For my final project I have been looking at the home as a gendered landscape, examining the impacts of gender roles on the experiences of children. My research uses a combination of literature, photographs and historical data to develop understandings of the roles that were played in the home throughout the latter half of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th. In addition to this, I have focussed on the ways in which the roles of both men and women map onto the lives and experiences of the children that surround them, reinforcing their ideas of gender roles outside of the home.
Through the examination of various sources, I discovered that gender roles were rife within homes throughout this period. Women were very much seen to occupy the domestic space, expected to cook, clean, rear children and ‘make home.’ Men, on the other hand, played a much more public role acting as provider. This then mapped onto children and permeated various aspects of their lives such as their role within the home, their attitudes to gender, relationships with peers and even play practices. The everyday geographies of the home provide an interesting lens through which to study the historical geographies of childhood as much of the literature focusses on childhood in the public such as schooling, play practices and relationship with peers. In examining the everyday geographies of the home I am able to develop understandings of the causes behind these public displays of childhood.