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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think the washing machine has liberated women more than the pill?

209 replies

bettybosseye · 06/03/2011 19:08

I'm serious, think about it, there are alternatives to the pill but only one to hours spent every day hand scrubbing and wringing piles of washing.
The pill is held up as something that gave women control and this is undoubtedly true but the humble washing machine has emancipated us from hours of drudgery every day and like i say it is unrivaled. The washing machine rules!

OP posts:
Fernie3 · 07/03/2011 09:15

I lived for a year with no washing machine and not enough money for launderette washing or indeed trasnport to a laundrette even if i did. At the time i only had two children ages 2 and a baby when it started. Washing everything by hand is HARD, a good portion of each day was consumed by it and although i was a sahm so it didnt matter so much if i had been working i don't know how i would have coped - we used washable nappies to try and save money and i appreciate a bit more how much of a grind daily life was 100 years ago!.
My house was full of washing I various stages of the cycle. My son had reflux and so all of his bedding needed washing everyday which didn't help. The pill is important to allow women to chose when to have children BUT at some point most women do choose to have them and then the washing machine comes into it's own.

fastedwina · 07/03/2011 09:25

I know a Filipino girl who last year bought her mum her first ever washing machine. She was so proud and happy for her mum, this thread has just reminded me what a big deal it probably was for them.

slug · 07/03/2011 09:45

I vividly remember when we got our first automatic washimg machine. We had an old manual wringer one until I was in my teens.

I can still see in my mind's eye my mother, baby on hip, just watching the machine rinse and spin with an expression of contentment on her face.

Looking back, I realise just how much the automatic washing machine did liberate my mother. These were the days before disposable nappies. When you have 2 or 3 children in nappies simultaneously, having to wash, wring, rinse and wring again does take up a significant proportion of your daily life. It also means the washing job can be easily handed over to the working part of the partnership. My dad always helped with the houesework (he's a mean cook and washing the floors was his job). Once the automatic washing machine was aquired, he could do that too as it was something he could put on before he went to work, leaving only the job of hanging the clothes to my mum.

OTheHugeDaffodils · 07/03/2011 10:09

If the washing machine had only just been invented, this thread would be 10 pages long by now because of all the angry posts by washerwomen complaining about how they were losing their jobs.

Grin
boyscomingoutofmyears · 07/03/2011 10:34

Why women? There are SAHD's too, men who live alone and Shock men who have a wife and children who do washing!!!! My DH does the laundry everyday, in my case the washing machine has liberated him much more than the pill has for me as I can't take the stupid thing due to health reasons.

boyscomingoutofmyears · 07/03/2011 10:42

Sometimes MN drives me a bit mad, there's quite a strong feminist presence on here, yet there is an awful lot of women who are constatly moaning about their DH's not pulling their weight in the home, not helping much with DCs etc. Now we have a thread saying that the washing machine is the best thing ever for women.

I am probably going to be flamed now but I feel a bit Sad sometimes that a lot of women on here come across as such intelligent, liberated people and yet when you scratch the surface, their lives resemble something out of the 50s. Sorry, I don't mean to offend but I am in a very equal marriage with a husband who takes on more than his fair share of domestic chores and is happy to aswell!

starterfor10 · 07/03/2011 10:50

I got pregnant while taking the pill so it has to be the washing machine for me!

Quodlibet · 07/03/2011 10:56

Good post boyscomingoutofmyears, a lot of this discussion seems to assume that washing is a woman's responsibility.

Not in my house it's not.

OTheHugeDaffodils · 07/03/2011 11:07

Er, washing machines have been around for a while. The kind of totally equal relationships you're talking about are certainly more recent than that.

I think it's reasonable to suggest that for the intervening period - ie while it was still assumed that washing was women's work, but more and more women wanted to work away from home - the invention of the washing machine has played a major part in freeing up women's time to the point where it was even possible to contemplate spending life as something other than a domestic drudge.

schroeder · 07/03/2011 11:14

I think some of you are missing the point; now men do the washing of course, but when the automatic washing machine first arrived here they (mostly) did not.

The washing machine saved women time, so more of them were able to work longer hours and study etc.

I think that the OP makes a valid point.

FellatioNelson · 07/03/2011 11:16

Well I've spent alot more hours doing laundry than having sex in my lifetime - even with a washing machine Hmm, so I certainly wouldn't swap it for the pill! The pill has alternatives that are equally attractive and effective. The washing machine doesn't. (unless you could a full-time maid and I am still waiting to acquire one of those.)

starterfor10 · 07/03/2011 11:18

slug The day I got my first automatic washing machine I sat on the kitchen floor and watched it do a whole cycle!
It hasn't made my DH do the washing though. Laundry remains firmly my domain.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 07/03/2011 11:18

the assumption that the laundry is women's work isn't particularly liberating. therefore YABU.

boyscomingoutofmyears · 07/03/2011 11:22

Really?! I always remember my Dad doing housework too and my Grandad was a SAHD while my Grandma went out to work in the 60s. I guess my family is not the norm and i'm very lucky that my Grandma was such a fantastic role model.

Fernie3 · 07/03/2011 11:24

My grandfather did housework but he also spent all day down a mine so naturally most of the washing fell to my sahm grandmother!

recycledteen · 07/03/2011 11:32

As I didn't have any type of washing machine for first five years of mum-dom, I'd be tempted to sing its praises. Grin

Instead of which, I'm giving the pill the vote as it meant more choice in choosing to start a family when I'd stability in my life. St Davids

recycledteen · 07/03/2011 11:33

PS my grandfather washed all the nappies when we were kids.

Beveridge · 07/03/2011 11:49

A classic Social History 1 class exam question in my department at Uni was 'What did more for women in the 20th century, the pill, the vote or the washing machine?' And the general consensus, after much debate and discussion was that it was actually the washing machine.

And I have to say that I agree, there were other contraceptive options for women prior to the pill in the 60s (there must have been, otherwise why did family size fall so sharply from the late 19th century onwards and not just from the 60s?) such as coitus interruptus (or getting off at Haymarket, as it was know in the local Edinburgh area), staying up later than your husband to do some darning (or some other pretext)as well as diaphragms, foams and pessaries.

Plus politics today is still dominated by men,and desite the Equal Pay Act (bless you, Barbara Castle!)women still earn less than men.

It was only when labour saving devices were available that it became acceptable/feasible for women to pursue careers outwith the home and I think this is when perception of 'a woman's place' really started to be challenged.

The existence of contraception is no guarantee that it will actually be used, people (men and women) have to want to use it for it to have any impact on family size.

MillyR · 07/03/2011 11:54

You could say that any labour saving device has liberated women because most labour is done by women. I would say that the plough has liberated women more than the washing machine. I would rather wash clothes by hand than go out and dig fields with a spade to make sure my children ate.

I also agree that natural birth control is very common - that is why in non agricultural/industrial settings the average birth spacing is 4 years.

I don't think the pill has liberated women. It certainly has not helped women in developing countries; the trialling of certain contraceptives on women in developing countries (particularly implants) is a tragedy and an abuse of human rights. The condom, on the other hand, protects against STDs without interfering with women's bodies, and AIDs is a huge problem problem in many developing countries.

lesley33 · 07/03/2011 11:59

I think the washing machine has helped to liberate women.

manicbmc · 07/03/2011 12:05

I had no washing machine until my twins were 4 because the ex spent all our money on drink. So I had 4 years of handwashing and was allowed the very occasional use of his mother's unreliable twintub.

He was getting none anyway so I'd definitely say I'd have found a washing machine a lot more useful than the pill at that point in my life.

SpermyShenanigans · 07/03/2011 12:30

I'm beginning to change my mind. Since we are talking about just the pill not all contraception. As I said in my first post before I ended up getting confused.

OP you have a PM Smile

Normantebbit · 07/03/2011 12:40

Yes I suppose when it comes to the pill, I've changed my mind. I think my argument is influenced by the fact that contraception in the phillipines is not allowed and the resultant pain and poverty.

I guess that's a different issue though.

I really can't believe the rhythm method meant women produced only 2-3 children on average and spacing was 4 years? Really?

Normantebbit · 07/03/2011 12:42

My mum still goes on about scrubbing my Terry toweling nappies out by hand until her aunty bought her a toploader Grin

She actually still has my nappies and uses them as dish rags Shock

MillyR · 07/03/2011 12:45

NT, I think that is 2 different groups of people. Birth spacing in non-agricultural/industrial communities now have birth spacings of 4 years on average.

In the past in agricultural/industrial Britain there have been some times and places where average number of children was 2-3, but other times and places in Britain where it was more. I suspect that some of that birth control was to do with the number of British men sent off to fight in wars. Not having enough to eat is also an unpleasant yet effective way of not getting pregnant, and there were many periods of famine and scarcity in Britain in the past.