Domestic Technologies

Domestic technologies encompass a vast array of tools, devices, and machines that are commonly used within the home. Such technologies are often categorized under headings including domestic appliances (e.g., vacuum cleaners and food processors), white goods (e.g., washing machines, dishwashers, and refrigerators), brown goods (e.g., ovens and microwaves), and entertainment items (e.g., televisions, DVD players, VCRs, PCs, and laptops) but are often used for multiple purposes—and are increasingly integrated into what has been referred to as the “SMART” home. Domestic technologies are both practically and symbolically significant to the emergence of consumer culture—practical in the sense of shifting patterns of time use to facilitate the growth of leisure, and symbolic of the household as a critical unit of consumption.

In the social sciences, there has been a long history of research that has attempted to examine and document the development of domestic technologies. This has included the evolution of specific technologies through time (see Shove and Southerton 2002), patterns of adoption and use (e.g., Rogers 1962), and how technologies are appropriated within everyday household and family life (Cowan 1985) as well as reflect—and perpetuate—the insistently gendered character of domestic life and division of labor (Wajcman 2007a).

Given the widespread diffusion of many domestic technologies in Western societies, it has often been assumed that such objects have led to the automation of various domestic tasks and activities and have consequently decreased the amount of time individuals spend conducting household work. However, empirical evidence supporting this claim is far from conclusive. For example, Michael Bittman and colleagues, in their analysis of the Australian 1997 Time Use Survey, argued that domestic technologies seldom reduce the time that women (who historically have the foremost responsibility for carrying out domestic work) spend conducting domestic labor and, paradoxically, in some instances, the use of such objects actually increases the time conducting household chores and activities. Their findings suggest that even though technologies such as washing machines have reduced the time required to launder clothing, we are washing our clothes much more regularly than we did in the past. In Bittman and colleagues' words, “Appliances are used to increase output and not to save labour time” (2004, 413).

In addition to emphasizing the symbolic importance of domestic technologies in terms of ownership and display, studies have also revealed the inherent gendered nature of domestic tools, machines, and devices and how they are entangled in the sociospatial relations of families and households. Indeed, the purchase and use of such objects have as such been acknowledged as being powerful household practices that are entrenched in the subjective construction and politics of households. Domestic technologies that are routinely used in unpaid domestic work (such as cooking, cleaning, and child care) often evoke strong feminine connotations, whereas those that are used for economically valued producing activities (such as do-it-yourself) are more likely to symbolize more masculine ideals and traits. Consequently, the consumption of domestic technologies can have a significant role in the constitution of masculine and feminine subjectivities as well as the gendering of domestic space.

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