Book Review: Television and Postfeminist Housekeeping: No Time for Mother, by Elizabeth Nathanson

Television and Postfeminist Housekeeping: No Time for Mother. Elizabeth Nathanson. New York: Routledge, 2013. 205 pp. $ 125 hbk.In Television and Post-feminist Housekeeping, Elizabeth Nathanson, an assistant professor at Muhlenberg College, explores how television depicts, and indeed constructs, contemporary notions of postfeminist femininity. Specifically, Nathanson performs a series of qualitative analyses on several different lifestyle television shows, which range from pedagogical programs like 30 Minute Meals to talk shows like The Chew to prime-time television series like Modern Family, to explore how postfeminist femininity is manufactured and promoted by analyzing the subject of women's time. That is, the author examines how television shows create a sense of time scarcity felt by women in their struggle to manage their professional lives, domestic responsibilities, and leisure time-or, as the author calls it, "the postfeminist juggling act."Nathanson devotes the first chapter to laying a foundation of knowledge of both critical-cultural media studies and feminist scholarship. Here, the author defines the major concepts she discusses in later chapters such as postfeminism, women's time, and domesticity in media while providing examples from television and previews of later chapters. Her voice is clear and conversational here, which helps make the information presented more accessible to those unfamiliar with it. The subsequent chapters are divided by the following domestic labor categories: cleaning, cooking, child rearing, crafting, and childbirth.Each chapter discusses the selected topic by exploring the construction of time and how it is uniquely imposed onto women (namely, middle-class, white women) in lifestyle television. The author first briefly explores previous research on the subject before delving into her argument. For example, the author situates her arguments in relation to foundational feminist research, including Simone de Beauvoir's text "The Second Sex," Angela McRobbie's work on postfeminism and popular culture, Judith Butler's concept of gender performance, Arlie Russell Hochschild's concept of the second shift, and Diane Negra's research on consumption, time management, and postfeminism. The author also draws upon the works of seminal media and cultural theorists like Pierre Bourdieu and his notion of the popular aesthetic and Raymond Williams and his concept of flow. While Nathanson does primarily adhere to the parameters of the chapter, she also relates information back to previous chapters which helps to emphasize and support the larger aim of the book. Similarly, the author connects samples from other popular media like lifestyle magazines and websites to further this aim.The book's interdisciplinary nature is its greatest strength. Nathanson references feminist philosophers, media scholars, social scientists, historians, and cultural theorists to argue and support her thesis. This not only adds depth and complexity to the book, but also makes the content accessible to readers who might be unfamiliar with or have limited understanding of such material, like undergraduate students. …