On April 15, 2019, the Whirlpool Corporation established National Laundry Day to celebrate the 109thanniversary of their washing machine patent. It is observed annually. Though I raised seven children and have done thousands of loads of laundry, I’m not quite ready to “celebrate” laundry on National Laundry Day.
An article (blog) on Clotheslyne.com in December of 2024 was about the Gendergender is culturally constructed; the word may have various meanings in various cultures; generally it is the state of being male or female (biologically), but is more often used with reference to social and cultural differences, which may or may not be biological gender is used in various languages such as Spanish, where nouns are preceded with an article such as la (feminine) or lo (masculine) - many languages have "gendered" speech, including Latin, Greek, Russian, and German, but grammatical gender is very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex Housework Gap and Laundry: Why Women Still Bear the Load & How to Fix It by blogger Olivia. She wrote, “Despite significant strides in workplace equality, the gender gap at home remains strikingly persistent. Household chores, especially those like laundry, are still largely seen as ‘women’s work.’” Recent polls give her blog relevance. Note the following: one for the U. S. and another for Japan.
The question was, Do men or women do more laundry? Results were:
“Married or partnered heterosexual couples in the U.S. continue to divide household chores along largely traditional lines, with the women in the relationship shouldering primary responsibility for doing laundry (58%) . . .”
A survey by Unseen Japan found that “women reported taking on primary responsibility for laundry (84.2%) . . .”
Due to deeply ingrained historical and cultural norms(cultural) norms are the shared expectations and rules that guide how people behave in a society or group, either formally or informally More, women were relegated to the task of laundry. How do such deeply ingrained norms come about? It is called “enculturationlearning culture begins at birth; it is both conscious and unconscious learning, and both informal (within families) and formal (within institutions, as in church, or school), but most importantly it is passed down from generation to generation.” What is that? Enculturation is the process by which human beings learn the traditional content of their cultureculture is not genetically inherited, it is shared, learned, and dynamic- never static. Enculturation helps to assimilate the daily practices and values of every culture.
Olivia’s blog further states, “Cultural and symbolic meanings tied to housework contribute to this division. Tasks like laundry are often labeled as “feminine,” aligning with societal expectations of gender roles. Gendered norms deeply influence how domestic responsibilities are divided, as men and women conform to tasks that reinforce their gender identities.” She has defined enculturation perfectly!
Culture, like everything, evolves, and evolutionthe gradual development of something from a simple to a more complex form; in nature the process by which different organisms develop and diversify from earlier forms during the history of the earth; Darwin's theory of natural selection seeks to explain the process of evolution of all organisms (change) takes time. It does not happen overnight. Remember how long it took for women to have the right to vote? Voting, however, is not the same as laundry. One day, I asked my husband, “When all the children were home, and I had so much laundry, why didn’t you help?” He answered, very honestly, “I didn’t think about it.” He didn’t think about it because his mom, his grandmother, and even his great-grandmother’s “female-coded task” was laundry. Is laundry still universally a woman’s task? This is what I found:
- “Traditionally, household chores in Russia households were divided along gender lines, . . . However, these roles have evolved over time, and there is no fixed division of chores in every Russian household.”
- “In Switzerland, while there’s a growing push for more equitable sharing of household tasks, laundry and other domestic chores remain largely the responsibility of women, . . .”
- “In Brazil, laundry, along with other household chores like cleaning and cooking, is still disproportionately performed by women, . . . even though men are increasingly involved.”
- “In Uganda, traditionally, women are primarily responsible for laundry and other domestic tasks.”
- “In Germany, while gender roles are evolving, women still disproportionately handle laundry and other household tasks compared to men.”
Years ago, I completed an internship among the Maya in the highlands of Guatemala, in the small village of San Martin Chiquito. I saw no washing machines. I watched the women carry loads of laundry to the nearest river or stream. They knew how to harness the power of water for more than drinking and growing crops. The power of water has been used for cleaning people and clothing since ancient times. The Romans, however, took laundry to a higher elevation by collecting urine from public restrooms for washing. Urine, being rich in ammonia, was an essential cleaning agent. In the successful Starz series Outlander, women demonstrate how this same cleaning power was accomplished, soap not being available.
TV shows, movies, historical documentaries, and advertisements reinforce long-held gender roles of women. The invention of washing machines, like the Whirlpool patent, has at least modified the labor of laundry, but judging from recent polls and other research, cultural aspects of gender roles have changed little as far as laundry goes. As an anthropologythe holistic study of humanity in its broadest context in all times and places, ancient and contemporary professor, I can—and willa document stating how a person wants real and personal property divided after death More recognize National Laundry Day—but celebrating it is something else again! See what is new with women and laundry in the following short video. You can watch culture as it is evolving in The Washing Machine Project in Uganda.
You can learn more about gender roles and how they have and are evolving by enrolling in the course Enculturation and Being Culture-boundthinking that you are limited by your own cultural patterns, not able to recognize or assimilate into another culture's way of thinking - an example would be if you were visiting a culture where they raise dogs for human consumption and you could not "wrap your head around" that kind of thinking, that it was normal to raise dogs for food, you would be culture-bound. Everyone in every culture is culture-bound. This course helps you to recognize, to be respectful, and to be aware of how enculturation plays a part in your actions toward others every day.
