Hullo feminists,

Enjoy a morning of links about domesticity and home.

Our first article is not only about domesticity, it’s also about cultural imperialism! In the 1950s, the Red Cross (!) ran ‘bride schools’ (!!) to teach Japanese women marrying American men how to cook American food:

“I have a Japanese war bride mother and I grew up with a culinary repertoire of Sloppy Joes, pineapple upside-down cake, spaghetti, and tuna casserole,” says Elena Creef, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Wellesley College. “It’s kind of hysterical. How did my mother learn to master these really basic, slightly awful all-American dishes? Well, she was trained.”

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-curious-curriculum-of-the-1950s-red-cross-bride-schools

Also on the topic of home, I read this poem on Matt Ogle’s lovely newsletter. Apparently it (the poem) went viral last year, but I did not read it then, so sorry if you’re totally over this but perhaps you will at least enjoy rereading Maggie Smith’s Good Bones:

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

http://waxwingmag.org/items/Issue9/28_Smith-Good-Bones.php

Finally, enjoy this important opinion piece from Reductress; before you settle down, you should be really sure that this is the person you want to be telling you to read Infinite Jest:

It’s not like I’m a prude—I’ve read David Foster Wallace before. I love Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and have watched the “This Is Water” speech on YouTube with a few guys. But before I read Infinite Jest, I’ll want to have an open discussion about it first: How many other women has he recommended it to? Is his copy of the book clean, or is it full of notes in the margins? Has he recently been tested on the novel?

http://reductress.com/post/why-im-waiting-for-the-right-man-to-tell-me-to-read-infinite-jest/

Have a nice weekend,

Alex.