Keeping the Nation's House: Domestic Management and the Making of Modern China

Keeping the Nation's House: Domestic Management and the Making of Modern China
ISBN-10
0774819995
ISBN-13
9780774819992
Category
History
Pages
336
Language
English
Published
2011-03-01
Publisher
UBC Press
Author
Helen M. Schneider

Description

The term home economics often conjures images of sterile classrooms where girls learn to cook dinner and swaddle dolls, far removed from the seats of power. Helen Schneider unsettles this assumption by revealing how Chinese women helped to build a nation, one family at a time. From the 1920s to the early 1950s, home economists transformed the most fundamental of political spaces � the home � by teaching women to nurture ideal families and manage projects of social reform. Although their discipline came undone after 1949, it created a legacy of gendered professionalism and reinforced the idea that leaders should shape domestic rituals of the people.

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