Customer Reviews

Biting the Dust: The Joys of Housework

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I picked up this book thinking it might be interesting historically but I had no idea what an absolute page-turner it would be. Margaret Horsfield is a natural storyteller and scholar. I hope she is better-known in her home country (Canada) than she is here, and that accolades here will catch up now that this book is in paperback. It was a fascinating treatment of a rarely discusssed subject, nearly prurient in its intrigue. The often surprising historical information is interspersed with her own clever commentary and glimpses into the private lives of women she interviewed for the book. An extremely solid and rewarding book, one of the best works of nonfiction I've read. The fact that Horsfield is (justly) critical of much twentieth-century literature about housekeeping but seems to enjoy cleaning herself enriches the humor and observations found throughout this book. Highly recommended!

I thought this book was pretty good. Horsfield never gets preachy and remains amusing, which is probably what makes the book work. Whenever someone saw me reading this book, they kind of turned their nose up and asked, "What's there to say about cleaning your house?" Surprisingly a lot. Horsfield really approaches the issue from all different angles so it doesn't get boring. Admittedly, in some places the examples were a bit too exhaustive, but that was fine - I just skipped a few paragraphs and then carried on. I particularly liked her critique of others' books on housework, both historical and contemporary, mocking how "experts" have tried to declare from above how we should maintain our homes. Horsfield admits to being halfway between a lazy housekeeper and a crazed cleaner and her autobiographical anecdotes, as well as those from the outer edges of the spectrum were pretty amusing. Twice while reading I had to put the book down and go clean something - the first time to bleach my countertops, the second time to scrub my toilet. The rest of the time, however, I enjoyed reading this book while willfully ignoring my barely maintained apartment. Shows what kind of cleaner I am.

The best non-fiction that I have read this year. Biting the dust is a tongue-in-cheek look at the social history of cleaning. It traces the path that lead to our obsession (whether we clean or not) with cleaning; explaining how marketers and self appointed moral police made a clean home to not just be something to strive for, but women's moral duty to achieve. Horsefield explains how marketers and proponents of home economics (itself a misogynistic and idiotic construct) used the idea of teeny-tiny germs to enslave a couple of generations of women.

All right, that last bit was a tad over dramatic, but you get this picture. The narrative is fascinating and informative. It was great fun to read, and I highly recommend it.

I agree with the reviewer who called this book "riveting." It is a marvelous social history of housekeeping and domestic work from a writer who has a good understanding of the myriad pressures facing women who are responsible for keeping a clean house. You will appreciate the commentary here if you are interested in women's history and the status of women in the family, not to mention the much-maligned field of home economics. Yes, there is an international perspective, but this makes the book *more*, not less credible.

Gives an interesting history of the development of the "germ" theory and how manufacturers of cleaning products, both now and in the past, use(d) pseudo-scientific claims to convince women to buy newer and even more products. Asks whether time-saving products, such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines, actually INcreased the amount of time spent cleaning by raising expectations. Talks about flies, filth, public sanitation, and real health issues as they relate to household hygiene. Also a chapter about gender and the role of men in contributing (or not) to domestic tasks.

Lots of cutting commentary about commercially-motivated home economists, such as Martha Stewart and her predecessors. Plus a chapter about "clean freaks" and obsessive-compulsive behavior as it relates to housecleaning. All in all, a highly engaging book which offers a great deal of insight to any reader interested in women's issues or domestic history.

I wouldn't have thought that the subject of dirt could be so interesting. However, in BITING THE DUST, author Margaret Horsfield relates the history of housework. More specifically, she focuses on housecleaning, an activity that acquired a life of its own during the period of society's industrial expansion and the decline of traditional cottage industries, when the wife was left stranded at home while the husband joined the factory workforce. It evolved to an obsession beginning in the late 19th century when the germ theory of disease became widely accepted, and "germs" became synonymous with "filth" - most alarmingly, all that household filth: dust, grease, flies, mold, excrement, hair, drain slime, fungus, mites, cockroaches, bacteria, fleas, dry rot, cobwebs, rust, exfoliated skin, mildew, waxy buildup. Oh, yuuuuck!

Margaret is British-born, so the focus of her study is more on England than the United States, the latter being the place where the "science" of housecleaning reached its zenith first, the UK being inhibited by its proximity to two world wars. However, being British, she writes with a wry and self-deprecating humor that is most entertaining. In my mind, the best chapters are four. "Mothers and Mentors: The Influence of Mothers On How We Clean" is self explanatory, as are "Clean Freaks and Crazies: The Extremes of Housecleaning" and "Purge and Purify: Bugs, Beasties and Other Household Intruders". Then, since the book is otherwise mostly about (and probably for) women, there's "Looking for Mr. Clean", a chapter devoted to those two human subspecies: the Man Who Cleans and the Man Who Doesn't Care, the latter existing in overwhelming numbers, much like pigs.

What prevents me from awarding five stars is the fact that Ms. Horsfield occasionally goes on longer than necessary. Her chapter on the development of home economics and household advice and that on the rise of domestic consumerism are cases in point. Overall, though, I found the book both engaging and instructive - a minor miracle, I suppose, because I'm Male. It served me well this past weekend during my breaks taken while doing the laundry and ironing. And I'm trained to put the toilet seat down, too. Imagine that.

This book changed my life - in fact I had to order a back up copy because I literally wore my first hardcover copy out with repeated (to this very day) reading of it. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to Ms. Horsfield for her most important contribution to the world with this book. I'll sum it up with, thank you and God bless - you changed my life and I'm so happy I discovered this book. It gave my life a clarity and a focus that was sorely lacking.

Margaret Horsfield looks at modern housework in the USA, Canada and Britain. Most readers can probably recognize themselves and others as she recounts different attitudes towards cleaning. Morsfield is sympathetic to the real pleasure that some people take in housework while arguing that different people have different styles, and that public health measures and environmental changes have greatly reduced the dangers of less than meticulous cleaning. Horsfield is not so much giving us a history of housework as using history to explore why we are as we are today. I really enjoyed the book - the despised nitty gritty is actually what makes up most of our lives.

To understand how our modern situation came to be, Horsfield looks back on inventions, health concerns, the rise of consumerism and social-political arguements. This is not as detailed for earlier periods as More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan.

I have a couple of personal reactions. For this purpose, perhaps it matters that I was born in 1953 and I have been a single career-woman for most of my adult life. Among the people I knew, it was assumed that girls grew up to be housewives, but that they needed to be educated to assume a career if something happened to their husband. As I got to the cusp of Junior High-High School, most of the girls that I knew swore that they would never work while they had pre-school children (and a bread-winner husband) but that they might consider working before or after the children. By the time I graduated from college, it was assumed that all young women would pursue a career, maybe taking off some time when they had small children. I imagine that younger women have had a very different experience.

Horsfield cites Betty Friedan without much consideration of the source. Horsfield comments that some attempted to indoctrinate women with the idea that any real woman wanted to stay home and would find housework fulfilling. It seems to me that we eventually got the same sorry line about pursuing a career - it would bring us identity, fulfillment and meaning. And money, of course, but for middle-class women, this was largely a token of esteem, not a needed resource. Apparently, we were to take as a model Charles Darwin, gentleman and scientist, devoted to his research, hard-working, respected in his field, but not vulgarly viewing it a source of funds. The financial needs of women in crises: widows, divorcees, poor women, have been used as arguments for opening jobs to women, but a surprising number of apparently intelligent people, knowing that I am single, have expressed surprise that I worked if I didn't enjoy it, and stared blankly when I mentioned food, clothing and shelter as my reasons. As I have tangled over the years with the fact that a job is not a beloved hobby and housework is by no means inconsequential, I have often felt an intense hatred for Friedan in particular, which turned into complete contempt when I learned that she had a full-time maid. If housework was a simple as she said, why did she need a maid? And for heavens sake, if she needed a FULL-time maid, her argument that the work wasn't time-consuming is self-refuted. I'd like to know what Simone de Beauvoir's domestic arrangments were before I take her too seriously. Horsfield is a little more critical of Beauvoir's claim that housework is insignificant if one has a career.

Outside of that, I have a better opinion of Don Aslett than Horsfield does. All advice has to be taken with a grain of salt and a grain of sense. I don't seem myself washing the walls as Aslett recommends any time soon, but I have to love an advisor who recommends a long-handled brush rather than getting down on one's hands and knees. But, taste cannot be argued.

BITING THE DUST is the best non-fiction book I have read this year. It is a tongue-in-cheek look at the social history of cleaning. It traces the path that lead to our obsession (whether we clean or not) with cleaning; explaining how marketers and self appointed moral police made a clean home to not just be something to strive for, but women's moral duty to achieve. Horsefield explains how marketers and proponents of home economics (itself a misogynistic and idiotic construct) used the idea of teeny-tiny germs to enslave a couple of generations of women.

All right, that last bit was a tad over dramatic, but you get this picture. The narrative is fascinating and informative. It was great fun to read and I highly recommend it.

From the synopsis of this book I thought it would have a how-to section or a schedule of cleaning for the clueless or novice housekeeper. This is a history of housekeeping as well as some of the methods used. It is also a compilation of historic antedotes as well as bits and pieces from literature.

Overall I am extremely disappointed. One synopsis compared this book to 'The Joy of Cooking' yet there is nothing in here about schedules, routines, or how-to.

I found this book fairly diverting - the author has clearly warmed to her topic - but it was quickly apparent that this was first published in England, and so many of the references are somewhat foreign to an American reader.