[IMG]http://simplefeed.consumerreports.org/rsrc/i/1/_/newspaper_story_wrings_a_controversy_out_of_wash_1 45191414/4.gif?f=3dcb3160-01dc-11dc-32a2-0019bbc55f7f&s=AewyNia7NTvDvhaDemju5DEsbnVsbCwwLDA *[/IMG] Newspaper story wrings a controversy out of washing machines and women
To mark International Women?s Day on Sunday, March 8, l?Osservatore Romano, the quasi-official newspaper of the Vatican, ran an article entitled, ?The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women: Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax,? Reuters reported.
The writer of the story in the Vatican paper, asked, ?What in the 20th century did more to liberate Western women? The debate is heated. Some say the pill, some say abortion rights and some the right to work outside the home. Some, however, dare to go further: the washing machine.? (The writer is a woman.)
The article generated heated debate and a good dose of rancor?do a Web search for ?Vatican and washing machine? or something related to get a taste of the vitriol.
A colleague, whose parents came to the U.S. from Italy and who lived there for six years, told me it?s important to remember where the story ran: ?I think you have to understand the cultural context,? he said. ?I?m assuming the writer is Italian, and in the Italian countryside until about 60 years ago, a lot of laundry got done in the rivers, and a lot of old women have arthritis from that. So the washing machine has been a particularly big deal for women in Italy.?
I?d argue that washing machines have had a huge impact on women and men, especially as modern versions evolved in the second half of the 20th century. And it?s not as if that newspaper story broke new ground with the notion that washing machines can be helpful to women. The image shown is an ad from 1910.
Still, most polls of male-female couples indicate that women do the laundry more than men do: The December 2007 Gallup Social Series Lifestyle poll of 594 married Americans reported that the wife is most likely to do the laundry (68 percent compared with 10 percent for the husband).
At my house, the traditional married-couple roles are a jumble: I do the food shopping and cooking and my wife handles the finances; but I do the yard work and my wife deals with the family calendar. All we care about is finishing the work, and if an appliance, computer, or some other tool can help us get the job done faster, than I?m all for it.?Steven H. Saltzman

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