Enter Steve, a middle-class guy she meets at a club on a rare night out and brings home with her. The night ends in disaster and they have a frosty conversation in her kitchen the next day. She is doing the laundry as they talk, and has to lean against the washing machine the whole time, because the machine is so decrepit that it won't run unless it's braced against the wall, and of course the family can't afford to fix it. Steve notices this, and the next day Fiona receives a mysterious delivery of a brand new washing machine. At first her pride won't let her accept it, but Steve eventually wears her down. It is the beginning of their courtship.

All of which is to say that a washing machine, in the right context, can be sexier than most of us ever imagined. Admittedly, the fact that Steve is played by the not-yet-famous James McAvoy also contributes greatly to the sexiness factor. :)

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Outside that framework, its just a tool to aide in the continued belief that women are happy in full domesticity, and that implicitly, domesticity is a woman's domain.

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As Betty Friedan points out in "The Feminine Mystique," though, the amount of time the average housewife spent cleaning did not change between the 1920s and the 1960s (when TFM was published.) As technology makes cleaning more efficient, our standards of cleanliness rise. It used to be the norm to wear clothes many times over before washing them; devices like detachable collars and dress shields, which made this possible, are no longer in regular use.

Another example: when you had to drag a rug outside, hang it on a line, and beat the dust out of it with a wire implement, no one expected your rugs to be very clean. Your rug was dirty, but so was your neighbor's. When vacuum cleaners and carpet steamers came into widespread use, though, a dirty rug became socially unacceptable.

Not going to tar and feather you at all! But you might want to read "The Feminine Mystique" or some of Gloria Steinem's work from the 70s to get a historical perspective on housework.

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Another example: when you had to drag a rug outside, hang it on a line, and beat the dust out of it with a wire implement, no one expected your rugs to be very clean. Your rug was dirty, but so was your neighbor's. When vacuum cleaners and carpet steamers came into widespread use, though, a dirty rug became socially unacceptable.

Not going to tar and feather you at all! But you might want to read "The Feminine Mystique" or some of Gloria Steinem's work from the 70s to get a historical perspective on housework.

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