User:Puemmy47/sandbox

Women's Education in Home Economics
A new field of study, the art and science of homemaking, emerged in the Progressive Era in an effort to feminize women’s education in the United States. Alternatively called home arts, or home economics, the major curriculum reform in women’s education was influenced by the publication of Treatise on Domestic Economy, written by Catherine Beecher in 1843. Advocates of home economics argued that homemaking, as a profession, required education and training for the development of an efficient and systematic domestic practice. The curriculum aimed to cover a variety of topics, including teaching standardized way of gardening, child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, performing household maintenance, and doctoring. Such scientific management applied to the domestic sphere was presented as a solution to the dilemma middle class women faced in terms of searching for meaning and fulfillment in their role of housekeeping. The feminist perspective, by pushing for this type of education, intended to explain that women had separate but equally important responsibilities in life with men that required proper training.