Introduction

This article aims to demonstrate how women's "housewifery"—an accepted social tradition in Western societies—gradually transformed into an "ideology of domesticity." This ideology reinterpreted the home as a prison and housewifery as mere confinement and idleness. The article shows that the phenomenon of the "housewifery woman" was essentially modern, emerging alongside the "nuclear family" within Europe's new industrial order during the nineteenth century. Historically, the formation of the industrial order and the separation of the workplace from the home led to a redefinition of "work," framing women's domestic activities in opposition to "work outside the home." The "housewifery woman" was a product of these new capitalist and industrial dynamics in Europe. Throughout the twentieth century, the "housewifery woman" phenomenon was repeatedly challenged—both by political and social changes and by women themselves. Thus, the article’s central question is: How did public perception of "housewifery" evolve in Western industrial societies, and what historical-social conditions caused women to perceive housewifery as a form of domesticity? What distinguishes this article from similar studies is its critical approach to generalizing the Western experience to non-Western societies, particularly Islamic ones. The article’s primary objective is to demonstrate that feminists cannot offer one unified prescription for societies with diverse traditions and historical experiences. Consequently, a precise understanding of the Western experience can assist Muslim researchers in better comprehending their own indigenous and religious concepts, thereby avoiding a distorted view of their own society and culture.



Methodology

This study employs a documentary research method based on the analysis of historical developments. Drawing on historical sources—particularly social history—and an analysis of feminist texts, this article attempts to describe the macro-social factors that drove the shift in mindset from "housewifery" to "domesticity." The article employs the phenomenological framework of Berger and Luckmann. From this perspective, "tradition" is a sedimented form of consciousness, while "ideology" is the product of a struggle between competing traditions and power brokers. The article explains how, during the twentieth century, the tradition of housewifery within the collective consciousness of Western industrial societies transformed into the ideology of domesticity, driven by the interests of various groups such as the state, industrialists, and capitalists.



Results

The article identifies four general trends that influenced the status of women and the changing perception of housewifery:

First: World War II and the need for women's labor

World War II was the primary factor prompting women to leave the home. With men away at the war front, their vacancies in industry had to be filled. Governments used radio and newspapers to encourage women to work in factories. In the United States, the iconic figure of "Rosie the Riveter" became a model of the independent, working woman. During the war, approximately six million women entered the workforce. The government facilitated this by establishing daycares, enabling women to balance maternal duties with factory work. However, following the war, the very media outlets that had once encouraged women to leave the home began urging them to return to domestic life. The government ordered the closure of daycares, and women's domestic work was reframed as an act of "patriotism."

Second: The expansion of the welfare state and service-sector jobs

In the post-war era, the welfare state expanded across Western societies, and service-sector employment grew. The state assumed a paternal role, and women became dependent on the state rather than on men. On the one hand, as women’s economic dependence on their husbands diminished, the family's economic cohesion weakened, and the traditional domestic role of women was challenged. On the other hand, the expansion of service jobs and the facilitation of female employment paved the way for women’s entry into the public sphere. This duality created the precise material conditions necessary for the emergence of second-wave feminist discourse, which reframed housewifery not as a tradition, but as a barrier to women's economic and political participation.

Third: Transformations in women's daily life

Several factors contributed to changes in women's everyday life: increased female participation in higher education and the expansion of the middle class; changes in home architecture that made the kitchen the focal point of the house, thereby increasing women's oversight of other areas; technological advancements and the development of household appliances, which eased domestic chores but simultaneously diminished the perceived skill and creativity involved in housework; and an increase in women's leisure time, which facilitated their presence in the public sphere.

Fourth: Shifts in capitalism and the rise of part-time work

During the 1950s and 1960s, employers expanded part-time job opportunities to address labor shortages. This strategy allowed housewives to work outside the home for part of the day while maintaining their domestic roles. However, women's wages were significantly lower than men's; in 1962, women earned only 59 percent of the wages paid to men performing similar work. This situation led women to perceive housewifery—and the roles they had long been encouraged to adopt by the media—not as a family value, but as an obstacle to achieving equal pay and fair career opportunities.

Amidst these shifts, feminists began theorizing about homemaking and framing it as a form of domesticity: Liberal feminists, drawing on the ideas of Betty Friedan, viewed housework as a barrier to women’s participation in social life. Radical feminists regarded the family and marriage as primary instruments of male oppression against women—likening them to a "women's prison." Marxist feminists saw housework as unpaid reproductive labor serving the interests of capitalism and championed the slogan "wages for housework."



Conclusion

The concept of the "housewifery woman" is a product of industrial capitalist systems in Europe. Prior to this, women were active in various spheres of production. With the expansion of capitalist systems, the scope of "industrial labor" widened, and "work" became equated with "employment outside the home." In this new order, women engaged in their customary domestic activities were deemed "unemployed," and the concept of the "housewifery women"—a woman positioned outside the industrial order and lacking significance in the socio-economic relations of production—emerged. This Western historical experience cannot be generalized to Islamic societies without careful consideration. In Western societies, housewifery—itself the product of specific historical and social relations—was systematically marginalized and subsequently portrayed merely as "domesticity"; conversely, in Islamic societies, "family-tending" ("khanevadeh-dari") constitutes a fundamental pillar of the established order and a core mission for women within Islamic culture. Therefore, it is essential for Muslim female researchers to demonstrate that the "family-tending" role of women in Islamic culture and society is not synonymous with the idleness, isolation, and redundancy associated with housewifery women in twentieth-century Western industrial societies. Furthermore, any policy aimed at improving or strengthening family-tending roles does not necessarily equate to a repetition of the anti-housewifery agendas seen in the West.

In conclusion, two suggestions for further research are offered: first, an examination of the dimensions of "domestic labor" and the discourse surrounding "motherhood" and "de-mothering" in Western societies—viewing them not necessarily as emancipatory ideals, but rather as strategies of the market and industrial capitalism; and second, an elucidation of the distinction between "housewifery"—a construct of the European industrial order—and "family-tending" ("khanevadeh-dar")—an established and enduring mission for women within Islamic cultures and societies.