The Housework in Modern Houses: An Investigation on the Relation between Space and Knowledge Production

By Yuqin Wu Haverford College

Is knowledge embodied or disem- bodied? This seems an unnec- essary question, for we usually think of knowledge as disembod- ied because knowledge produc- tion seems to be an intellectual and abstract activity. However,

I argue that humans are, by our nature, embodied in the physi- cal space we live in; and we are thus affected by the social norms implicitly delivered by artifi-

cial spaces. In other words, our knowledge is closely related to space because the design of the spaces we live in delivers a cer- tain understanding of the rela- tionship between humans and space and what it means to be a human. In this essay, I will take the modern house as an exam- ple and start by analyzing how the modern house oppressively imposes an image of the ideal “modern man” on people living
in it. I will then argue that our understanding of housework, as a way to interact with objects, is related to a more general under- standing of creativity and produc- tivity. Specifically, the common devaluation of housework, which comes with the image of the ideal modern man, reflects a limiting understanding of creativity and a reductive way of living. However, a feminine way of thinking and living, which involves a rich expe- rience of housework and thus an intimate relationship with space and the embracement of an em- bodied self, is the way to liberate oneself from the aggressive mas- culinity embedded in modernity.

The Embodied Nature of Humans

To investigate the relation- ship between knowledge produc- tion and space, let us first focus on the questions: Are humans embodied, and what does it mean for humans to be embod- ied? We spend most of our lives in artificial spaces like houses, public institutions, and human- transformed natural spaces, and there are multiple understand- ings of the relationship between humans and artificial spaces. In the modernist understanding, humans are socialized, souled, active, agentive entities living in a material world that is neutral, objective, stable, unsouled, pas- sive, and indifferent. By attribut- ing opposite qualities to humans and space, this understanding separates humans from the space they live in and identifies the es- sence of humans as their abstract and spiritual part, which allows them to see the world from above. Also, humans are advanced because they can produce knowl- edge through a purely intellectual and conceptual process, and they can obtain true knowledge that is universal and transcendent.

But humans are, by their nature, embodied entities, and artificial spaces are not neutral but, borrowing a word from Sarah Ahmed, always “oriented.” Artificial spaces are not built out of a vacuum, but are designed and constructed by real people affect- ed by specific cultures and social norms. As a result, the character-istics of space (the texture, color, lighting, and composition of objects) presume and impose cer- tain ways of living on the inhabit- ants. They deliver specific social norms regarding what it means to be a human, like how humans should act, live, and interact with one another. This making of meanings happens not only when a space is built but also in its daily usage. In Ahmed’s words, space is the sediment of people’s actions; it is made of “straight lines,” which function as “align- ment” (Ahmed 12). The lines ask people to keep aligned by direct- ing them to pay attention to some things and put others into the background. We are thus “ori- ented.” When we inhabit a space, we need to familiarize ourselves with the space, and by doing so, we face the direction that is already faced by others; we shape our body to fit the space that has already taken its shape (15). The orientation of space can be un- derstood as “collective directions” or “collective facing,” and the repetition of the act of following the lines makes the lines disap- pear, meaning that the inhabit- ants accept certain social norms and perspectives without noticing them (16). In this understanding of the human-space relation- ship, the social norms underlying artificial spaces implicitly orient us to see the world in a certain way. Therefore, our perception and experience, emotions and reasonings, and even our knowledge and identity are never isolated from space but rather greatly influenced by space. In other words, we do not respond to space, but we are formed by space. It should be noted that there is no one clear cause-and- effect chain. Neither knowledge nor space exists prior to the other; rather, they shape, orient, and define each other.

Therefore, it is important to investigate artificial spaces because specific traits of space give us a starting point to articulate the ideology, social norms, and basic logic behind our knowledge production, which are usually hidden from us. Additionally, because spaces are in line with certain norms, people who do not align with those norms will experience, feel, and respond to that space differently from those who are more in line. In Ahmed’s words, these people have a “queer” way of understanding space and living. When she uses the word “queer,” she is refer- ring to both its original meaning in German as being “oblique” and “transverse” (to the “lines” in space) and its contemporary meaning of identifying one’s gender and sexual orientation out of the heterosexual norms. Queerness is important because it stands outside ideologies and social norms and uncovers to us the oriented background of our knowledge production. It thus inspires us to create alternative knowledge that challenges dominating ideologies and brings the possibility of a new way of understanding ourselves and our relation to the world.

In the remaining part of this essay, I will analyze the modern artificial space that origi- nates in the time of the rise of industrialization and capitalism because the space we inhabit now is largely characterized by modernity. I will try to answer the question: towards which direction is the modern space oriented? Some may argue that it is oriented towards the domi- nating groups of people, meeting their needs and realizing their fantasies while excluding minori- ties. This is true to some extent, but this does not explain why modern spaces generally make people feel stressed, detached, and objectified. I argue that modern spaces are oriented towards an ideal modern man who never really exists, and this ideal man is characterized by his masculin- ity. Specifically, I will focus on middle-class houses in western countries. Even though not everyone lives in such a house, it is worth studying because it is the typical setting of the ideal modern life, an alluring life that is advanced but still accessible, and we can see traits of it em- bedded in houses of other classes and cultures.

The Orientation of the Modern House

To articulate the traits of the modern middle-class house, I will compare Jean Baudrillard’s The System of Objects (1996) and Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Spaces (1968). Written around a time of huge technological, so- cial, and ideological changes, the former book discusses the effect of consumerism on the design of modern houses, and the latter book is a poetic and nostalgic remembrance of the beauty of traditional houses.

Firstly, the human subject no longer affines the house but rather dominates the house. In traditional times, the human subject was closely related to space. The house was where our dreams settled, and our uncon- sciousness dwelled with peace (Bachelard 7). The house was the primary, reliable, and im- mediate source of happiness and had a unique value for humans (8). In modern times, however, the human subject dominates over the objects. The fabrication and composition of objects in a modern house aim only to solve problems and meet practical needs, and the human subject controls objects in manipulative and tactical ways to make his life easy, efficient, and produc- tive (Baudrillard 16). The human subject uses the objects but is not related to the objects.

Secondly, the vibrancy that once lived in objects is now lost. In traditional times, objects were perceived as containers with substances in them, so they were similar in structure to humans. Thus, they functioned in peo- ple’s lives like human organs and could only be given but not produced. There were also transcendental correlations between the substances of the objects through which they respondedto each other (Baudrillard 25). In modern times, objects are not perceived to have substances anymore. People no longer think that there is a boundary between the outside and the inside of an object or that there are any tran- scendental links between objects. Objects become dispensable and disposable; they are produced rather than given; they are put into computational and informa- tional models (27). The spiritual core in objects is now dead.

Thirdly, the once intimate and physical relationships be- tween humans and objects become virtual and abstract. In traditional times, when people moved or used objects, they usu- ally needed to do a lot of labor. They had to use a lot of muscles, motivate their entire body, and get truly involved in the process. It is a flow of energy composed of gestures that emphasize labor (Baudrillard 49). In modern times, however, people control objects through remote controls. They try to put in a minimal level of energy and make changes to the house by only using their fin- gers and eyes (50). The interac- tion between humans and objects is composed of gestures that are directed by the notion of manipu- lation, and thus both humans and space become abstract.

From the changes in the meaning of the house to hu- mans, the nature of objects, and the way humans interact with objects, we can see that modern spaces and living presuppose people to be the ideal “modern man”; the “modern man” is al- ways efficient, productive, organ- ized, self-disciplined, compe- tent, indifferent, individualistic, autonomous, and unbiased. In the context of capitalism, these traits promise to help the person organize his life and achieve per- sonal success. But this is only a myth. These characteristics are celebrated because they reduce man to a resource that contrib- utes all his effort to the growth of capitalism. They also reduce a man to a perfect consumer whose success is only defined by the value of the commodities he pos- sesses. The myth thus detaches humans from intimate relations with other humans or objects and discourages them from un- derstanding the value and mean- ing of their lives creatively.

It should be noted that the ideal modern man is a male, not a female, because the traits of the ideal modern man (to be productive, indifferent, and autonomous) largely align with the common understanding of masculinity. It is especially ac- curate to relate the image of “the ideal modern man” to that of “the masculine male” because, firstly, both “modernity” and masculin- ity are not something a person naturally has without effort. A male is neither born with mascu- linity nor is he always masculine throughout his life. Rather, he learns to be masculine through socialization and is haunted by the phantom of masculinity, for he has to constantly perform in certain ways to make himself appear masculine. Similarly, a modern person is only productive and competent when he con- stantly puts effort into proving it. The second reason why it is accurate to link “the ideal man” with “the masculine male” is that people who conform to the two images both gain privileges and pay for that privilege by living a reduced life. These people seem to earn success by living under social norms, but they are also disadvantaged as they are pro- hibited from being emotionally vulnerable and are pushed into aggressive competitions. They are also deprived of the drive and ability to develop their own un- derstanding of the unique mean- ings of their lives. And they are epistemologically ignorant of the power structure they live in due to their privileged position in it.

Diverged Lives in the Modern House

The figure of the ideal mod- ern man brings pressure to both men and women, but their situ- ations are different as men are further privileged and women are further oppressed. It is accept- able for a man to be detached from the space he lives in, mean- ing that he does not need to worry about housework, because he should put all his time and ef- fort into “productive” work for his “important” career. In contrast, a woman is expected to facilitate the man’s work by taking care of the house and having everything prepared for him, in other words, doing all the “trivial” and “unpro- ductive” housework. Therefore, the difference between a man’s and a woman’s life in the modern house is most evident in their diverged understandings, experi- ences, and imaginations about housework.

Modernity facilitates man’s gender privileges. George Wag- nar’s analysis of the Playboy apartment built in many states in the United States in the 1950s shows that it is the ultimate male fantasy of the house. The apart- ment is located in a high build- ing, detached from the city. A remote control allows the owner to control everything (the music player, the lights, and the cur- tains) in the house instantly and effortlessly. Unfortunately, this level of control is designed to let the male owner hunt girls the most easily. This house repre- sents the male fantasy of enjoy- ing covert pleasure at night while maintaining his decent image in the daytime. Despite the fact that this man’s joy is based on objec- tifying women, we should also notice that this is a house that is not a home. The man enjoys him- self in the house without doing any physical labor (housework) or emotional labor (mental sup- port for his family). The house appears to be already made for the man, just like how it appears to most men in real life, because women have done all the work of taking care of the house.

This ignorance of physical la- bor affects man’s knowledge, and this is most evident in the knowl- edge produced by male philoso- phers who do not identify gender inequality. Ahmed analyzes phe- nomenologist Edmund Husserl’s mediation on his writing table and points out that even though he claims to produce universal knowledge, he is, in fact produc- ing male-specific knowledge. He tries to do a complete and de- tailed meditation of the nature of the table, but he takes the table as pre-given: he ignores all the physical labor that has to be done to make the table ready for him to write on and all the mental labor that keeps his chil- dren from disturbing him. Males’ orientation away from housework reflects the common devalua- tion of housework, the view that housework is trivial and only valuable because it supports real creative and productive works. However, from the example of Husserl, we can see that one’s knowledge cannot be separated from one’s relation to physical space because it is precisely the “trivial”, “physical” work that makes the “creative”, “intel- lectual” work possible. In fact, as we will see from a feminist perspective, the division between the trivial and the productive, the mundane and the creative, is not objective but culturally consti- tuted.

Men are ignorant of house- work, but women know house- work well. They develop a more intimate relationship with objects and have more knowledge about how to interact with the physical world. According to Ahmed, these are “queer” experiences because they are from perspectives that do not align with that of the ideal modern man. Thus, this kindof knowledge provides us with the possibility to reflect on and challenge the arbitrary divi-sion of labor into the trivial and the productive. In other words, acknowledging the unique value of housework leads us to rethink the concepts of creativity and productivity.

Rethinking Creativity and Productivity

Housework is usually per- ceived as mundane, but Ba- chelard challenges this idea and explains the unique creativity in housework. When a person does cleaning, fixing, and main- tenance for an object, she ac- tually “create[s] a new object” and “register[s] this object offi- cially as a member of the human household” (Bachelard 67). She “experience[s] a sort of con- sciousness of constructing the houses,” in the sense that she takes effort to “keep it alive” and “rebuild” it “from the inside” (67, 68). Thus, the person becomes ever sensitive, caring, and crea- tive in a unique way; and those who do not do housework could never get access to this experi- ence. Housework is also valuable because doing housework makes the person live integrated with “the vastest dreams” (the career, the ultimate life project) and “the humblest occupations” (the housework, the daily mechani- cal work that makes a career possible), and thus the person becomes humble and grounded (68). Therefore, a feminine way of living that values housework and physical attachment is filled with creative, fluid, and nuanced experiences. It also allows the person to be intimately related to herself, other people, and even non-human agents. All of these traits are forces that challenge the reductive tendency of modernity.

This understanding of house- work brings us to reflect more critically on the binary of trivial and productive labor and the concepts of productivity and cre- ativity. It is commonly thought that creative work means to cre- ate and produce things and is often done by males, while trivial work is to maintain and take care of things and is often done by females. Nika Dubrovsky and David Graeber argue that this is a very limiting understanding of creativity, and it is not an objec- tive classification but a cultural product with a history. The idea that creativity is some “spiritual,” “individual,” and “genius” quality emerged along with Romanticism during early industrialization, serving to mark the difference be- tween artistic works and factory products. On the other hand, the idea that productivity is to create work through a “mysterious” and “painful” process has a Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage. It is the most obvious when we think about the production of children from a man’s perspective, the production of modern electronic devices from a customer’s per- spective, and the production of artwork from a viewer’s perspec- tive. Therefore, the division of labor into the trivial and the productive is ideological: creativ- ity does not necessarily belong to an artistic, genius individual, and productivity does not neces- sarily mean creating things out of nothing. Only by expanding the definition of creativity and productivity can we develop a more inclusive and egalitarian way of understanding labor; and one possible starting point is to recognize the value in cleaning, fixing, transporting, and maintaining objects.

Conclusion

In this essay, I argue that humans are embodied entities by revealing that the modern space affects people by imposing on them the figure of the ideal mod- ern man. I also argue that our relationship to space affects our knowledge production by ana- lyzing the relationship between the evaluation of housework and the concepts of productiv- ity and creativity. It is a western, white, and patriarchal way of thinking to separate humans from the space they live in. This way of thinking advocates for
the masculine, modernist ideol- ogy by universalizing the spe- cific knowledge of the privileged, and dismissing other experiences and knowledge. Acknowledging the embodied nature of knowledge production provides us with the starting point of reflecting on this dominating ideology and thinking of alternative ways of understanding humans, knowledge production, and living. We should legitimize different kinds of experiences and knowledge and develop a more inclusive and just way of knowing. In addition, the study of modern houses and housework is one example of investigating the influence of space on people’s knowledge produc- tion. More studies could be done on how modernity is embedded in other kinds of spaces like public spaces and artificially transformed nature; and we could also study the different ideologies that lie in space in other cultural and historical contexts.

Works Cited

Ahmed Sara. “Introduction: Find Your Way.” Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Duke University Press, Durham, 2006, pp. 1–24.

Bachelard, Gaston. “The House. From Cellar to Garret. The Signifi- cance of the Hut.” and “House and Universe.” The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places, translated by Maria Jolas, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994, pp. 3–37 and 38–73.

Baudrillard, Jean. “The Functional System, or Objective Discourse.” The System of Objects, translated by James Benedict, Verso, Lon- don, 1996, pp. 13–65.

Dubrovsky, Nika, and David Graeber. “Another Art World, Part 2: Utopia of Freedom as a Market Value”. E - Flux Journal, 2019, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/104/298663/another-art-world- part-2-utopia-of-freedom-as-a-market-value/.

Henderson, Susan. “A Revolution of the Woman’s Sphere: Grete Lihotzkhy and the Frankfurt Kitchen.” Architecture and Feminism, edited by Elizabeth Danze et al., Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 1996, pp. 221–253.

Wagner, George. “The Liar of the Bachelor.” Architecture and Femi- nism, edited by Elizabeth Danze et al., Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 1996, pp. 183–220.

"Philosophy, we oftentimes forget, is the process of teach- ing. And, it happens in community, and it happens between individuals. It is not this isolated affair that happens in an armchair a la Descartes.

My previous two marriages were based on a sense of guilt and a sense of inadequacy and a sense of being unlovable. And all of those things might not seem particularly philosophical, but in fact if philosophers could speak more directly to the way that humans interacted about guilt, resentment, feelings of unlovable-ness, I think that philosophy would do a lot of good.

Now, when it comes to my current and final marriage, it
is more a matter of understanding that philosophy cannot give us all the answers when it comes to the way that we interact with our loved ones—that life outstrips philosophy in a very real way. So, I do not think that I am relying on philosophy that much anymore when it comes to guiding me through."

-John Kaag, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Umass Lowell