Feminine Hospitality? An Analysis of Selected Hospitality Practices

Abstract

This text contains an analysis of the ways in which men and women engage in selected hospitality practices, including such questions as the feminine transmission of hospitality patterns, the division of responsibilities in preparing for guests, and places for meeting socially (at home and outside the home). On the basis of material gathered by the team of the Archive of Research on Everyday Life, the author finds numerous paradoxes and inconsistencies between women’s beliefs and their behaviors. In attempting a theoretical explanation, reference is made to the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Claude Kaufmann, Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen, and Monica Rudberg. Analysis leads to the conclusion that the multiple and time-consuming responsibilities associated with receiving guests mostly fall to women and thus contribute to their ability to sustain symbolic power over the home space. Consequently, hospitality perpetuates the traditional division into what is public and considered “masculine” and what is private or “feminine.”