upon the housewife herself; the housewife became the last unspecialized worker.
• So the washer definitely did redefine the role of a housewife. Now what does it mean to a college student?

2/2/06

In light of today's lecture, I now have new direction for a possible project on handbags. Some notes:

• Professor Shanks mentioned today that there is a particular assemblage of handbags which is signature to Stanford students
• Also, like a Mercedes, a certain brand of handbag connotes a specific status, amount of effort that goes into appearance, etc.
• A measure of risk is involved in the production of handbags - e.g. breaking away from certain style (Older Coach bags show only a pattern of C's or are plain while newer bags have diverged into patchwork styles or into backdrops on which some sort of leather fish or flower is stitched.)
• A risk is also taken when a brand chooses to expand its line, perhaps by making shoes and umbrellas in addition to bags or by mass-producing bags to sell to a larger segment of the population
• Fierce competition for consumers also exists between certain strata of brands
• Analysis of color palates, logos, ads, and bag shapes of different brands might also prove to be interesting

2/1/06

One possible idea for my 11th thing is the washer which is now such a mundane object that most tend to overlook, or oversimplify, its influence. Another idea is the woman's handbag.

If anyone wants to collaborate on this project, let me know!

1/26/06

I am currently a sophomore and majoring in...well...so I am officially declared as a Chem major, but I am probably going to switch to Molecular and Cell Bio, and I might either double major or minor in STS too...or at least that's the plan as of now...