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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to step mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house stup works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. Is Smiley and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Let's go

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Speaker 1: back to my high school days, right for some memories.

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Speaker 1: And I think I might have mentioned this on other podcasts.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure, probably because it was kind of a

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Speaker 1: big part of my high school career. Was my membership

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Speaker 1: in the Future Homemakers of America. Yes, and I remember,

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Speaker 1: you know, back then, I didn't. It wasn't hip to

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Speaker 1: you know, feminist writings and uh and the like. It

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Speaker 1: was not. It was not the stuff mom, I who

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Speaker 1: told you host you see before you today? But even then,

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Speaker 1: like the name rubbed me the wrong way, the homemaker part,

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Speaker 1: the homemaker part. I loved the organization. I did so

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Speaker 1: many cool projects with them. I went to national conventions

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Speaker 1: and I was on national committees and um, you know one.

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Speaker 1: It was really a big part of my high school experience.

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Speaker 1: I'm really glad I did it. So what kind of

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Speaker 1: projects did you do? Though? I'm just curious? You just

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Speaker 1: make do you so? Things? But I did UM competitive events,

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Speaker 1: of which there were a wide or way to choose from.

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Speaker 1: You could do UM a baking project, you do a

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Speaker 1: fashion project. I was dick community service projects. UM taught

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Speaker 1: some little kids to read, helped them improve their scores

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Speaker 1: that year. I'm very proud to report UM. But I

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Speaker 1: was really relieved when they changed the name right before

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Speaker 1: my senior year of high school from Future Homemakers America

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Speaker 1: to Family Career Community Leaders of America. That does sound

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Speaker 1: in a lot more legit, because I thought that looked

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Speaker 1: better on college resumes UM. And also I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: to be a member of a h A you had

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Speaker 1: to take the Family and Consumer Science classes UM formerly

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Speaker 1: known as HOMEMECK. And even when I was telling my friends,

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Speaker 1: you know, next period, I've got Foods and Nutrition, or

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Speaker 1: next period I've got my sewing class, or next period

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Speaker 1: I've got UM Parenting and child about admit, it always

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Speaker 1: felt weird to say that, because you know, you just

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Speaker 1: you had this thing that you really you shouldn't be

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Speaker 1: learning this. You should be worried about your career and

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Speaker 1: not staying at home. You know, even then, I kind

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Speaker 1: of knew that there was something is stigmatized about um

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Speaker 1: these skills, even though I would get in parenting and

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Speaker 1: child development, You'd learned all these cool things about child

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Speaker 1: psychology and biology of how a baby developed in the womb.

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Speaker 1: And it was a really cool class. But I remember

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Speaker 1: being really embarrassed I was taking it, and Uh, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to kind of dive into why HOMEMEC has this

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Speaker 1: stigma around it, because for for being such a cool

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Speaker 1: organization and being some of the best classes I took

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Speaker 1: in high school, I was really kind of embarrassed to

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Speaker 1: be a future Home Make of America and be taking

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Speaker 1: home mac sure because from my perspective, obviously we know

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Speaker 1: that I was homeschooled ha ha um, but I actually

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Speaker 1: did go to high school high school in a building

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Speaker 1: outside of my home um your garage jokes, um, and

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Speaker 1: we did not have any sort of homec um curriculum.

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Speaker 1: And so from my perspective, home Max seemed like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: classes you go to to become June Cleaver. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: you learn how to sew up an apron so you

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Speaker 1: can put it on and make your man some meat loaf,

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Speaker 1: which I mean, you know I like meat loaf. Uh,

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Speaker 1: But you're right, I think there is a major stigma

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Speaker 1: about home mech and the whole idea of the Becky Homecky's.

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Speaker 1: And then when you get to college, it's the same

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Speaker 1: group of women who we refer to as the other

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Speaker 1: They're just going to get their mrs. Degree. But I

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Speaker 1: think it's unfortunate because when we go back and we

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Speaker 1: look at the history of homemec and family and consumer sciences,

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Speaker 1: the women who pioneered home economics, Uh, pretty awesome. They

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Speaker 1: are so amazing. I want to go back to high

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Speaker 1: school and just tell all the kids in those classes

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Speaker 1: to worship at their altar because it's such a cool

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Speaker 1: discipline when you look at it from a historical perspective,

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Speaker 1: and um, now I'm really proud of my participation in it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting discipline to go back and study.

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Speaker 1: Also from our perspective because we talk a lot about feminism,

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Speaker 1: and this is one example when second wave feminism might

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Speaker 1: not have really been helping out the women too much.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna go as far as say they got it wrong.

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, homeck feminists, you got it wrong. So

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Speaker 1: let's let's go back to to the early days. You

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Speaker 1: gotta remember that kitchens were not always a given. You

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Speaker 1: got to remember that, like having a sewing machine was

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Speaker 1: a luxury. Grocery stores didn't exist, and so I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, you've got to remember that that is the

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Speaker 1: environment in which the discipline of home economics sprung up.

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Speaker 1: It was really teaching women how to do things when

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Speaker 1: they had no tools to do them. So in eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty one we have a landmark book written by Catherine Beecher,

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Speaker 1: who was, fun fact, the half sister of Harry Beecher Stowe.

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Speaker 1: She wrote the Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use

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Speaker 1: of Young Ladies at Home, and it was all about

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Speaker 1: the importance of keeping a healthy, clean home and applying

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Speaker 1: scientific principles to child rearing, cooking, and housekeeping. And at

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Speaker 1: the same time she's also advocating for the education of

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Speaker 1: young women because at first we might think, who beat

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Speaker 1: your young ladies at home? How about young ladies out

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Speaker 1: of the home? Okay, but that's the kind of knee

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Speaker 1: your exseminis reaction that kind of gave home Mech's bad

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Speaker 1: rep Yeah. I mean, at some point everyone has to

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Speaker 1: go home. Yeah, even if you're a high powert executive.

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Speaker 1: Breaking the glass ceiling in a fortune five hunder company.

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Speaker 1: At some point you have to have a home. And

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Speaker 1: I love this idea of science behind uh domestic arts.

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Speaker 1: I guess is um. You know, this book is sort

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Speaker 1: of the first publication of many that would follow that

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Speaker 1: are like, you know, at some point, someone's gotta clean

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Speaker 1: this house, someone's got to get a meal on the table,

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Speaker 1: someone's going to have to clothe everybody. What are the

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Speaker 1: most efficient economic, um things to do it? And why

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Speaker 1: do we do it? You know, why do we need

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Speaker 1: to clean up the place where we cook our food?

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Speaker 1: Had like germ theory and bacteriology in it. It was

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Speaker 1: all about the most scientific ways to do things. And

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Speaker 1: then in eighteen sixty two we have the passage of

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Speaker 1: the Moral Act, which established land grant colleges in each date.

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Speaker 1: And this was really important because this also supplied federal

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Speaker 1: funding at these colleges for quote unquote mechanic arts. Because

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Speaker 1: prior to that time, going to college meant you were

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Speaker 1: going to go to learn the classics and you're going

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Speaker 1: to become a minister or a doctor or a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: more of a liberal arts, the bookish kind of education.

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Speaker 1: But this really recognized the fact that you had all

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Speaker 1: of this all of these people out in um more

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Speaker 1: agricultural lands that needed more practical skills. And as part

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Speaker 1: of that, they extended funding for women who are allowed

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Speaker 1: to go to these land grant colleges. That was another

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Speaker 1: great thing about these schools was that they actually admitted women.

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Speaker 1: And so this these mechanic arts were extended to household

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Speaker 1: management skills for farmers wives because while the farmers were

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Speaker 1: out in the fields, the wives had a lot to

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Speaker 1: do to not only take care of the house, but

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Speaker 1: also I mean, the household chores were pretty intensive at

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Speaker 1: that point. And remember this is you know, we're just

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Speaker 1: starting now to get kitchens and kitchen apparatus, is I guess.

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Speaker 1: And so you know, there are cooking schools. Even in

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Speaker 1: the urban locations like Boston, there are these cooking schools

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Speaker 1: that are so in demand so people can learn, you know,

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Speaker 1: how to feed their family helpfully. Right, because we don't

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Speaker 1: have refrigerators at this point. This was one thing I

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Speaker 1: didn't think about until I was reading this. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's nice to be able to just throw through your

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Speaker 1: groceries in the fridge and called the day they didn't

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Speaker 1: have those kind of things, so you have, you know,

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Speaker 1: back issues with bacteria. Um sickness is really prevalent at

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Speaker 1: this point. It's very easily spread throughout households because sanitation.

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Speaker 1: We really have not gotten the hang of it yet.

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Speaker 1: And then in eighteen we have the first Lake Placid

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Speaker 1: confer which is led by this really amazing woman name

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Speaker 1: Ellen Richards, who was a graduate of Vassar, and she

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Speaker 1: kind of weaseled her way into M I T. I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to admit her because she was a woman. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but she was like, I'll go anyway, and uh and

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Speaker 1: by the way, I'll earned a degree in chemistry in chemistry,

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Speaker 1: and so she organizes the Lake Placid Conference, which coins

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Speaker 1: the term home economics, and Richards really gets involved in

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Speaker 1: this movement, as do many of these early pioneers, because

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Speaker 1: they do have these backgrounds in science. You know, she

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Speaker 1: has a chemistry degree and she can't get a job

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Speaker 1: because it was already a struggle enough to get the

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Speaker 1: chemistry degree. Surely no university's going to hire a woman's scientist.

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Speaker 1: But she kind of again weasels her way into M

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Speaker 1: I T and says, well, don't you just give me

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Speaker 1: a lab just for women and I'll teach them. I'll

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Speaker 1: teach them some things, and so they really see it

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Speaker 1: as this this way to get women into education and

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Speaker 1: then into higher education and then into the workforce. And

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Speaker 1: so out of these Lake Placid conferences comes sort of

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Speaker 1: what this what this field of home economics is going

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Speaker 1: to cover. It's going to cover everything from UM, industrial design,

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Speaker 1: applied arts, UH, food and nutrition, child rearing, child rearing UM.

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Speaker 1: Basically everything that's gonna surround you in your home. You're

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Speaker 1: going to have mastery over if your chair, if the

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Speaker 1: weaving on it breaks, you're gonna be able to fix it.

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Speaker 1: And it even applies to things outside of the home,

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Speaker 1: such as industrial management that gives us school lunch programs

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Speaker 1: and UH ergonomics, you know from the types of chairs

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Speaker 1: that we sit in today kind of going you know

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Speaker 1: down the road. UH home economists are to think for

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Speaker 1: our comfy chairs that we sit in at our comfy cubicles.

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Speaker 1: Oh I wish. But then going back to like Placid,

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Speaker 1: it also forms the Umbrella organization ninet know eight, the

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Speaker 1: American Home Economics Association, and so they're really starting to

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Speaker 1: organize and get home mech into the leading colleges and

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Speaker 1: universities at the time. And yes, they were, Uh, these

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Speaker 1: ideas were mainly being developed to give to the women.

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Speaker 1: I think that's when we come down the road that's

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Speaker 1: going to be the problem that feminists have with this

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Speaker 1: with this field is that it's women teaching other women

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Speaker 1: how to be homemakers. But it's before the homemaker takes

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Speaker 1: on this stigma of a woman who's been kept down

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Speaker 1: by a man and can't leave the house. I mean

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Speaker 1: that was just her roll back then. And it was like,

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Speaker 1: if you are going to have to make a cake

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Speaker 1: and keep your family from getting sick and make socks

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Speaker 1: for everyone, what are the most you know, efficient ways

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Speaker 1: to do it? And it was it was so that

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Speaker 1: you would see it as an art. You would be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: today I'm going to, you know, make my art of

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Speaker 1: baking a cake. It was taking this pride in a

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Speaker 1: job well done, and it was teaching how to do

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Speaker 1: the best job you can do. Now, how did that

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Speaker 1: translate to a class? You know, all these first classes

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Speaker 1: are in um colleges, and Cornell had one of the

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Speaker 1: first programs and one of the most famous programs. And

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Speaker 1: I think my favorite thing I learned about Kristen were

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Speaker 1: the practice apartments. Oh yeah, so to give these home

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Speaker 1: x students a chance to put what they learned in

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Speaker 1: the classroom into practice. Beginning in the early nineteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: a lot of collegiate programs started up practice apartments and

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Speaker 1: practice homes to learn the quote mother craft which they

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Speaker 1: referred to, which they used to describe the scientific art

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Speaker 1: of child rearing. Okay, And in nineteen nineteen, they start

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Speaker 1: bringing in practice babies to these practice apartments so that

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Speaker 1: the women can really observe the science of child rearing. Hew,

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Speaker 1: please say practice babies. You might think of, you know,

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Speaker 1: those fake babies that you get in high school and

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Speaker 1: you gotta take it home for a week and uh

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Speaker 1: pretend that it's real and stuff. No, no, no, these

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Speaker 1: are real babies. Okay. They went to area orphanages and

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Speaker 1: child welfare associations, picked up some babies, brought them back

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Speaker 1: to the practice apartments. First practice baby was named Dickie

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Speaker 1: Domicon for Domestic Economy, and Dickie Domicon was raised for

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Speaker 1: the first year of his life at Cornell. And the

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Speaker 1: best part about this, uh these practice babies or that

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Speaker 1: they were actually highly coveted people who were looking to

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Speaker 1: adopt because they were raised in this highly scientific and

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Speaker 1: sanitary environment. They had the best first year of life possible. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean imagine getting to learn, you know, seeing how

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Speaker 1: every study that you're learning about in class affects a

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Speaker 1: real child. Now, let's not get into the potential ethical

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Speaker 1: issues around borrowing babies. You know, no one it was

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Speaker 1: unclaimed at the moment, but that's I think it's a

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Speaker 1: great example though, of just how serious these HOMEMEG programs were.

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Speaker 1: And as one essay I read put it, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's showing women that you go to school and

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Speaker 1: you take care of a child. It's not saying you're

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Speaker 1: taking care of a child seven this is your life.

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Speaker 1: It's more like, Okay, I've got to do all this

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Speaker 1: and the I'm gonna come home to my practice home

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use these newest, new fangled theories on

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Speaker 1: this child. It was. I think it's one of the

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Speaker 1: first examples of balancing, of teaching a woman to balance

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Speaker 1: work and family and also when it comes to say,

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Speaker 1: examining how to manage your home better. Uh, we might

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Speaker 1: think that that's something that's going to keep women back.

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Speaker 1: Why do we need to teach them how to become

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Speaker 1: better domestic workers? But at the same time, I think

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Speaker 1: it was pretty valuable back then because they didn't have

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Speaker 1: all of the modern luxuries that we have today, and

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Speaker 1: so it actually did take just as much time, if

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Speaker 1: not more as a guy going off to work for

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Speaker 1: the day for a woman to take care of her home.

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Speaker 1: So in these whole management courses, students would actually study

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Speaker 1: take time and motion studies that were developed in industrial

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Speaker 1: settings and apply them two household tasks such as food prep, dishwashing,

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Speaker 1: and laundry to figure out how to do it in

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Speaker 1: far more efficient ways, with the goal of freeing up

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Speaker 1: women's time to get them out of the house. Now,

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Speaker 1: Betty for Dan would come back and say, no, you're

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Speaker 1: just building up the feminine mystique and keeping women in

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Speaker 1: the home. But at the same time, I think that

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Speaker 1: I think that those messages might have gotten misinterpreted it

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Speaker 1: along the way by second wave feminists. Well, and let's

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Speaker 1: where are the men in all this. The fact of

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Speaker 1: the matter is is that at Cornell there was something

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Speaker 1: called the marriage course that was one of the most

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Speaker 1: popular courses between among men and women. And uh it was,

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Speaker 1: of course, as it says on marriage. But let me

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Speaker 1: read you the description from the course catalog Kristen, because

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Speaker 1: parts of it I did not think sounded that undifferent

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Speaker 1: from sminty. All right, here we go a course dealing

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Speaker 1: with the social and economic changes which today are influencing

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Speaker 1: the relations of men and women before and after marriage.

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Speaker 1: Scientific information which has promoted the study of mate choice

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Speaker 1: and marital adjustment, the development of affection in the individual

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Speaker 1: and the achievement of heterosexuality, substitutes for mate love and

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Speaker 1: the adjustment of the single person, the choice of a mate,

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Speaker 1: courtship and engagement, the nature of the marriage relationship, and

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Speaker 1: factors which influence adjustment to this relationship, adjustments to parenthood.

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Speaker 1: It taught people how to have a family life, and

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Speaker 1: these are the issues were still grappling with today, right

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Speaker 1: and not surprisingly at the time, this course was highly

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Speaker 1: controversial on campus, but the students loved it, it seems

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Speaker 1: because someone talked honestly to them. The professor who taught it,

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Speaker 1: uh Lemo Rockwood. She got in trouble with the school

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Speaker 1: because she was basically saying, the girl's dorms don't have enough,

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Speaker 1: you know, privacy for cording to go on a courting

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Speaker 1: meaning sex. She was fairly she was aware that this

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Speaker 1: was something that was going on that people wanted to

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Speaker 1: do before they made this choice. And if they're gonna

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Speaker 1: do it, she was going to teach them how to

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Speaker 1: use that information to find the best mate possible. And

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Speaker 1: you know, that's what we're still struggling to do, is

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Speaker 1: to teach kids how to do that. And here's someone

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Speaker 1: who in the early nineteen hundreds is like, here's all

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Speaker 1: this complicated information about men and women, here's the science

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Speaker 1: behind it. I like to think maybe she was a

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Speaker 1: little forerunner of all Smith team. Well. Aside from the

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Speaker 1: child rearing and mating and food preparation and cleaning your home,

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Speaker 1: there are certain aspects two of these early homemech courses

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Speaker 1: of of study that we might not really think about.

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Speaker 1: For instance, back in the day when all this was

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Speaker 1: going on, there were major public health issues such as tuberculosis, influenza, typhoid, pneumonia,

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Speaker 1: and diphtheria, and a lot of this was being spread

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Speaker 1: and perpetuated because of unsanitary conditions at home. So one

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Speaker 1: healthy byproduct of home mech was actually looking into hygiene

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Speaker 1: and sanitation and getting uh, you know, antibiotics developed and

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Speaker 1: more sanitary practices for food preparation, and all those kind

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Speaker 1: of things that led to healthier communities. And the home

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Speaker 1: economics program really kind of saved our butt in the

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Speaker 1: wars because people didn't know how to deal with these

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Speaker 1: food shortages. And in World War One, home economists joined

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Speaker 1: the war effort to educate people about nutritional substitutes for

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Speaker 1: ration foods. They come back again during the Great Depression

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Speaker 1: and teach people about canning and about victory gardens and

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Speaker 1: about how to you know, sustain your family when things

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Speaker 1: are bad. But while all of this is happening, this

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Speaker 1: rise of home mack, we have the passage of the

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Speaker 1: Smith Hughes Act in nineteen seventeen. And on the one hand,

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Speaker 1: it was a good good move for homech because they

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Speaker 1: started getting a lot more federal funding. But as part

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Speaker 1: of the Smith Hughes Act, they had to link home

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Speaker 1: mach closer to vocational training. Was basically an earmark in

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Speaker 1: order to get these federal funds. But that also meant

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Speaker 1: that instead of really being able to focus all of

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Speaker 1: the attention um in these collegiate programs and you know,

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Speaker 1: to apply things out to industry and really make it

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Speaker 1: a respected science, it became more linked to vocational training

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Speaker 1: and training for high school, so you have more women

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Speaker 1: who are taking these courses just so that they can

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Speaker 1: teach girls in high school how to sew and cook

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Speaker 1: and clean. And I think that that's something that disturbs

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Speaker 1: some people in the field to the day, is that,

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Speaker 1: you know, Ellen Richards envisioned every woman who studied at

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Speaker 1: home economics to be a scientist, not necessarily a teacher

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Speaker 1: of this type of science. And so some people think

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Speaker 1: that it really got watered down when it it would

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Speaker 1: take when it took that move to the high school.

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Speaker 1: And in combination with that, you've got after the Wars,

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Speaker 1: the consumer craze where you can get mass produced goods

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Speaker 1: for the first time, and a lot of women who

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Speaker 1: had been sort of the movers and shakers in that

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Speaker 1: field move into that field and work for corporations thinking

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Speaker 1: that they can really, you know, help design products and

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Speaker 1: the composition of products, even the packaging in ways that

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Speaker 1: are going to be the most effective, most efficient for women.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they get stuck in the consumer relations role so

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Speaker 1: that you know, if a housewife calls up, they just

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Speaker 1: put her on the phone with another woman to to

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Speaker 1: calmer down. There are some women who made, you know,

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Speaker 1: really cool UM advances as their roles. Like they talk

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Speaker 1: about Lucy Mappi, who ran the test kitchen at Corning

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Speaker 1: Glass and she helped prevent pyrates based on feedback. UM.

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Speaker 1: There's another woman named Mary Ingle Pennington who promoted the

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Speaker 1: New Household Refrigeration Bureau so that she could, you know,

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Speaker 1: you could call up and say which refrigerators gonna work

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Speaker 1: best for my family. So it's it's kind of around

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, it's kind of splintering a little bit

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Speaker 1: from this pure program of study to applications in the field.

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Speaker 1: That kind of water it down, which I think makes

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Speaker 1: it the perfect target for the feminist movement, right. And

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Speaker 1: I think we also have to note too that with

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Speaker 1: this army of brilliant home economist doing all this work

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Speaker 1: in the background, just kind of like it still is today,

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Speaker 1: they were not being paid nearly as much as the

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Speaker 1: men and similar levels and companies as they were at

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Speaker 1: the time, and we're highly unrecognized. We still have UM

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Speaker 1: the you know, the men who were receiving a lot

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Speaker 1: of the recognition for those kinds of advances because they

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Speaker 1: were the ones at the top of the companies at

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Speaker 1: the time, and with the rise of second wave feminism.

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Speaker 1: We have a major backlash against homec But what I

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Speaker 1: found most interesting was that the Home Economic Association invited

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Speaker 1: prominent feminists like Bettyford Dan and Robin Morgan to speak

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Speaker 1: at their conventions because they considered themselves feminists. They saw

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Speaker 1: that they were empowering women to do their job the

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Speaker 1: best that they could do. And you know, someone like

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Speaker 1: Robin Morton comes into the nineteen SEVENTIWO convention and says, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm a feminist here addressing the enemy, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was very shocking to them, and you know, they

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Speaker 1: took it seriously. The president that time, Marjorie East, responded,

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Speaker 1: if home Economics does indeed perpetuate this traditional meant to

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Speaker 1: concept of women, we may have some rethinking to do.

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Speaker 1: It's not like these women were fighting to keep them

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Speaker 1: in the kitchen. They thought that they were, and I

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Speaker 1: think they were, like I said, empowering women to do

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Speaker 1: the best that they could do with the tools they

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Speaker 1: had right and saving time. I think when you look

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Speaker 1: back to at the story of of Betty Crocker, for instance,

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Speaker 1: you have her whole persona because back in the day, uh,

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Speaker 1: people thought that Betty Crocker was an actual person lo

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Speaker 1: and behold, it's just a brand as we know now,

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Speaker 1: But it was all these home economists who were developing

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Speaker 1: all these recipes and all of these mixes for different

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Speaker 1: things that they thought were would be great because it

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Speaker 1: would save women time and get them out of the kitchen.

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Speaker 1: And by the time we get to second wave feminism,

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously the revolution hasn't happened. A lot of

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Speaker 1: women are still stuck in the kitchen or stuck at home.

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Speaker 1: You've got the Betty Drapers, you know, and then there

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Speaker 1: are also a men who want to be there, right

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Speaker 1: And I think that you know, that's the whole topic

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Speaker 1: for another podcast, is how we view women who stay

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Speaker 1: at home. But I just think that whether you're staying

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Speaker 1: at home full time or whether you're working and working

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Speaker 1: full time, at the end of the day, everyone has

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Speaker 1: to have a home and everyone's gonna have a kitchen,

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Speaker 1: whether you're a man or a woman. And I think

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Speaker 1: that that's where, um, the attacks by the feminists on

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Speaker 1: this department are kind of dangerous because as a result,

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Speaker 1: kids don't want to take those classes. Even I felt

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Speaker 1: embarrassment about taking them, because you do think though this

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Speaker 1: is just wife one oh one, right, and we aren't

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Speaker 1: recognizing the valuable contributions of these women who not only

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Speaker 1: were the first woman going out and getting college degrees

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Speaker 1: and diving into the very male dominated sciences, you know,

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Speaker 1: but the women who were giving us advances in public

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Speaker 1: health and sanitation and food preparation. Now granted the you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole you know, you could argue that the whole

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Speaker 1: food prep issue has now back slid into fast food

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Speaker 1: and unhealthy processed foods that are making obese. But that's

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Speaker 1: the point Jennifer Grosshom makes in an editorial New York Times,

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Speaker 1: is that we do live in a culture of obesi. Now,

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Speaker 1: what do we need more than ever but the science

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Speaker 1: behind food so that you know, a kid can grow

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Speaker 1: up and learn. Okay, I've got the choice between a

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Speaker 1: big mac and something else. Here's why I know about

430
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: the big mac. And here's what I know about, you know,

431
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: a salad and understanding how to prepare that sad, how

432
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: to prepare and if you are going to eat a hamburger,

433
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 1: learning about the most you know healthy, learning about the healthiest,

434
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 1: most economical way to make a hamburger. These are not

435
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: skills that are bad and of themselves, which I think

436
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: was sort of the attack made by feminist is that

437
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: if we never teach girls how to sew, they can't

438
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: stay home and sew. But everyone's gonna get a hole

439
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: in their sock. I think that feminists may have misinterpreted

440
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: the spirit behind the original homec you know Ellen Richards,

441
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: who graduated from Vasser and weaseled her way into m

442
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,360
Speaker 1: I t I don't. I don't know how feminists say

443
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: that she was not, you know, standing up for the cause.

444
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: I know, and so I think, But I think it's interesting.

445
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: You know, when we were researching this podcast, we obviously

446
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on the historical stuff which

447
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:12,639
Speaker 1: was made possible, I should note by a book that

448
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: was written called stir Up that was covered pretty extensively

449
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 1: by Bus and some other articles, and that's what we're

450
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 1: using for our historical source material. But if you look

451
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: at articles about home economics or as it's called now,

452
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: family and consumer sciences and this idea of homemaking today,

453
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:30,959
Speaker 1: you can tell that the field is still really shaken

454
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: up by these attacks they sustained by the feminist Because

455
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: even in trend pieces about you know, how crafting its back,

456
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: or how canning is back, and all these people want

457
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: to learn about these traditional arts. You know, the writers

458
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: of these pieces take great pains to separate it from

459
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: this traditional idea of homemaking. It's got to beat retro

460
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: or ironic or hipster. It's not a recognition that there

461
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: is science behind what we do in our homes, Whereas

462
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education points out

463
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:04,919
Speaker 1: that Family and Consumer Sciences is responsible for doing things

464
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: like designing the comfortable desk chairs and safer fabrics for firefighters,

465
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 1: looking at connections between cancer and foods, biodegradable fibers, social

466
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: welfare programs, all of these things which we might not

467
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: link it to home mac because it's now called family

468
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: and Consumer sciences. But we have homemech too, really thank

469
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: for it. So I do think that it's it's kind

470
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 1: of um sad that I was so embarrassed about it

471
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: and that the numbers dropped. You know, a lot of

472
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: the stories from the past few years also make this

473
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: big point to say, well, boys take our classes too,

474
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 1: as if you know, getting boys in the class, we'll

475
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: just make it somehow gender neutral and and all right,

476
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: which is good because everyone needs these skills, but still

477
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: this um idea that homemaking us somehow bad, or that

478
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: returning to this idea of you know, making your own

479
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: clothes or or making yourself a good meal is somehow

480
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 1: you know, hipster and ironic and if you were an

481
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: apron while you do it, it's it's damaging to the

482
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: entire female population. Is something that it's one legacy of

483
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: feminism that is slightly uncomfortable. So let's hear from you. Guys.

484
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: Did you take Homemeck? Do you what do you think

485
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: about Homemeck? Let us know your thoughts on it or

486
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: are you in family and consumer sciences today, let's hear

487
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: from you. It's mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.

488
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, we got a couple of emails

489
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: here Molly. Before we get into listener mail, I want

490
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: to let everyone know that how stuff Works dot Com

491
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:42,679
Speaker 1: has a brand new app available for the iPhone for

492
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: everyone on the go. It's just it's an easy way

493
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: to get everything while you're traveling. You can get how

494
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com articles, videos, and of course podcasts.

495
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: There might be some pictures of us, perhaps some photos,

496
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: hopefully flattering photos. I don't know, so for all those

497
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: people like to push phones while they're you know, waiting

498
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: in line on buses, not while you're driving. That's unsafe. Don't, yeah, don't,

499
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: don't app while you drive. But for everyone else, we've

500
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: got a great app. Check it out, and now let's

501
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: get back to listen. Email. So, I've got an email

502
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: here from Paul, and it's about the Doll podcast. He writes,

503
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: I'm a boy and I play with dolls as a

504
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: small kid. The only difference is that instead of being

505
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: cabbage patched, they were g I jokes. I put guns

506
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: in their hands, bought them cars to drive around in,

507
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 1: while I begged my cars for begged. My parents were

508
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: cars anyway, and told all kinds of wonderful imaginary stores

509
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 1: with my dolls. I insisted, and still do publicly, that

510
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: these were not dolls but action figures instead. Deep down

511
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: I know the truth though. Action figures are nothing more

512
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:44,959
Speaker 1: than dolls that boys play with. Well, I've got an

513
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: email here from Mary and it is in response to

514
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: a podcast we did a while ago on polycystic ovary syndrome.

515
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: The acronym which is p C O S, which Molly

516
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: referred to throughout the podcast as pea coasts, and Mary

517
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: was very upset us. Apparently we are the only people

518
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: in the known world pronouncing it as pecos, and we

519
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: certainly do not want to misrepresent polycystic over syndrome. It's

520
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 1: something that is highly underreported when it comes to women's health,

521
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: yet is affecting a lot of women, and it's very

522
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 1: difficult sometimes to get an accurate diagnosis. So these symptoms,

523
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, are often rage on for women because they

524
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: can't find proper treatment. So the last thing we want

525
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: to do is call it by the wrong thing. So

526
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: Mary says, it really hurts my feelings when you mispronounce

527
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: pc O s as. I feel like the way you

528
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: pronounced it is making fun of me and my peers.

529
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: I know it's not your intention, but please try to

530
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: be a little more sensitive instead of the blanket, I

531
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: think you should be able to call it whatever you want.

532
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: Let's leave it at that, And so we certainly don't

533
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: want to leave it at that. So from here on out,

534
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: picos will now be pc O s Somalia's to join

535
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: the rest of the medical world and all it buy

536
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: its acronym. I would like to point out that the

537
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,719
Speaker 1: New York Times so that it was pronounced pekos. Alright,

538
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: so Mary, you did ask for our source, and there

539
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: it is, Molly says New York Times. Alright, So if

540
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to

541
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: send us an email Mom stuff at how stuff works

542
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: dot com or throw it up on our Facebook wall,

543
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 1: or you can give us a shout out on Twitter.

544
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: And then, finally, you want to read what Molly and

545
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: I are writing about during the week, head over to

546
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: our blog It's stuff I've Never told you, and it's

547
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this

548
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works

549
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: dot Com. Want more how stuff works? Check out our

550
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.

551
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

552
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you