9 ms·

But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. In the past people just didn't wash their clothes as often. Now people will wash their cloth

by DanBC 8y ago

But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. In the past people just didn't wash their clothes as often. Now people will wash their clothes after a single wear, and it's still mostly women who are doing the washing in families. https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/1113123861602713600 https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/1113123861602713600 https://twitter.com/DeconinckKoen/status/1054097445351776256 https://twitter.com/DeconinckKoen/status/1054097445351776256

return1 8y ago
"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though
- DanBC 8y ago
  No, for many people "washing" is a euphemism for gathering clothing from various rooms, sorting it into different loads (hot wash, cool wash, whites and colours), loading the machine with clothing, loading detergent (and buying the detergent), pressing the button (while selecting a program that doesn't destroy the clothing), taking the clothing out of the machine and putting it in the dryer or hanging it on the clothes line, taking it from the dryer / line and ironing it if needed, then folding it if needed, then distributing it back around the various rooms to include hanging if needed. The fact that we dismiss this work mostly done by women by saying it's just pushing a button is probably sexism.
  - belorn 8y ago
    Almost every single step of those are optional depending on the people in the household. For us everyone is responsible to bring their clothes to the wash baskets and sort based on temperature. Very few modern clothing require cool wash, and in my household we don't own any. Very few white clothes and discoloration from washing whites with colors is so minimal with modern clothing/washing machines so we don't bother. The only exception is when cleaning white table cloths in order to remove stains. Non-dryer clothes are avoided if possible. We don't work at places which require ironed clothes. Washing is thus for us: loading the machine (located in the apartment) with clothing from one of the two baskets when they are full, filling the detergent ball, selecting 40 or 60 depending on which basket is used, putting it in the dryer when the washer alarm goes off, taking it from the dryer when the dryer alarm goes off, and finally everyone collects their clean clothes. We could argue how common this is, and if there is a cultural difference here between US and Sweden, but I don't have any data beyond my own experience.
    - Frondo 8y ago
      This is really getting into the weeds here, but my partner and I (hetero couple in our 30s) do laundry maybe once a week, but it is a pretty time-intensive process because half of all of our clothes are cold-wash, half of those are line-dry, and following the directions like that significantly extends how long they last and stay brightly colored. It takes a couple of hours a week, and usually falls to me since I work from home. Saying some steps are "optional" requires compromises that probably a lot of people are unwilling to make; so not necessarily a meaningful way to call things optional.
    - notacoward 8y ago
      You seem to have missed folding, which is both the most labor-intensive part and the one OP was about. Also, who nags the kids (or other adults) to do their part? That's work too.
      - belorn 8y ago
        If someone want their clothes folded they fold them when picking them up from the clean pile. Not going to comment what parents with children should do, at what ages and so on. That is just begging to get into a discussion where everyone just disagree with each other.
        notacoward 8y ago
        > If someone want their clothes folded they fold them when picking them up from the clean pile It's still work, isn't it? When it gets done is irrelevant. My larger point is that your "it's not that hard" is only true in a very narrow set of circumstances that I'm skeptical exist even for you. Many problems seem simple if you constrain the variables tightly enough. But in the real world, not everyone dresses exclusively in clothes that don't wrinkle if left alone after drying, or work in jobs where looking like a hobo is acceptable. And anyone who claims that every family member including children automatically does their part in a complex series of steps without any goading at all is either deceiving themselves or trying to deceive others. The discipline is being enforced, and we don't all have the privilege of turning a blind eye while partners do it.
  - foepys 8y ago
    As someone who is washing his own laundry since he was able to reach the detergent in the cupboard, it's literally a push of a button after turning a wheel to select the program. You can make anything sound complicated by listing every little step necessary to perform a task but that doesn't make it hard. You buy detergent when you buy toilet paper, you throw your cloths into a hamper to not have to run around to gather them, and you hang them on a line in max 10 minutes. Ironing is something you don't need to do unless you want to buy cloths that require it. Just because something might be done primarily by women it's not sexist to call it easy.
- tropdrop 8y ago
  This is a gross oversimplification, especially washing in a family (> 1 person). 1. Sorting - when you buy clothing, do you take handling instructions into account? Accounting for handling is very hard! Good luck shopping online, hunting through instruction tags hidden on sides of clothes, all while keeping price reasonable. I do not like shopping, so I choose the first thing that looks ok and is comfortable - I am often left with unpleasant surprises when laundering. Some dryclean only, some handwash-only, some fine with washing but no dryer, some with dryer ok but tumble-dry only. 2. Do you have an in-unit washer? I do not - I traverse 7 flights of stairs to communal apartment laundry room. 3. Do you need to use quarters for the machine? If yes, this takes an extra trip to bank beforehand. 4. 7 flights of stairs again to transfer some of the clothes to a dryer, others ... 5. ... Need to be line-dried and hung, somewhere. 6. Finally, the clothes that could be normally washed must be folded and put away, not stuffed into a drawer (even simple t-shirts get wrinkled this way). "washing" is not just pressing a button.
  - return1 8y ago
    Steps 1 and 6 are optional overcomplications, unless you wear fancy/sensitives on daily basis. Lining up clothes, 5 minutes max and they can ‘fold’ and straighten right on the line - I regularly pick my jeans and t shirts right off the hanger. Sure you can spend hours doing it by the book, but that s a choice, no longer a necessity The thing thats terrible time sink is ironing
  - Bombthecat 8y ago
    You also paid for the washer and water and electricity... With your working time...
  - korm 8y ago
    Step 1 becomes progressively easier after each wash. Steps 2, 3, 4 are completely eliminated by having an in-unit washer as you said, like most families in western Europe do at least. Step 6 is also pretty quick with practice.
    - organsnyder 8y ago
- benj111 8y ago
  What the button that when pressed, goes and gets the washing from various rooms, checks pockets and such, checks washing instructions and separates colours, and then hangs it out afterwards?
  - return1 8y ago
    none of this is actual washing. it doesnt even require water. do you know how people used to wash their clothes?
    - benj111 8y ago
      Its supporting activity that you're only doing because you're doing the washing. I can't think of a situation where it wouldn't be correct to lump such activities in with the main activity. Yes I do know how people used to wash clothes, and it would be a lot quicker if you missed out heating up the water on an open fire/range, and the mangling, and the hanging out of the clothes after. All features of wash day.
- glenneroo 8y ago
  I assume you live in a country which also has a dryer? In Europe AFAIK most people don't have one (at least nobody I knows has one), therefore hanging a load afterwards takes 10-20 minutes, depending on the size of your washing machine, which generally they are considerably smaller than US versions, hence requiring multiple sessions if you have more than one person in the household. I'm not complaining, 10-20 minutes per week is trivial, but it's also not just pressing a button.
grey-area 8y ago
Don’t do that then.
solarkraft 8y ago
We still saved a ton of time in comparison to how clean our clothes are.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it's balanced out by having to spend more time shopping for clothes because all those repeated trips through the washer and dryer wear them out more quickly. A while back we got fed up with our apartment's laundry facilities, and switched to one of those Haier portable washer units, drying on a clothesline, and washing less often. At this point I'm almost annoyed with how much longer my clothing is lasting, because I'm ready for some new colors.
  - atwebb 8y ago
    We have a completely different experience, I have many of the same polos and jeans as I had 10 years ago. Still going strong with just a bit of fading. Small differences in people's perspective and lifestyles like this is fascinating to me.
  - richeyryan 8y ago
    What difference does your Haier make? I don't follow the effect it has. I'm from Ireland where using a washing machine and a clothesline is the norm and a drier is less common. I think I might be missing some of the context for your point
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      I'm not sure that it's really the key difference. The main thing is that its small load size, together with needing to line dry, encourages us to be more judicious about how frequently we wash our garments. I wouldn't be surprised if the way that it agitates turns out to be gentler, though. Dryers are probably the worst of it. Every time you clean a lint trap, it's a demonstration of how much wear and tear they put on fabric.
      - 8y ago
sjg007 8y ago
Nicer clothes also last longer, they stand up to washing.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
JohnFen 8y ago
> But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. Maybe not, but it has saved lives. Doing laundry by hand was hardcore and caused quite a lot of physical damage to people, including deaths.
- Doxin 8y ago
  What, from people falling into the river and drowning? Seems like me that an electrical fire from a washing machine is about as likely.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    This is actually a really interesting topic. So interesting that at least one book was written on it (called "Save Women's Lives: The History of the Washing Machine"). The tl;dr version is this: doing laundry entirely by hand involves a high level of physical exertion, most of it highly repetitive and crouched over in an unnatural manner for a substantial amount of time. This alone caused a great deal of physical injury and deformity, sometimes leading directly to death. The washing machine itself was not really invented as a time-saving device. It was invented primarily to make doing laundry less physically harmful. Any time savings was just gravy. It is commonly held by researchers that the washing machine (we're not even talking about electric or automatic washing machines here) is one of the top 10 most important inventions in terms of impact on health and longevity.

by DanBC 8y ago

return1 8y ago

"washing" is a euphemism for pressing a button, though

DanBC 8y ago
No, for many people "washing" is a euphemism for gathering clothing from various rooms, sorting it into different loads (hot wash, cool wash, whites and colours), loading the machine with clothing, loading detergent (and buying the detergent), pressing the button (while selecting a program that doesn't destroy the clothing), taking the clothing out of the machine and putting it in the dryer or hanging it on the clothes line, taking it from the dryer / line and ironing it if needed, then folding it if needed, then distributing it back around the various rooms to include hanging if needed. The fact that we dismiss this work mostly done by women by saying it's just pushing a button is probably sexism.
- belorn 8y ago
  Almost every single step of those are optional depending on the people in the household. For us everyone is responsible to bring their clothes to the wash baskets and sort based on temperature. Very few modern clothing require cool wash, and in my household we don't own any. Very few white clothes and discoloration from washing whites with colors is so minimal with modern clothing/washing machines so we don't bother. The only exception is when cleaning white table cloths in order to remove stains. Non-dryer clothes are avoided if possible. We don't work at places which require ironed clothes. Washing is thus for us: loading the machine (located in the apartment) with clothing from one of the two baskets when they are full, filling the detergent ball, selecting 40 or 60 depending on which basket is used, putting it in the dryer when the washer alarm goes off, taking it from the dryer when the dryer alarm goes off, and finally everyone collects their clean clothes. We could argue how common this is, and if there is a cultural difference here between US and Sweden, but I don't have any data beyond my own experience.
  - Frondo 8y ago
    This is really getting into the weeds here, but my partner and I (hetero couple in our 30s) do laundry maybe once a week, but it is a pretty time-intensive process because half of all of our clothes are cold-wash, half of those are line-dry, and following the directions like that significantly extends how long they last and stay brightly colored. It takes a couple of hours a week, and usually falls to me since I work from home. Saying some steps are "optional" requires compromises that probably a lot of people are unwilling to make; so not necessarily a meaningful way to call things optional.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    You seem to have missed folding, which is both the most labor-intensive part and the one OP was about. Also, who nags the kids (or other adults) to do their part? That's work too.
    - belorn 8y ago
      If someone want their clothes folded they fold them when picking them up from the clean pile. Not going to comment what parents with children should do, at what ages and so on. That is just begging to get into a discussion where everyone just disagree with each other.
      - notacoward 8y ago
        > If someone want their clothes folded they fold them when picking them up from the clean pile It's still work, isn't it? When it gets done is irrelevant. My larger point is that your "it's not that hard" is only true in a very narrow set of circumstances that I'm skeptical exist even for you. Many problems seem simple if you constrain the variables tightly enough. But in the real world, not everyone dresses exclusively in clothes that don't wrinkle if left alone after drying, or work in jobs where looking like a hobo is acceptable. And anyone who claims that every family member including children automatically does their part in a complex series of steps without any goading at all is either deceiving themselves or trying to deceive others. The discipline is being enforced, and we don't all have the privilege of turning a blind eye while partners do it.
- foepys 8y ago
  As someone who is washing his own laundry since he was able to reach the detergent in the cupboard, it's literally a push of a button after turning a wheel to select the program. You can make anything sound complicated by listing every little step necessary to perform a task but that doesn't make it hard. You buy detergent when you buy toilet paper, you throw your cloths into a hamper to not have to run around to gather them, and you hang them on a line in max 10 minutes. Ironing is something you don't need to do unless you want to buy cloths that require it. Just because something might be done primarily by women it's not sexist to call it easy.
tropdrop 8y ago
This is a gross oversimplification, especially washing in a family (> 1 person). 1. Sorting - when you buy clothing, do you take handling instructions into account? Accounting for handling is very hard! Good luck shopping online, hunting through instruction tags hidden on sides of clothes, all while keeping price reasonable. I do not like shopping, so I choose the first thing that looks ok and is comfortable - I am often left with unpleasant surprises when laundering. Some dryclean only, some handwash-only, some fine with washing but no dryer, some with dryer ok but tumble-dry only. 2. Do you have an in-unit washer? I do not - I traverse 7 flights of stairs to communal apartment laundry room. 3. Do you need to use quarters for the machine? If yes, this takes an extra trip to bank beforehand. 4. 7 flights of stairs again to transfer some of the clothes to a dryer, others ... 5. ... Need to be line-dried and hung, somewhere. 6. Finally, the clothes that could be normally washed must be folded and put away, not stuffed into a drawer (even simple t-shirts get wrinkled this way). "washing" is not just pressing a button.
- return1 8y ago
  Steps 1 and 6 are optional overcomplications, unless you wear fancy/sensitives on daily basis. Lining up clothes, 5 minutes max and they can ‘fold’ and straighten right on the line - I regularly pick my jeans and t shirts right off the hanger. Sure you can spend hours doing it by the book, but that s a choice, no longer a necessity The thing thats terrible time sink is ironing
- Bombthecat 8y ago
  You also paid for the washer and water and electricity... With your working time...
- korm 8y ago
  Step 1 becomes progressively easier after each wash. Steps 2, 3, 4 are completely eliminated by having an in-unit washer as you said, like most families in western Europe do at least. Step 6 is also pretty quick with practice.
  - organsnyder 8y ago
benj111 8y ago
What the button that when pressed, goes and gets the washing from various rooms, checks pockets and such, checks washing instructions and separates colours, and then hangs it out afterwards?
- return1 8y ago
  none of this is actual washing. it doesnt even require water. do you know how people used to wash their clothes?
  - benj111 8y ago
    Its supporting activity that you're only doing because you're doing the washing. I can't think of a situation where it wouldn't be correct to lump such activities in with the main activity. Yes I do know how people used to wash clothes, and it would be a lot quicker if you missed out heating up the water on an open fire/range, and the mangling, and the hanging out of the clothes after. All features of wash day.
glenneroo 8y ago
I assume you live in a country which also has a dryer? In Europe AFAIK most people don't have one (at least nobody I knows has one), therefore hanging a load afterwards takes 10-20 minutes, depending on the size of your washing machine, which generally they are considerably smaller than US versions, hence requiring multiple sessions if you have more than one person in the household. I'm not complaining, 10-20 minutes per week is trivial, but it's also not just pressing a button.

grey-area 8y ago

Don’t do that then.

solarkraft 8y ago

We still saved a ton of time in comparison to how clean our clothes are.

bunderbunder 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it's balanced out by having to spend more time shopping for clothes because all those repeated trips through the washer and dryer wear them out more quickly. A while back we got fed up with our apartment's laundry facilities, and switched to one of those Haier portable washer units, drying on a clothesline, and washing less often. At this point I'm almost annoyed with how much longer my clothing is lasting, because I'm ready for some new colors.
- atwebb 8y ago
  We have a completely different experience, I have many of the same polos and jeans as I had 10 years ago. Still going strong with just a bit of fading. Small differences in people's perspective and lifestyles like this is fascinating to me.
- richeyryan 8y ago
  What difference does your Haier make? I don't follow the effect it has. I'm from Ireland where using a washing machine and a clothesline is the norm and a drier is less common. I think I might be missing some of the context for your point
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I'm not sure that it's really the key difference. The main thing is that its small load size, together with needing to line dry, encourages us to be more judicious about how frequently we wash our garments. I wouldn't be surprised if the way that it agitates turns out to be gentler, though. Dryers are probably the worst of it. Every time you clean a lint trap, it's a demonstration of how much wear and tear they put on fabric.
    - 8y ago

sjg007 8y ago

Nicer clothes also last longer, they stand up to washing.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

JohnFen 8y ago

> But it turns out that washing machines didn't do much to save time. Maybe not, but it has saved lives. Doing laundry by hand was hardcore and caused quite a lot of physical damage to people, including deaths.

Doxin 8y ago
What, from people falling into the river and drowning? Seems like me that an electrical fire from a washing machine is about as likely.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  This is actually a really interesting topic. So interesting that at least one book was written on it (called "Save Women's Lives: The History of the Washing Machine"). The tl;dr version is this: doing laundry entirely by hand involves a high level of physical exertion, most of it highly repetitive and crouched over in an unnatural manner for a substantial amount of time. This alone caused a great deal of physical injury and deformity, sometimes leading directly to death. The washing machine itself was not really invented as a time-saving device. It was invented primarily to make doing laundry less physically harmful. Any time savings was just gravy. It is commonly held by researchers that the washing machine (we're not even talking about electric or automatic washing machines here) is one of the top 10 most important inventions in terms of impact on health and longevity.