The magic of Tidying Up as domestic self-help. Social directives and gender inequality

Abstract

The best seller The Magic of Tidying Up, by the Japanese Marie Kondo, has been the epicenter and trigger of a media and editorial trend about the value of order as part of good living. The repercussions of the work gave space to a Netflix series, and other editorial repercussions that keep readers loyal. This article proposes a reading of the editorial and television phenomenon from Argentina, as a first approach to a longer-term research on the transformations and continuities in the processes of domestic work. The analysis was a kick-off to the consolidation of a subgenre that I will call “domestic self-help”, associated with the persistence of a sexual division of labor that overloads women with unpaid household chores, even when they develop paid activities outside the home. It is suggested to understand these discourses in dialogue with the individualization of neoliberal subjectivity, and their circulation and success with a bifronted logic that, while refreshing the visibility and relevance of these tasks, imposes new quality standards. In this sense, the exhibition of results, popularized through social networks, has the risk of becoming a mandate that further overburdens women.