Date of Award
2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Brion, Katherine
Area of Concentration
Art History
Abstract
Womanhouse(1972) and A Woman’s Place(1974) are examples of collaborative installations that examine feminist issues in settings associated with domesticity. In this thesis, I focus on spaces within these installations that foreground and subvert the cultural and social conceptions of the image and role of the housewife through an emphasis on her laboring body. By including various representations and traces of the body, each of these installations points out the physical nature of performing housework, and relates that to the process of performing the gendered role of the housewife. I first examine the kitchen and dining room from Womanhouse, where the process of performing the role of the housewife is linked to the process of food preparation, and the sense of alienation that comes from the cultural expectations put on the housewife and her body. Next, I examine A Woman’s Place, an installation that was heavily influenced by Womanhouse, but reflects the ideas of the women’s movement in the U.K. Located in the kitchen area of the overall installation, Kate Walker’s Death of a Housewife similarly foregrounds the body to show the physically exhausting and destructive effects of housework, while simultaneously removing any indication that housework is a productive process. In both of these works, housework is not portrayed as something that is intrinsically linked with one’s gender identity, rather, it is a series of acts that are somewhat unnatural: a performance, much like gender. A woman is not born a housewife; it is a role she learns to perform through socialization and gender expectations. Finally, I analyze how these installations fit into a larger narrative of feminist art, the lasting legacy of second-wave feminism, and the issue of domestic labor as it relates to contemporary feminism.
Recommended Citation
Thomas, Katie, "From the Kitchen to the Dining Room: Domestic Labor in the Second-Wave Feminist Installations Womanhouse and A Woman’s Place" (2021). Theses & ETDs. 6155.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/6155