Contrary to the popular myth of the quintessential American family built on independence and self-reliance, Housewife: Why Women Still Do It All and What to Do Instead by Lisa Selin Davis offers a compelling, well-researched counter-narrative of the United States as a country built in fact on interdependence between families and government, as well as community, institutions. In the process, Davis unravels the powerful archetype of the American housewife and follows her through history to the present day where lack of childcare options, caregiver compensation, and supportive community institutions has resulted in tremendous inequities and hardship for women as mothers, workers, and wives.
Davis (Tomboy) is a New York author and journalist for whom the reality of juggling her writing career with raising children brought into stark relief the lack of structural support and the isolation that working mothers face. And yet, it wasn't always that way. In colonial times, she writes, couples didn't raise their children alone. Instead they took support from civic, political, community, and government institutions, without which early settlers would never have survived. Frontier families who moved out west in the 19th century were heavily subsidized by government assistance and community-created institutions that supported their monetary and emotional needs.
Through interviews with women from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, Davis articulates a clearly defined set of policy proposals and social system reforms that could eventually offer the sort of support families need. Provocative and skillfully written, Housewife is a clear-eyed cultural appraisal of "women's work," and the high price women pay as working mothers. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer