Woman's Work

The perils and problems of the housewife have received little attention from medical researchers (who are mostly men, of course). Last week, meeting in Philadelphia, women doctors of the Medical Women's International Association gave the subject a thorough going-over in a day's discussion of "The Pathology and Hygiene of Housework."

The first trouble, reported Austria's Helene Stourzh-Anderle, is that housework is grossly underestimated: "Other members of the household often do not discover that there is a housewife until something goes wrong." Besides lack of appreciation, housewives the world over suffer from the repetitious monotony of their tasks. Britain's Dr. Dagmar C. Wilson found in a survey of 194 homemakers that 79% complained of tiredness, anxiety and depression.

Delegates from 13 countries compiled an impressive list of ills to which the conscientious housewife is heir. The outstanding ones: dermatitis ("dishpan hands" from allergy to cleansing agents), neuritis, neuroses, varicose veins, low back pain, fallen womb, peptic ulcers, inflamed muscles, vitamin deficiencies, arthritis, flat feet.

U.S. women have the best of it because they have far more mechanical and electrical gadgets working for them than their sisters elsewhere. But no woman, warned Britain's Dr. Annis Gillie, should stand up for any work that she can do sitting down. Kitchen tables, counters and sinks are too low for many women, she complained : they have to stoop, which strains the spine and causes low back pain, and they have to thrust the head forward, which often inflames the neck muscles.

A good word for housework came from another British delegate. Said Dr. Nina Kellgren: "There is no reason why housework [properly done] should produce disorders in joints, muscles and tendons, [because] the movements involved in housework are varied and include all the joints of the body, and are therefore essentially healthy."

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