Review: Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matcher

I added this book to my Amazon Wishlist, which doubles as my To Read list, a couple of years ago and it's just been sitting there, staring at me. I admit, I was a reluctant to read it as I wasn't interested in a couple hundred pages on why liking to knit and bake makes me a bad feminist. If I want that, I can just post on some select forums.

But I have been going through a trend of challenging my comfort zones, so I bought it and read it. I'm really happy I did. My assumptions about Matcher's intentions were wrong, and given the tone she takes from the very beginning, I'm going to guess she expected my reaction...that or she's just a much more empathic writer than I ever will be. Her writing style is conversational without being sloppy and while her sources are repeated, they are current for the publication date and relevant to the topic.

A brief overview of the book -

Matcher introduces the concept of New Domesticity, then gives a very brief over view of domesticity in America, taking the time to explain that her summation is only America and only applies to white women of a certain class. She is very clear about the standards having been different for the poor and minorities. I appreciate that she clearly states the limits of her observations, rather than allow the reader to assume it applies universally.

She then delves into various aspects of the New Domesticity, profiling a variety of bloggers and writers who are known personalities in those various spheres, with some expected overlap. These range from the place of blogs in New Domesticity to Etsy to Foodies to Parenting to Homesteading to Feminism and back again. Whew.

She ends the book with her takeaways on the phenomenon, which I really loved. Her takeaways and my own conclusions were similar, which I liked, though a great deal of the details along the way was eye-opening. She asked a lot of questions about 'why' and 'where does this lead' that I hadn't really thought through or considered. It let me chew on a lot of ideas and question my own goals.

If I were to sum up my takeaway of Matcher's book in one sentance, it would be "extremists are crazy." Okay, that might be a little glib, but by the end of each chapter, I was asking myself if any of the people had heard of moderation and it's virtues. She wasn't critical so much as questioning (I was critical), so I never felt the need to defend them in my head (which I absolutely do when I read), allowing me to absorb first, consider second. Almost every practice listed was given the leniency of "if this works for you and your family/kid/life...", though the motives and long term effects were questioned. The exception was the anti-vaccine crowd, which I can't blame her for.

I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone. Even if you don't think this New Domesticity nonsense has any place in your life, you probably know someone who does (know anyone with an etsy store? who bakes their own bread? who homeschools their kid?) and it creates a framework for understanding. The reasons lists might not be their reasons, but it places the national trend into perspective.