On this day, May 2...

1885 "Good Housekeeping" magazine is 1st published

"Good Housekeeping" magazine is not only alive and well, but has spun off a "sister" magazine titled "more" which is published bi-monthly and targeted at boomers….

***"Good Housekeeping," the premier women's service magazine in America today, began as a biweekly in May 1885. The goal of editor Clark W. Bryan was to "produce and perpetuate perfection -- or as near unto perfection -- as may be attained in the household."

The magazine changed to a monthly in January 1891, and established the Good Housekeeping Institute in 1900. Designed to serve the American consumer, the Institute answered concerns about product quality and safety, and was a forerunner to numerous government agencies. Good Housekeeping soon began printing a statement in each issue guaranteeing the reliability of every advertisement in the magazine. In 1909, The Good Housekeeping Seal was introduced as a visual symbol of this guarantee and the Institute's evaluation process.

Good Housekeeping was purchased by The Hearst Corporation in 1911, and has continued a rich editorial tradition that embodies a commitment to the home and a woman's quality of life for herself and her family. Each month, millions of readers turn to Good Housekeeping as their trusted source of information for home, food, fitness, beauty, health, and family. In 1989, 1993 and 1999, Good Housekeeping won the prestigious National Magazine Award for Personal Service. Good Housekeeping is also published in 13 international editions.***

We have previously mentioned Eve's objections to the expression "house wife." There is no woman who is the wife of a house! Homemaking is appropriate and many of us still view that with conflicted feelings. It's a noble endeavor—BUT—who understands how worthwhile, valuable, and important this is except for some women. Not all women are comfortable embracing that notion. Here's what we at Neat Women Inc know homemaking IS NOT ABOUT:

House cleaning or any other routine household tasks. Not about the monetary value that could be affixed to the number of areas a homemaker must handle—frequently, alone.

Has nothing whatsoever to do with our perception of ourselves within the context of "duties" around the house.

For a little broader backdrop we've selected the following excerpts from a Sunday, New York Times Magazine article which appeared a couple of years. Titled "The Rest of the Story," the piece was co- written by: Natalie Zemon Davis, (a former history professor at Princeton and the author of The Return of Martin Guerre and other books) and Jill Ker Conway, a former president of Smith and a visiting professor at M.I.T. Her most recent book is "When Memory Speaks.""Understanding the millennium requires looking past the male milestones of traditional history to see the shape of women's lives. For all their drama and insight, traditional histories of the last thousand years fall short. Written mostly by men, they introduced women into the standard parade of wars, revolutions, monarchs and parliaments only at moments like their ascension to inherited thrones or religious authority. In the 19th century, most male historians compounded the problem by making women's history sound as though women had only then begun making headway.

Women's history has more to it than that. Women have always questioned their subordination and often found ways around it. Further, some institutions important in the lives of women that seem timeless, like monogamous marriage, are in fact rooted in the last thousand years; some ostensibly modern movements reach far back in time. Indeed, many turning points on the thousand-year time line of women's history are little known or little understood.

Within the white middle-class family, education and religious responsibility for children improved women's status through the 19th century. By the 1830's, magazines analyzing life from a woman's point of view began to flourish in North America. But mostly, wives were still considered their husbands' subordinates. Though they didn't participate in elections, American women believed that they had access to the political system through the right to petition Congress. But as the conflict over abolition escalated, it became clear that women's petitions were not being heard. The right to vote was moved to the top of the list.

The middle class had begun its flight from the city in the mid-19th century, and by its close servants were being replaced by new laborsaving household equipment. So suburban women were alone with their children. Whereas in the 18th century the family was a partnership for spouses and children, the 20th-century family became based on intimacy. Greater life expectancy meant that marriages lasted longer, well past a woman's childbearing years. As infant mortality declined, the family became more child-centered and private insurance and pensions, as well as governmental assistance, made older parents less dependent on working children. In the 1960's, feminists began to focus on changing the composition of high-status professions. Once access to graduate education was won, feminist scholars pushed to change patterns of research and teaching so that women were no longer regarded as a failed model of the male norm, but as a norm themselves. In so doing, they helped ignite the culture wars of the 1980's and 90's. And by the end of the 90's, women constituted 60 percent of college graduates. Even so, on leaving school they still face the continuing reality of the glass ceiling.

So what has happened to women over the past thousand years? Western women and their children have made astonishing gains in health and life expectancy, though most of their non-Western sisters have not yet shared those benefits. The scope of women's work has expanded vastly, much of it paying well enough so that women with children can survive. Women in the West have secured access to education beyond the wildest dreams of their medieval counterparts. Women's athletic prowess has captured public imagination, and a female general is no longer a novelty.

What will be the new terrain for addressing the issues of likeness and difference? What new strategies will women develop to dismantle exclusively male hierarchies? The cognitive sciences will most likely inherit the role of theology in arguing about differences between male and female. But argument -- and laughter -- about the relationship between women and men will never end."

"A man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless. All a woman has to do it put you on hold." Marlo Thomas

(CILYM)

"If a man wants to get it right, he's looked up to and respected. If a woman wants to get it right, she's difficult or impossible. If he acts, produces and directs, he's called multitalented. If she does the same thing, she's called vain and egotistical." Barbra Streisand