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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Damn, the domestic goddess is back!

IT’S so annoying the way she beams at me from the television, that totally gorgeous, perfectly groomed housewife who finds bliss in her glistening kitchen, lovingly fondles her fluffy towels and immaculate whites, and smiles with smug pride at her sparkling loo.

I’m sure she’s a familiar figure. Her children are always pristine, while her house is straight out of the pages of “Home Beautiful” – all shiny surfaces and smudge-free stainless steel. Perhaps she’s so familiar that many of us have barely noticed her return to the centre screen of advertising.

For a domesticaphobe like me, the return of the perfect female homemaker is a bad thing. For example, being repeatedly told that everyone who visits my home will judge me by the state of our loo is enough to cause chronic anti-social behaviour. After all, I have a young son who is a little directionally challenged and anyone who has a little boy knows that unless you stand by the toilet all day – mop, bucket, rubber gloves and hospital-grade disinfectant in hand – the state of the loo is pretty much a hit or miss affair.

So the constant hammering of advertised domestic bliss can really grate on those of us who only ever clean the house wearing trackie daks and who have largely given up hope of salubrious digs until after the children have flown the nest.

And as women do a disproportionate two thirds of housework, I understand that to sell a miracle cleaning product you need to portray icky tasks such as loo cleaning in a positive light.

The renewed commercial celebration of housework is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things domestic. Back in 2009, as the global financial crisis hit hard, “The Independent” reported that “a return of ‘50s-style domesticity has swept Britain”.

As the UK economy went down past the S-bend, pursuits such as cooking, baking, growing fruit and veg, knitting, dressmaking and so on re-emerged as increasingly popular pursuits for British women.

I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing to be a domestic goddess as long as it’s about choice rather than expectation hammered home through remorseless advertising.

And I do have to wonder how, if Australian women were to follow a similar path, might an even greater domestic focus intensify their already pressure-cooker lives. I would think something would have to give and, unfortunately, that’s usually women.

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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