Friday, August 3, 2018

Greetings Infomaniacs,

Congratulations to Barbara Andrews who won this week's "Mind Scrambler". Here was the scrambler:

I run over fields and through streets all day. Under the bed at night I sit, never alone. My tongue hangs up and out, waiting to be filled in the morning. What am I?

ANSWER: A shoe!

Enjoy!

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "To be a housewife is to be a member of a very peculiar occupation, one with characteristics like no other. The nature of the duties to be performed, the method of payment, the form of supervision, the tenure system, the market in which the workers find jobs, and the physical hazzards are all very different from the way things are in other occupations."

HINT: You're never going to get this one. This woman was a Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland and wrote extensively on feminist and gender issues covering everything from childcare to poverty and Social Security. She just died in 2015 at age 87.

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RANDOM TIDBITS
While sexism and inequality was much more common in the 1950s, housewives then were not downtrodden door mats but "tough and ultra-organized." While men earned the money, housewives decided how it was spent and balanced household finances with discipline and precision.

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As more household items were mass produced, housewives became less responsible for making cloth, clothing, soap, and candles. While most women were relieved, something was lost when women's domestic work was deskilled. Women in the past had concrete evidence for their productivity and contribution to the family, and many household tasks were outlets for women's creativity.

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Today, Pew Research Center estimates that there are 370,000 highly educated and affluent housewives (defined as married mothers with children under 18 who have at least a master's degree and family income over $75,000), which equals 5 percent of all stay-at-home moms with a husband.

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The word "housewife" is from the early 13th century husewif, meaning "woman, usually married, in charge of a family or household." The word "hussy" is an alteration of the word housewife and originally meant "mistress of the household."

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Even housewives in the early 20th century had no dishwashers, clothes driers, supermarkets, food processors, or washing machines. They made beds with sheets and blankets (no duvets). They boiled the toweling and cloth diapers (which were at least 10 per baby per day). They could not take out loans or mortgages or hire purchase agreements. They even needed their husband's consent to get a C-section. A wife who left her husband faced destitution. As the suffragettes complained before WWI, "Husband and wife are one person, and that one person is the husband."




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*** Weekly Mind-Scrambler ***
Look for a new mind scrambler in Monday's issue of Trivia!

Submit your answer by clicking: TheDailyTease

Answer will be posted in Friday's Trivia Today. Good Luck! If your name appears in Friday's newsletter, EMAIL MICHELE your complete name and address to be shipped your prize.

Be sure to put "Winner" in the subject line.

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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "To be a housewife is to be a member of a very peculiar occupation, one with characteristics like no other. The nature of the duties to be performed, the method of payment, the form of supervision, the tenure system, the market in which the workers find jobs, and the physical hazards are all very different from the way things are in other occupations."

ANSWER: Barbara Bergmann