ABSTRACT
Dorothy L. Sayers, one of the first women to graduate from the University of Oxford, was amongst several things a Christian humanist. She penned an essay titled ‘Are Women Human?’ towards the end of her life in the 1950s arguing that each woman ought to be judged in the workplace on the individual basis of her merits and capabilities rather than being dismissed simply on account of her gender. The topic of this chapter was largely spawned by Sayers’s comments on the enormous changes that occurred in the homes of all classes in England during the industrial revolution. In this chapter, I will be arguing that the changes to home-life brought about by technological development during the industrial period have continued in the post-industrial era to the point where
the consumption of the average suburban home today is unsustainable both for economic and ecological reasons. I suggest that there is a need to re-visit aspects of homemaking prior to the industrial period. Also, just as importantly, I suggest that we need to re-invent them in light of subsequent technological developments in order to adapt to the modern phenomenon of suburban life, which is the prevalent habitat for many in developed nations today, at least in the English-speaking world. I shall also be arguing that a wholesale rehabilitation of homemaking requires a cultural shift in worldviews, and I will try to lay the ethical basis for this new way of life that will also provide the guidelines for developing and using technology in the home in the future.
