Relieving Women’s Work: The Promotion and Consumption of Washing Machines in Chile during the Long 1960s

In the middle of the twentieth century, Latin America embraced the modernization process for economic growth and social inclusion. The promotion and consumption of household appliances was a key part of modernization in Chile. Governments, regardless of their political ideology, and Chilean businesses aimed to increase the consumption of modern technology among the working and middle classes. Along with the adoption of new technologies, household labor was modernizing as well. This research focuses on the promotion and consumption of the washing machine and its impact on people from the middle and lower classes in the sixties. Men and women who had access to washing machines were impacted in their daily lives, as the appliances generated expectations, desires, anxieties, and even rejections regarding the modernization of housework. Contrary to the image portrayed in advertisements where male heads of the family purchased washing machines for their wives, oral sources show that the purchase of a washing machine involved family dynamics and negotiations that did not always align with hegemonic ideas. Women also bought washing machines with their own salaries, sons and daughters bought them for their mothers, and not all women desired to have a washing machine. The patriarchal nature of modernity influenced how modern and revolutionary appliances should be used. While marketing strategies promised that housewives would become more productive and efficient due to the washing machine “relieving women’s work,” these gender assumptions reinforced housework as a primary role for women.